This week: The Write Verb Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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“Strong verbs create action, save words, and reveal the players.”
— Roy Peter Clark
“Verbs conjugated in Paris just as they did in Artois. If you kept your mind on the verbs, everything would fall into place around them.”
— Hilary Mantel
“Every romantic knows that love was never a noun; it is a verb.”
― Shannon L. Alder
“Don't say you're a writer if you're not writing. Even if you're writing, don't call yourself a writer. Say instead, 'I write.' It's the verb that's important, not the noun.”
― Patti Digh
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The Write Verb
The best verb to use is the one that describes the action without using a trillion adverbs or nouns. For example: 'See Dick run.' That's pretty bland, right? Depending on the action in your story, you could use: race, rush, spurt, dart, dash, gallop, sprint, whisk, scamper, and lope, just to name a few. It all depends on the action Dick is doing to best describe the scene. Maybe Dick is trying to escape. Dick can be doing so much more than just running.
Use strong verbs to not only jet the scene forward but also to maximize on the descriptions.
For example:
The beam of the flashlight danced across the walls, and locked upon the intruder as he lunged forward.
The door squeaked open.
The trees waged a war with the wind.
The story flowed out of me.
Like bullets, the words punched through my mind with such terrible force that I winced
As authors, we turn written words into images in reader's minds.
I call writers 'word-painters' because it's our job as a writer, whether fiction or non-fiction, to paint a picture for the reader.
Writing is like watching a movie except it's little 'black squiggles' on the page that have the power to reach another human being’s mind and light it up with imagery just as vivid as anything that person might experience in the real world.
In reading, all you see are words on paper, but think about one of your favorite books. The visual memory that returns to you is not one of black words on white paper, is it? What you see are images—recalled snapshots of an experience that, in your mind’s eye, looks almost as real as memories of your actual life. That is the marvelous power of written fiction.
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DEAD LETTERS
Last month I wrote this and asked if I should pursue it as a story idea. The responses were very interesting.
Now I don't write about child abuse. It's just not my style, but in this dream my 'job' was to rescue abused children. Which I gladly did from kidnappers and horrible people. What stuck out, what I recall, was the look these kids had afterwards: a faraway stare, a look of knowing what true evil was in the world. Of course in my dream, these kids all had psychologists treating them, but no amount of help could ever make them smile again or be who they once were.
Now here's the really strange part.
In the dream I prayed for these children. I asked God to tell me what I should do, other than help prosecute the predators. The message I received was, 'Send them home'. Well that's what my job was, to return these kids back to their homes and family. But as I thought about it, maybe that's not what God was saying; maybe he meant for me to literally and spiritually to send them back home . . . to Heaven.
So, in the dream, when I rescued a sexually abused child and saw that look they had, I knew they were never going to be the same again. So I would hold their little heads between my hands, kiss their forehead, and then quickly twist. I would painlessly break their necks and send them Home.
Melisscious 
Yeah, dreams are something else, eh?
I wouldn't touch that particular storyline. The execution of such a tale requires an amount of writing skill that I don't think you possess (no offence, I don't think I possess it either!)
There's nothing really merciful or "good" about killing abused kids. Like most religious acts, it's selfish.
The kids can probably learn to adapt, live with and hopefully overcome the abuse. But you can't, so you decide it's 'the end of the line' and end THEIR suffering.
Typical religious. (Their suffering isn't yours to end, their lives are yours to lead)
A lot of strength, creativity and power comes from severe and extremely abusive situations, people or events.
The will of the human spirit and evolution itself is built in the human ability to adapt to whatever circumstance it finds itself in.
Or something like that.
-M.
Victoria Anne Emslie
In all honesty, it is a triggering topic. As a mother, I don't know if I could read it - I probably could, but there is still that possibility that it would get to me. However, as a writer of taboo subjects (serial killers, torture, gore) I would welcome a fresh story. But I would definitely highlight the saviors psychosis and descent into possible madness. That's just my thoughts. It is an intriguing idea and if you hadn't already stated it, I probably would have come up with writing something similar.
Sumojo 
I wouldn’t like to read a story you described. In the dream you were the savior. The rescuer. If the ending turned the rescuer into a murderer, there wouldn't be light. It would simply be a story with no redemption or relief.
Sum1's In Seattle 
I never try to tell another writer what they should write about. That dream is disturbing, and not something I could write about. Take it further though, you eventually are arrested for your crimes, and in the trial, even though you pled not guilty due to insanity, your 'excuse' was not bought by the jury, and you are given a life sentence. In prison, you are new meat, ripe for picking by an inmate. Sure enough, you become his sexual toy. You are abused, beaten, think of all that could happen to you in prison, and take it to another level. One day you escape with the help of a sympathetic. Once you are in a safe place, he looks at you, blubbering in your thanks like an idiot, a blank look in your eyes. Your devoid of emotion. You're not there. He assures you everything will be alright, even hugs you as if you're a child. The last thing you feel, is his hands on the sides of your head....
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Horror/Scary: April 14, 2021 Issue [#10711]
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