How to Kill “Thought” Verbs (according to Chuck Palahniuk) and Writer’s Block
A few years ago, I stumbled across an essay by Chuck Palahniuk in which he imparts a piece of valuable writing advice.
In a nutshell, don’t use thought verbs for six months and you’ll become a better writer. Verbs like thinks, knows, understands, realizes, believes, wants, remembers, imagines, desires, loves, hate and so many more should be eliminated from your writing. You should also be wary of using is and has.
Instead, take the reader on a journey full of descriptive, sensory details so they can arrive at the conclusion on their own rather than give them all the answers. Forget the short-cuts and let’s take the scenic route, baby.
Here’s one example that Chuck gives:
Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.”
You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen was always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her ass. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”
You can just feel the difference between the sentence and the paragraph.
Chuck provides further explanation:
Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions and details of your characters and allow your reader to do the thinking and knowing. And loving and hating.
As someone who has an easier time writing more as opposed to less, this is an exercise I’ll happily indulge in. While I won’t go on a 100% thought-verb-free diet for six months, I’ll certainly do my best to keep my writing interesting. As a result, avoiding thought verbs where possible will come naturally, even if I’m not consciously thinking of Chuck’s voice in my head saying, “Don’t tell me he knows; show me he knows!”. I liken it to poetically beating around the bush.
Here’s my first go at killing thought verbs:
This is clear and straight-to-the-point: “Jamal misses his ex-girlfriend Marissa, but he thinks she’s changed for the worst.”
But this is a richer, far better literary experience: “Her voice grates on my ears like nails on a chalkboard, or a noisy drilling machine on a dusty construction site. It didn’t sound like that before. I can see her coming from a mile away, with her exaggerated swaying and sashaying of her hips, as if to make it say, come hither. Shake what your momma gave you, they say, and more power to those that do, but she wears the movement like it’s unbecoming of her. Her clothes suit her well at first glance, but examine her, speak to her and it becomes clear, she wears them to mask her insecurities. In place of her true self, hidden far away in the darkest depths of her heart and soul, someone else has emerged. I’m constantly confronted by this grotesque caricature of herself, stomping its feet on the ground like Godzilla. The world is aware of her existence, but no one knows who she is.
The days when we would laugh heartily at our inside jokes, the times her genuine kindness shone through everything she did, those days are long gone and all I can do now is mourn the death of the person she once was.”
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if I did this correctly. I’m using is and has a lot but I think it’s acceptable in certain cases.
Now, this is the point in the article where I was met with some frustrating writer’s block. It felt like this…
Initially, I wanted to do something fun with this exercise and use lines from famous children’s books. I was thinking of Dr. Seuss’ works, in particular, but after sitting on the idea for a day, I realized that any line I chose to unpack would already have a story behind it. Killing the thought verb just wouldn’t be as fun.
After about a week of thinking and thinking and getting annoyed at myself for not knowing how to write rest of the article, I realized that I could use that pesky writer’s block as inspiration. Fuck you, writer’s block!
The truth: I’m happy that this article even exists.
The realer truth: For the past year, the desire to write — for me, not for work — had been dulled. The allure of writing wasn’t so alluring anymore. My job slowly sucked the creativity and motivation out of me. It wasn’t like I didn’t write at all, but I had to force myself to sit down with a notebook and pen, or in front of my laptop, and simply write. And if I did write, I did so because there were emotions I needed to express in order to make space in my head for other things. It’s easy to write when you’re suffering through some sort of pain. The need to expel the weight your soul is carrying comes naturally. But the aim was to write regularly, not just when I was wrestling with heavy emotions.
Truth is, the idea for this article has been sitting on my computer for more than a year (along with several other ideas). Sadly, the drive to start it disappeared almost as quickly as the idea took root in my mind.
But here we are. It’s not my greatest work, but I’ve completed an article, written on my own time, for the first time in a year. Thankfully, I finally decided to sit my ass down on my colorful IKEA swivel chair on a beautiful August day, ready to write. It’s a personal triumph that calls for a celebration, even I’m the only one taking part in the festivities.
But enough about me and how I’m slowly crawling out of a creative rut.
Can you think of a piece of literature in which you couldn’t find even one instance of a thought verb? In which cases are thought verbs necessary? If you’re a writer, how guilty are you of “telling” rather than “showing”?
What about your daily interactions? Could you eliminate thought verbs in conversations, even for a day? Imagine having a heated argument with your partner and not being able to yell, “I think you’re an inconsiderate asshole and I feel totally neglected by you!” You’d probably want to kill more than just thought verbs.
