I was struck by this advice in Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel:

You want vivid writing. How do we get vivid writing? Verbs, first. Precise verbs. All of the action on the page, everything that happens, happens in the verbs.

According to Chee, writer Annie Dillard told her students to “increase the average number of verbs per page.” Strong verbs allow you to avoid using adverbs to fill in what your verbs fail to convey, as Chee says later in the same chapter of his book.

I discovered an interesting exercise from Dillard in Chee’s book. Dillard told her students to print the draft of an essay. Next, follow these steps, as described by Chee:

… cut out the best sentences … and tape them on a blank page. And when you have that, write in around them. … Fill in what’s missing and make it reach for the

Keep reading this article on Investment Writing, Susan B. Weiner - Blog.