I have a list of words I check, whether in my own work or in that I edit. A list of words that do not move the action forward. Stalling words. Filler words. “Fluff” words.
When editing, I tell my authors to watch out for these and eliminate as many as they can. My one caution is that they can stay in dialogue, because that is how folks speak. Often authors find they can remove these words from dialogue as well and it speeds the reader along. I compiled this list from many sources, so I do not claim ownership of this list, nor it is comprehensive of all such “trouble” words that bore readers, but here you go.
A list of fifteen “throw-away” words (or phrases):
just
very
often
usually
some
although
in order to
though
maybe
a bit
a little
almost
really
actually
a lot
An example of how this improves the narrative? “John wanted some more of her kissing and hugging” vs. “John wanted more of her kissing and hugging.” How about, “It was really a very cold day” vs. “It was a cold day” OR even better, get rid of “it was” and find a better verb. “Cold snapped across the pavement.”
Do a “Find” and “highlight all” for each of these words. I highlight them gray so they are easy to spot but not obnoxious. Any that come up numbering less than say 15 occurrences within 200 pages is not really a problem. However, if you find 300 “some” in that many pages, you will have to take a look at that.
Weed out those dull words and excite your readers with narrative speed.
Kelly Schaub is a freelance writer and editor located in Oregon. Her website is http://www.thewritecritter.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Schaub
You might also be interested in:
- Em-dash Use and Placement – Punctuation For Fiction Writers By Kelly Schaub In case you are unfamiliar with this favorite of fiction writers, the em-dash–often typed as two hyphens next to each other–is used to set off parenthetical information, as I did in this sentence, or to indicate a break in– What? Mommy’s typing. No, you cannot have more ice cream....
- Pronouns and Antecedents – How to Write What You Mean When Replacing a Noun By Kelly Schaub Do you ever feel like spinning the arrow-spinner from the game Twister when reading? If the author has unclear antecedents to their pronouns, you might as well do so to find the noun referred to by the pronoun. “Stock prices again dropped today. They say we’re headed into another...
- CLEAR IT OUT!! by Kelly Bowerman w/as Kelly Ethan Someone once said ‘a cluttered office leads to a cluttered manuscript’, oh, that was me! I have a cluttered office, my file cabinet overflows and my books have a leaning tower of Pisa thing going on. So I took a monumental step forward and decided to organize my office. After...
Get this blog's RSS feed in your reader.
[...] the meantime I came across this post on the excellent CataUniversity site on a great technique to identify and cut out all of those redundant words that are your favourites [...]
An easier way to find these words is to use the AutoCrit Editing Wizard. The AutoCrit Wizard automatically finds a whole bunch of these ‘weak’ words and highlights them for you. Plus it does a bunch of other stuff like identify cliches, slow pacing, etc, etc. I love it!