Scott,
Curious you should make this post -- timely for me anyway.

I have started to get in the habit of highlighting verbs I over use -- and believe me there are plenty -- and finding different ways to say the same thing.

One additional benefit: looking for these weak verbs slows down your reading of a very familiar script -- you'll be surprised how this forces you to reconsider ALL of your writing.

Keep Writing!
Mike

Great tip. Love your blog. Haven't even read a quarter of the posts.

It's "gleaned". I needed to point that out 'cause I'm a douchebag.

I sit corrected! I had always thought that "gleam" meant a sudden inspiration or insight, but that would have to be a metaphor. Per dictionary.com, gleam means, "to appear suddenly and clearly like a flash of light." Whereas glean means "to learn, discover, or find out, usually little by little or slowly."

Poor word choice on my part in either case. Forthwith edited to "learned."

I hafta agree: if all you have is black words on white paper, why not make them work? My only caveat would be to avoid diving too deeply into the thesaurus. You're telling a story, not proving how much smarter you are. That's what ruins Poe for my students. If he'd had the confidence to write simply...

Vanilla Chunk makes a great point: Screenplays aren't about winning intelligence contests, they're about telling a story. Only use strong verbs that work within the context of your story and your narrative voice.

Again, not just good advice, GREAT advice.

A bonny tip of the hat to Mr. Ferguson!

Free action verb list here:

http://www.cvisual.com/film-techniques/writer-action-verb-list.asp