Build the vocab

Books most purchased and least read are dictionaries. Reason? Dictionaries fail to stimulate the interest. Moreover mere dictionary can never help one build the word power. Not all words deserved to be learnt or used!

Fancy or complicated words are fun to write but create discomfort to reader. Never write those words unless you want to prove your supremacy over reader and are hell-bent to force him refer dictionary.

e.g. “scintillate scintillate asteroid minim” looks fancy but the statement is a challenge for reader to decode whereas “twinkle twinkle little star” is a comfort for even a child.

Building word power is a marathon. Read ‘The Hindu’ daily. This is India’s English newspaper with literary flavor. Have a pencil and write down all the words you are not familiar with – in the newspaper itself. Don’t jump to dictionary; you are reading newspaper complete it; enjoy it. Now search the meaning of all words you have written and write it against it.  Most people read newspaper in the morning with a cup of tea. So keep doing the same.

Now pick the same paper in the night after dinner and copy those word meanings in your notebook. Today’s exercise is complete. Keep repeating this ritual daily and soon you will find encountering same words.

Have patience, keep reading the same newspaper for a year or two. Change the newspaper and repeat the ritual again. 

Building word power takes time and you will emerge as a winner even if you achieve this in 5 years of span. Have a dictionary handy for reference. Install in your cell phone a good dictionary: Oxford or Merriam Webster.

Do review you words’ collection before writing fiction. Use those words you feel appropriate. Once you use any of new word in your writing, you will never forget its meaning.

- Amit Roop