A column on writing from Editor & Publisher January 17, 1981.

Sensory Verbs

Salt your story with vivid verbs and you will be creating delectable prose as do the masters of the writing craft. the most powerful writing is filled with images, and verbs are the most effective image-makers. You could write, The crowd left the courthouse. Or you could write:

The crowd stampeded out of the auditorium.
The crowed oozed out of the stadium.
The crowd dribbled out of the theater.

A few natural writers make metaphors like good cooks make omelets -- by instinct and inspiration. The rest of us need a recipe.

A metaphor is a comparison. It compares things that are different in nearly every way, like a crowd of people and a waterfall. Its power comes from the reader's instantly recognizing the unexpected similarity. When you compare a crowd to a mud slide, oozing, you give your readers an immediate and complete vision, plus the surprise -- the shiver of understanding -- that is the hallmark of extraordinary writing. This kind of comparison does not arise naturally in most of us.

Begin by trying similes. A simile is a metaphor that starts with like or as. Those little signals point you toward the right thoughts. Ask: This crowd is like a what? If the crowd after the game you covered was like a herd of animals, you will get to the metaphoric verb stampeded If the crowed reminded you of water, you will get to metaphors like poured, cascaded and the rest. What else does water do, as an ocean, a waterfall, a brook, a mighty river? (Start with water and you will wind up with watery metaphors.)

What else moves that a moving crowd can be compared to? A line of ants, cars on the highway, drifting clouds.

Your first try will read: Like a stampeding herd, the crowd left the courtroom. Not bad. But Bergen Evans, the language expert, used to say that practically any similar can be compressed into a metaphor. Our metaphor is only a step away: The crowd stampeded from the courtroom.

You can reach these figures of speech by other pathways. The important step is the first one, deciding to try for them. If your writing has lacked metaphors, begin by reaching for a mere one in every story, preferably inside a verb. No other single element will so enhance your style. Keep lists of metaphors as they occur to you; that's a particularly useful device when you cover one beat exclusively.

Too much salt spoils the soup. too many metaphors confuse your readers. Yet it is still better to slosh awhile in a swamp of similes than to wander forever in the arid desert of dry writing. Make that a short while.

We are writing for a video-bred generation. Our readers were raised on pictures, and TV is not the only, or even the best place where they can see them.