Answers · By Sun Yi, creator of the Myth Sandwich
How to not use thought verbs?
Short answerDon't say what you felt or thought. Show the scene instead. Thought verbs like 'felt', 'knew', 'believed' make your story vague and safe.
What Thought Verbs Are
- Words like thought, felt, knew, realized, believed, remembered, loved, hated are thought verbs.
- They make your story vague, which feels safe but is boring.
How to Fix It
- Draw a picture of the moment instead: show the actions a person takes, not the feeling behind them.
- For example, instead of 'I felt depressed', write 'Every morning I'd stare at the ceiling for half an hour'.
- The more specific you get, the more vulnerable and original your story becomes.
Try itOpen a saved story in Story Bank, find one thought verb, and rewrite that line as a small physical scene.
This answer comes from Sun Yi's Story Bank Library.
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