Vocabulary can be fun sometimes because you get to explore words that you've never seen. But do you know what they actually mean? If you don't well...it's time to pause and whip out that good old dictionary that's been building up dust.

We all know, at least I hope, that using the same word over and over can get repetitive and ultimately boring. I have used the word "said" over and over again in a lot of my fanfics. So sometimes I use an online thesaurus, look up some words and instead use those words. The key point I'm getting here is to use words WISELY. Some words actually have different meanings and different contexts even though they mean ultimately the same thing. Take giggled and chuckled for example, look in the dictionary and you'll see that giggle is a more high pitched laugh, while chuckle is more deep and a throaty sound.

It doesn't hurt to get a dictionary and use it while you write. It's actually a really useful tool. And use the right words at the right time. Don't use words just because you want to sound fancy or smart. In fact using a word out of its context isn't smart at all.

Check out a thesaurus for some synonyms of ordinary words and then look up those words in the dictionary. Are the meanings different? How can it change the meaning of your sentence? Can I use the word or would it be better to just use the ordinary one instead? It's tedious but it's worth it if you want to improve your word choice.

This works with colors too, look at color pallets. Look at the different hues and see if it's the same color you want to use to describe something in your writing. As an art person I can say blue, azure, and cobalt are not the same color.