Last week I blogged about verbs and adverbs. I must admit I have tried my best this week to follow my own advice and use better verbs – with fewer, or more meaningful, adverbs. This week I found myself thinking about metaphors and similes. We use them more than we realise. If we didn’t, our…

My non-fiction blog this week is inspired by a fascinating article in the Times (Peter Evans) on the notion of thinking differently. The article features a lady called Bev Shah who was diagnosed with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia in her teens – but who has triumphed over her ‘neurodiversity’ in many positive ways. What is neurodiversity…

Last week I blogged about verbs as examples of synonyms: using different verbs to lift our fiction writing and make the action jump off the page. I ended the blog by suggesting that adverbs have a bad reputation – that we should use them sparingly, if at all. If the verbs are specific enough –…

Last week’s non-fiction blog focused on thinking and problem- solving. I have just been editing my fifth book in the Parent Series: for parents of pupils at Key Stage 3; due hopefully for publication by April. The word that has jumped out at me is – flexibility. Without flexibility – thinking and problem-solving are anything…

My last fiction blog focused on synonyms – words with similar meanings that lift writing and avoid the tedium of repetition. Examples such as: looked, walked, saw, said – illustrate how often many of us, including myself, over-use the same words, and that these are often verbs. So my thoughts today are on verbs. How…