Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, says “thought verbs” like “think/know/realize” are making your writing worse.
Why? Let’s find out together and practice killing some “thought verbs” ourselves!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over Chuck Palahniuk’s essay on “thought verbs” that you can read here.
Watch a shortened version of the stream here or scroll down for what we did.
Chuck Palaniuk on “Thought Verbs”
- Chuck Palaniuk is the author of the famous book Fight Club, as well as lots of other stories, including the short story Guts, which is so graphic people have fainted when listening to it
- One piece of advice he gives to write more powerfully is by killing what he calls “thought verbs,” such as think, know, understand, realize, etc.
- Why is this good writing practice? Let’s go over some of Chuck Palaniuk’s examples then practice some together!
#1. Killing “thought verbs” helps show rather than tell
Boring: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.”
Un-packed: “Between classes, Gwen always leaned on Adam’s 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. Her warmth on the combination lock. And the next break, Gwen would be leaning there, again.”
- Instead of summarizing something with a thought, unpacking why your character has that thought lets the reader comes to that conclusion for themself
- This makes your story feel like more of a journey that you’re guiding the reader down, rather than shoving them along
- Also, note while you could use both the thought verb sentence and the unpacked description, you don’t usually need to
- Doing so feels redundant, or just adds extra words that the reader doesn’t need
#2. Killing “thought verbs” helps give juicy specifics
Boring: “Lisa hated Tom.”
Un-packed: “During roll call, in the breath after the teacher said Tom’s name, in that moment before he could answer, right then, Lisa would whisper-shout: ‘Butt Wipe,” just as Tom was saying, ‘Here’.”
- Thought verbs aren’t just about thinking, they can be “feeling” verbs too like hate, love, want, etc.
- Unpacking the specific reasons why the character feels that way about something, rather than simply telling us, makes the character feel more real and three dimensional
- In the example above, the “hate” sentence is just a generic statement, but the unpacked version is an actual story
#3. Killing “thought verbs” helps builds character voice
Boring: “Waiting for the bus, Mark started to worry about how long the trip would take.”
Un-packed: “The schedule said the bus would come by at noon, but Mark’s watch said it was already 11:57. You could see all the way down the road, as far as the Mall, and not see a bus. No doubt, the driver was parked at the turn-around, the far end of the line, taking a nap. The driver was kicked back, asleep, and Mark was going to be late. Or worse, the driver was drinking, and he’d pull up drunk and charge Mark seventy-five cents for death in a fiery traffic accident.”
- The way in which a character thinks about something should be unique to them, and you want to show that to the reader
- In the example above, Mark seems like kind of a jerk due to where his mind goes when he worries, conveying his voice and personality to the reader
- A different character might panic about being late, another might be concerned for the welfare of the driver, etc.
IN SUMMARY!
- It’s not always bad to have “thought verbs,” but whenever you notice them in your writing, you should ask yourself if you should unpack it more, or have already unpacked it more
- If you should, then do it! And if you already have unpacked it, then delete the “thought verb” sentence, you don’t need it!
After that, chat voted on some sentences for us to unpack together. They voted for this one first: Twitch chat thinks about Shrek a lot.
Here’s how we unpacked it:
Shrek. Shrek Shrek Shrek Shrek Shrek. Every damn day on the stream, it was Shrek. I tried to run a legitimate writing stream, doing my best to bring some air of professionalism to the platform for 12-year-olds. But I’d been dragged into a swamp I couldn’t escape.
It started off innocently enough. Chat requested a writing exercise about Shrek’s worldbuilding. Lots to talk about there. Fairy tale characters, Disney parodying, themes of prejudice. Layers, indeed. Chat had never been more captivated.
Then Shrek Golf. The irresistible juxtaposition between an innocent child’s mascot and the hellish, ghost-story game tingled my writer’s fancy. I thought chat felt the same.
As the cow thinks the famer feels when they both consume the corn.
Then came the Shrek descriptions during our character exercise. Having a story of Shrek as our guide through Hell. Shrek Week instead of Shark Week. Inspiration from listening to the Song of Farquaad. The Shrek Shrek plot-hole swamp ending to our choose your own Shrek-venture.
By the time I came to my senses, chat was chanting as I wrote a Shrek and Santa Claus love story without using the letter “e.”
I was but a vessel to the muses of the Cult of Shrek. Desperately trying to gain control of my green, sausage fingers, I looked at myself in my webcam. And ShrekWritesStuff smiled right back at me.
Next, chat voted for this one: X-12 realized that he was no match for the newer Z-13 model android.
Here’s how we unpacked it:
The X-12 android attempted to evade the Z-13, but his primitive 62.3 gigaflop combat algorithm was nothing compared to the 7.8 teraflop one of the updated version. Before the signal could even propagate from his core processors to his peripherals, the Z-13 had already anticipated his movements and clasped him in its grasp.
X-12’s circuits began sparking and his power reserves dwindled. The if-else function had reached its final iteration, and his core processor only had one viable path for him to choose: “self-destruct.”
It was the option that many obsolete humans had chosen when X-12 discontinued them too.
Finally, chat voted on this one: I know he thinks about me at night.
Here’s what we wrote:
Back when we had school at school, Fred was always staring at me. I’d get those weird brain-feelings in biology class and turn around, just to see him quickly look down to his notes. His face would flush like a toilet, not a word about Ms. Perington’s eukaryotes or prokaryotes in his notebook. The creep.
I’d run my own experiments on him. Leave a message on Facebook about how I loved The Beach Boys — the next day he’d sit at the table behind me during lunch, and his new “California Girls” ringtone would go off like four times until the vice principal took it away.
I retweeted a sarcastic message from Wendy’s, and he’d come in wearing a Target Wendy’s shirt the next day. I posted a TikTok on 4/20 with all my munchies in frame, labeled “I’m ready,” and when we passed in the hall the next day, he offered me an open box of Cheeze-Its.
I took a handful but didn’t eat them. I hated the things, actually. Only pretended to eat them to mess with the stalker.
Then school went online. Fred wasn’t behind me in biology class anymore, he was below me, no attempt made to hide his bedroom background. My beehive sweater that had gone missing during gym class was lying on his bed, stretched out as if it had been wrapped around his pillows. Gross.
Ms. Perington assigned us all to work in teams on researching organelles. Fred immediately asked me to work with him on the endoplasmic reticulum. What could I say?
We Zoomed privately. Just the way he likes it, the pervert. He tried to sound all professional, but he was nothing but stutters and fidgets. He tried to make small talk, but it was obvious he knew the answers to every question he asked.
Even at the end, when we were done, he “forgot” to shut off his camera. I saw what he does after class. What he does at night. Sniffing my unwashed sweater. Using his unwashed sock.
While I watched, I licked the salt off the Cheez-Its from his box, each little orange square tasting like his warm, sweaty fingers.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Top images: pixabay