Over the years I built myself a private list of "words of praise", the bright, vivid words a writer can reach for when something is genuinely good and the tired old "very nice" simply will not do. Here is mine. Keep your own, and add to it whenever you meet a word with a bit of sparkle.
- Amazing
- Astonishing
- Astounding
- Awesome
- Beauty
- Blue chip
- Bobby-dazzler
- Classy
- Crackerjack
- Crash hot
- Exceptional
- Excellent
- Exquisite
- Extraordinary
- Fabulous
- Fantastic
- Fine
- First-class
- First-rate
- Good
- Grand
- Great
- High class
- High grade
- Humdinger
- Ideal
- Incredible
- Knockout
- Magnificent
- Marvellous
- Masterpiece
- Out of this world
- Outstanding
- Polished
- Premium
- Remarkable
- Sensational
- Splendid
- Super
- Superb
- Superior
- Supreme
- Terrific
- Tiptop
- Top flight
- Top quality
- Top-notch
- Tops
- Treasure
- Tremendous
- Trumps
- Unreal
- Wonderful
- Work of distinction
Using them well
Now a word of warning, because a list like this is a loaded gun. Vivid praise works only when it is rare and when it is earned. If everything in your copy is "sensational" and "magnificent", then nothing is, and the reader stops believing you. Spread these words about too freely and they wear out, exactly the way "awesome" has been worn down to mean almost nothing at all.
So use the strong word when the moment truly calls for it, and the plain word the rest of the time. And wherever you can, show the reader why a thing deserves the praise, rather than simply asserting it. "A magnificent garden" tells me little. "A garden so thick with roses you could not see the fence" lets me decide for myself, which is always the stronger writing. Save your humdingers for when they count, and let the facts do the cheering.