"bursts" is a correct and usable word in written English.
You can use it to refer to a sudden release of energy or emotion, as in the sentence, "The crowd erupted in bursts of cheers and applause when their favorite player scored the winning goal."
It is sad that he never recaptured the political heights despite bursts of brilliance, and never found a new political role big enough for his talents.
Chris Froome bursts up the almost vertical street, and Contador can't live with him!
Then he spent 15 minutes cowering between two of the three buses in which the students had been travelling, as the single shots turned into bursts of semi-automatic gunfire lighting up the night with their flashes.
And the sunny terrain surrounding the foggy city bursts with fertility – and it's not just grapes.
He does sometimes worry that he speaks his mind too freely – "Yeah, course I do," – but bursts into giggles, which suggest he doesn't worry much.
It is like a grey day with intermittent bursts of sunshine, and these occasional breaks in the cloud are what we mothers try to focus on.
It later bursts gruesomely from the chest of one crew member in the most memorable entrance of any movie character since Orson Welles stepped from the shadows in The Third Man.
Raspberry, I suggest, and he bursts out laughing.
His manner is slightly awkward, vagueness punctuated by sudden bursts of lyricism; he has a reputation for being glum but is engagingly animated, if only periodically.
"This can be disconcerting for early career researchers – nothing in the training prepares you for the first time that a student asks to see you and then bursts into tears.
