One of the biggest mistakes a writer can make when publishing a story is repeating the same words throughout the narration of the story. Of course, the severity of the mistake depends on a lot of factors, from the point of view to the readers (if your story resonates with the readers, they might not even notice words that have been repeated). For example, if your story is told in a first person point of view, then it will be normal for the protagonist to repeat words as they tell their story and share their inner thoughts.

However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits from using a thesaurus to improve upon your writing style and voice, even if you’re writing in first person point of view. On the other hand, the tips we have provided below will focus on how to use a thesaurus – but not at the moment of actually writing the story. If you stop every three minutes in order to look up a word in a thesaurus, you will break your concentration on the story, your mind might wander and your focus will slowly slip away and you might be unable to continue writing after your concentration has been broken. So, below we’ve shown you how to use a thesaurus in the time when you’re not writing, and we’ve explained why.

1. Read specific thesauruses

There are plenty of thesauruses and dictionaries that focus on a specific writing aspect – like a description words thesaurus, or an emotion focused thesaurus. These theme focused thesauruses will be more helpful to you in the long run, rather than a thesaurus big enough to get lost in. Before you read through a theme focused thesaurus, determine which theme you need to focus on in your writing – whether it is psychological traits, physical appearance, or maybe you need to work on your weather descriptions. Remember that you should read through the thesaurus sparingly – depending on your own need and your time, you can set up an hour a day or a week for this task.

2. Pick out new words you like

You don’t want to overload your mind with new words every day. Taking a thesaurus and copying out every new word you’ll read will only make you tired. Remember that when you’re reading a specific word and understanding its meaning, the word will get absorbed by your subconscious mind. In fact, don’t be surprised if the word pops out seemingly by itself while you’re writing and focusing on your story. However, if a word catches your attention – by sounding funny, musically or beautifully, or if the meaning of the word resonates within you and you know you will want to use it more in your writing, then you should copy it out, write it in a notebook and keep it close (on your writing desk, or a post-it) so that you will read it and thus, use it more when you write.

3. Use a thesaurus during editing

The editing process is when a thesaurus is your greatest help in getting rid of the words and phrases you’ve repeated a lot during the writing process. First, you must take note of the words and phrases that appear most often. And then, using a thesaurus and keeping in mind the continuity of the paragraph, dialogue or scene the words or phrases belong in, you can change some, if not most of them, into words that will describe better the action, weather pattern, physical trait of a character or an emotion.

4. Do not overuse it in a story

Your prose must feel accessible to the readers. You need to be careful when you’re using a thesaurus, because you might come across as pretending to be “too smart” by using words that almost nobody uses in every day life. A simple way to test whether a word is too obscure for contemporary prose is to slip it in during a conversation with another person. If they don’t react to it, then it’s okay. If they gawk at you and ask you whether you’ve been reading a thesaurus lately, then maybe it’s not a good idea to use the word in your story.

Image credit: Pixabay [author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/photo.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.
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