Friend told me to stop using thesaurus for my fantasy novel

My buddy Mark who edits for a publisher said I was ruining my dialogue by swapping in fancy words. He looked at my first chapter and circled like 15 words that real people would never say. I tried rewriting with just the words that come to my head first and the character sounded way more natural. Has anyone else gotten feedback that made you totally change your writing style?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jessica28d ago

Did you ever read that thing Stephen King said about "the road to hell is paved with adverbs"? Reminds me of that somehow. Good on your buddy for calling it out early, that's way better than getting a nasty rejection letter later.

burns.fiona28d ago

Road to hell is paved with adverbs" is right. Adverbs are crutches for weak verbs most of the time. Cut them and the writing gets tighter instantly.