The One Resource You Should Know How To Use For Better Writing

It’s a book and you can buy one anywhere, even secondhand

Cover of my old, well-loved Roget’s Thesaurus © Sherryl Clark

I’m going to tell you right upfront which book I’m talking about.

Roget’s Thesaurus.

You might say — Oh yeah, I know about that and I’ve used it a few times. Bit hard to wrestle with. Or you might say — I hate it, it’s not logical!

I’m here to say it’s fascinating, and the more you use it, the more benefit you will get from it. But the key to using Roget’s is to let go of logic and follow your nose, or your imagination — just be like an explorer and see where it leads. It often leads to revelations and new ideas.

First of all, how to use it. Choose a word (any word but I’ll do it for you, as randomly as I can). I choose … destructive. Just because I’m writing this with a cyclone coming tomorrow! Let’s say I’m writing a poem or a story that is about a cyclone and destruction of stuff comes up quite a few times.

Firstly, it’s good not to repeat yourself and use the same word several times. We all kind of know that. But the challenge is finding other variations. So I look up destructive in the index at the back.

I get three options: destructive 165 (adjective), violent 176 (adjective), wasteful…