• Said Is Dead: 141 Synonyms for “Said”

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    You are doing everything possible to make your writing better, tighter, and more interesting, but are you still using “dead words?” These are words that are simply just too plain, bland, and vague to be included in your awesome writing. One of the most notorious “dead words” is “said.” But dialogue is important! I hear you. It is also important to show readers exactly how something is communicated. Think: what emotion is behind this dialogue? What picture do I want to paint? This is where synonyms come in handy.  To help you get started, we compiled a list of alternatives to the dreaded “said.” With this…

  • 75 synonyms for the word "looked".

    Well Looky Here! 75 Different Synonyms for the Word “Look”

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    It’s easy to find yourself stuck when writing—you want to add color, depth, and description to your writing, but that requires, well, you know, words. Sometimes those words are hard to conjure up! We definitely get it. To help you out, here are 75 different synonyms to use instead of the word “looked.” (A word which can be used a few different ways, so for good measure we’ve given you a little bit of everything). So throw those watered-down verbs out the window, and start plugging these synonyms for “looked” into your writing today!

  • Grammatical Gray Areas: Subject-Complement Agreement

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    Celebrating National Grammar Day and National Proofreading Day March is a month that calls for grammar nerds—like us—to celebrate. After all, March 4 is National Grammar Day, and March 8 is National Proofreading Day. On days like these, authors, editors, and proofreaders finally get the respect we deserve! (Oddly enough, I’m still waiting for my Grammar and Proofreading Day gifts to come flooding in. . .) In all seriousness, we editors at Xulon Press have a passion for proper grammar usage. To celebrate grammar rules and style, we’d like to discuss a not-so-rare gray area that comes up frequently in…

  • 20 Commonly Misused Words

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    We remember it fondly from our elementary school days: if you can’t recall how to spell a word, sound it out! As adults, we might follow the same tactic when trying to rack our brains to produce that one word we know how to spell, but can’t piece together the correct letters. However, sounding out words in print instead of in conversation could lead to the right word being written, but maybe not the right meaning for the word. For example, “I’m going to take the plain” is not the correct spelling of the word needed: this form means traversing…