Up Your Verb Appeal

Pulitzer prize winning poet Mary Oliver says, "Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents." In other words, one verb can do the work of ten modifiers. I'd like to add that one great verb transforms a weak sentence into a powerful sentence; it adds "verb appeal." Washington Irving understood verb appeal—most successful storytellers and speakers do.

In this paraphrased version of Irving's description of Ichabod Crane from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, note the verbs.

Ichabod Crane had long arms, big feet, and a floppy body. It looked like a weathercock was on his neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him walking along the profile of a hill on a windy day in his too-big clothes, one might have thought him a genius of famine that came to earth, or some scarecrow from a cornfield.

This description paints a darn good picture of Crane's physique and fashion acumen, but it relies on adjectives and nouns—long arms, big feet, floppy body, etc. See what happens when powerful verbs are added in Irving's description.

Ichabod Crane had "hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together…it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield."

Wow, what a difference! Ichabod becomes the "character" Irving means him to be. Through verbs, you can reveal the character of your writing—fiction and nonfiction—and even the character of your speeches. Try this: Read through something you've written, cross out all adjectives and adverbs, and underline all verbs. Then replace any mediocre verbs with great verbs. Do this and you'll add exciting "verb appeal" that's worth at least 10 times more than your first draft.

Faye Quam Heimerl, © 2009

Faye Quam Heimerl of Quam Editorial collects verbs, but she’s happy to share them to up your writing’s verb appeal. Contact Faye at Faye@QuamEditorial.com or call 303.505.3530.