Why You Should Love Your Thesaurus (but not too much)
‘Do you have a thesaurus?’ Bob asked.
‘Yes.’ Jane said.
‘Good.’ Bob said.
Every writer has heard the saying ‘said is dead’ but is that true? The answer is… yes and no. Read on to find out why.
Should you use said in your writing?
There are lots of words commonly used in writing, for example:
‘the’, ‘but’, and, ‘like’ among many others.
All these words may be used more often than ‘said’ yet we don’t cut them out of our writing. Why is this?
Because they are words that don’t draw attention to themselves, they are the words our eyes skip without registering. ‘Said’ is a word that can be both hidden and obvious depending on its use. In the above example, the uses of the word ‘said’ are obvious because there are so few words in the sentences meaning every word holds more value than if the sentences were longer. Let’s see what happens if we lengthen the sentences.
‘Do you have a thesaurus?’ Bob asked.
‘Yes.’ Jane said, finding the book on the shelf and handing it to Bob.
‘Good.’ Bob said flipping the book open and scanning the pages.
Now the word ‘said’ is more hidden as there are more words which take the emphasis away. However, this effect is lessened because the word has been repeated and if we changed one usage of the word, we would get something like this:
‘Do you have a thesaurus?’ Bob asked.
‘Yes.’ Jane answered finding the book on the shelf and handing it to Bob.
‘Good.’ Bob said flipping the book open and scanning the pages.
‘Said’ is now a concealed word and is perfectly acceptable to use.
What to do when you can’t conceal ‘said’.
The secret to using ‘said’ effectively is by using it sparingly. The problem with this is that when you are writing a long piece of work, it becomes increasingly harder to hide it. This is when you may reach for your thesaurus. But beware, this may prove to be your downfall.
Why should you use your thesaurus?
‘Do you have a thesaurus?’ Bob asked.
‘Yes.’ Jane pronounced.
‘Good.’ Bob articulated.
Using a thesaurus to swap the word ‘said’, the result is clunky, to say the least. Many new writers fall into the trap of looking up a word in the thesaurus and picking an alternative out of a list to exchange for ‘said’.
While using a thesaurus can provide you with a wealth of exciting words, it is important to make sure you understand the meanings of the words you are using as well as their suitability.
With the example above, the word ‘pronounced’ is listed as a synonym for ‘said’. Looking the word up in the dictionary generates this definition ‘to declare formally’ this gives the word a different meaning than the word ‘said’ and will give your piece a different tone. You can work with this new meaning by altering the tone of your sentence or you can return to your thesaurus and find a different word with a tone matching your piece.
For example, we could alter the tone of the sentence to match the word ‘pronounced’.
‘Do you have a thesaurus?’ Bob asked.
‘Yes.’ Jane pronounced, holding the book above her head. ‘I do.’
As you can see, by swapping ‘said’ for ‘pronounced’ the tone of the exchange has changed.
This is an excellent skill to hone and can be practiced easily either by crafting your own short sentences and then working to alter them or by borrowing sentences from your favourite books and altering them. For an extra challenge, try to switch the tone of the utterances, e.g., turn a happy conversation into a sad one and vice versa.
To thesaurus or to not thesaurus?
There’s no doubt about it, ‘said’ is a useful word when we’re writing dialogue, it’s just important that we understand when to use it and when to search for an alternative. So often as writers can feel scared to use ‘said’ as a dialogue tag. We can be worried the reader won’t ‘get it’. This is when it’s dangerous to reach for your thesaurus. Trust your reader. Believe in the words you’ve written and the characters you’ve created, your message will be clear.
Steven King famously talked about this in his memoir, On Writing:
So, to thesaurus or to not thesaurus? It’s about trial and error. Experiment with your writing, try to see how the meaning of your words alters with a few tweaks. Play with your characters, and see how they respond to a different tone, just by choosing a dialogue tag, other than said! But most importantly, know when to leave your thesaurus on the shelf.
If you’re interested in developing your fiction writing skills, you may be interested in our Novel Writing Course. We’ll help you to shape your story and to create dialogue and characters that feel real.
This post has been written by Hollie Parkin.
