Words you can cut

[tinkerdan]

There are words that can be left out in our writing...

43 Words You Should Cut From Your Writing Immediately

Removing these useless words helps speed up the pacing of both action and dialogue, and makes your work more polished and professional.

dianaurban.com

 

[Brian G Turner]

There are some really good pointers in that article, and I'm definitely guilty when it comes to "thought/realized" and "nod/shrug". Will be adding notes to edit these out my WIP - thanks for that.

 

[-K2-]

What a great idea, using highlighting like that. In addition to those words, I'll overuse particular words. Typically, I'd perform a search changing as many as I could to reduce the ratio. It's a rather taxing process. More so, it turns into a robotic drudgery all but ensuring the least creative solutions.

E.g.: 500 'though's turn into 495 'albeit's... so you go back through. 495 'albeit's turn into 295 'though's.

With the ability to recognize all of these words, now color coded (even selecting overused passive words)--on the fly--I imagine it will help expedite the process.

Thanks for the tip!

K2

 

[Star-child]

Great article.

Small tip - instead of using "find and replace", just key CTRL f and that will highlight, give you the total number instances and allow you to scroll through them in most any program.

 

[Ursa major]

Star-child is correct: for editing, use Find and Find Next. (In Word, Find highlights the word automatically, albeit in an insipid pale orangy-cream colour.)

However the highlighting method also has its uses. Sometimes a word isn't used often in a document, but there may still be hotspots of its use.

Using the highlighting method (with a more vivid colour than Word's Find gives one) can show these hotspots as attacks of "measles"** on those pages. This is of particular use if one is viewing multiple pages (View/Zoom/Many Pages in Word): you can zip through the document and the "measles" pages leap out at one.


** - I call them this because the first time I saw the effect, I was highlighting in red and the number of hits on some pages did look like measles.

 

[-K2-]

Star-child is correct: for editing, use Find and Find Next. (In Word, Find highlights the word automatically, albeit in an insipid pale orangy-cream colour.)

However the highlighting method also has its uses. Sometimes a word isn't used often in a document, but there may still be hotspots of its use.

Using the highlighting method (with a more vivid colour than Word's Find gives one) can show these hotspots as attacks of "measles"** on those pages. This is of particular use if one is viewing multiple pages (View/Zoom/Many Pages in Word): you can zip through the document and the "measles" pages leap out at one.

** - I call them this because the first time I saw the effect, I was highlighting in red and the number of hits on some pages did look like measles.

That's what I previously used (find, then checked each instance working through the document). As said, I like this new method, in that i can highlight all of the words with a 'replace all' (for each), then reread the entire manuscript encountering--more so recognizing them all--as I work through it. It makes it less tedious, and where I might have 2 or 3 words in a long phrase, I can then adjust it in its entirety.

K2

 

[-K2-]

Just a quick followup on this. In G8, I performed highlighting based on that 'don't use' list and overused words using different colors. Performing a search for highlighted words, of roughly 125k, which will glean down to 120k, I found close to 9,000 highlighted words. If I am able to chop out 5,000 of them--along with rephrasing reductions--that will pull me down to 115k or better. <115k words sounds great!

After a few other adjustments, this will help make it a nice lean story... every little bit helps!

K2

 

[-K2-]

I can't help but rave on this idea... again! Instead of looking for this word, one at a time, line after line, then the next, the ability to see them all clustered in a paragraph is helping out tremendously. It allows me to fix the entire sentence, not just eliminate/change this word or that, then work on the next word.

It has improved my editing considerably.

K2

 

[ckatt]

Wasn't sure if I should post here or start a new thread but if you're reading this you know what I decided.

One of the offences mentioned is this:

Shrug, nod, reach. Every author has her own quirks, and over time, you should become familiar with your own. These are a few of mine — in my first drafts, I have characters shrug, nod, and reach for things way too often — and I know a lot of other writers include these, too. Always have second readers, whether you’re writing a novel or blog post. They’ll be able to point out actions that happen too frequently better than you can, because you’ll usually be too close to your own writing to notice.

Even before reading this article, I knew I had a problem with overusing these words. I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for removing them, other than the just delete key. That is, alternate words to use or perhaps a different turn of phrase to replace. Or a technique of looking at the scene in a way that eliminates the need.

I find I use shrug primarily in two ways. One is to replace the verbal response of "I don't know" the other is to redirect an intension
i.e. He shrugged off the jibe and returned to his keyboard.

And nod often replaces yes or a dialogue tag Paul nodded. "Mother's always been that way."

Just interested in what others do.

 

[-K2-]

@ckatt I'm using the method described above with great success. What makes it worthwhile is I just write letting the words flow naturally. After, I highlight--the ENTIRE document--using different colors for the words they mention, a different color for what I know are overused by me, another color for...etc.

So, that leaves you with the MS 'as you wrote it,' but now all those words are JUST highlighted (you wouldn't want to replace every shrug with 'ignore' would you?). On my next read through, I'll delete words where appropriate (that, a good one for...that), leave the ones that work, but often decide on a new/better way to rephrase each line.

In that way, you're not replacing 1,000 shrugs with 1,000 ignores, nor are you having to go through with a search and replace them each one at a time losing the flow of it all. The system is doing wonders for my writing.

K2

 

[HareBrain]

Often you need a "beat" there for rhythm. But "He nodded" just before he verbally affirms something is pointless; you're saying the same thing twice. Rather than trying to replace it with a less common way of saying "he nodded", you could try to give him another "beat" that suggests something more interesting about his character or his thoughts. (I appreciate this is often easier said than done, but it's a good aspiration.)

 

[sule]

Well, remember that they're talking about overusing those words and not recommending that we cut those words completely out. However, I do think there are a few things about the words shrug, nod, reach that lends them to being overused.

1. They provide narrative beats that fill in gaps. However, they are sometimes passive and provide nothing more than a quick pause. Nods and shrugs in particular are some of the least active things a person can do in conversation and pointing out "he nodded" or "she shrugged" can disrupt the flow of the narrative or dialogue.
2. They provide action among what might otherwise be a dialogue-heavy section, however that action tell the reader things they might already have inferred or could figure out from later context. From your example Paul nodded. "Mother's always been that way." We get from the dialogue that Paul is agreeing, so the reader doesn't necessarily need to know that he nodded. If you want to make sure the reader knows Paul is speaking, you can always attribute to him some other more active thing to do.
3. They bridge between two narrative states or pieces of dialogue. Reaching is definitely a bridging action; it connects two states (a character not having something and a character having something) that often the reader can bridge themselves, and it inherently lacks resolution. Saying, "Clark reached for the kryptonite pencil" sounds less resolved than "Clark picked up the kryptonite pencil" because in the first example you haven't fully declared whether he actually grabs the pencil and will have to devote more of the narrative to resolving that 'thread' or risk losing the reader. 'Reach' might work well in a situation where a character tries to pick something up and is interrupted.

I do think that each of these words has a place in a well-written story, but the overuse of them I think tends to stem from the author worrying that the reader will get bored of the dialogue or won't follow a small leap from "he doesn't have the pencil" to "he has the pencil." When I edit my first drafts I tend to find a lot of those redundancies and I tag them with "cowardly." It means that I'm by putting those in because I'm scared the reader won't understand what I mean without them. Diagnosing the reason I'm using words that sound weak is the first step towards fixing my writing.

Other than cutting them out to see if the story still works without them, I think a good exercise is to make things more active. If dialogue is going on and the characters are all nodding and shrugging I go back and try to throw a bomb (only sometimes literal) into the scene to make the characters do more. Another thing I like to do is every time I have a character nod or shrug I try to replace the nod or shrug with some internal monologue or something that gets deeper into the POV character. Example: Paul remembered the time he'd brought home his report card with mostly A's and Mother had grilled him on his C in science. "Mother's always been that way."

TL;DR: I think cutting the passive words is in a lot of cases a good fix, but as far as replacing them goes I like to find ways to dig deeper into character or put in something that suggests more action than just shrugging, nodding, or reaching.

 

[AlexH]

Wasn't sure if I should post here or start a new thread but if you're reading this you know what I decided.

One of the offences mentioned is this:


Even before reading this article, I knew I had a problem with overusing these words. I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for removing them, other than the just delete key. That is, alternate words to use or perhaps a different turn of phrase to replace. Or a technique of looking at the scene in a way that eliminates the need.

I find I use shrug primarily in two ways. One is to replace the verbal response of "I don't know" the other is to redirect an intension
i.e. He shrugged off the jibe and returned to his keyboard.

And nod often replaces yes or a dialogue tag Paul nodded. "Mother's always been that way."

Just interested in what others do.

"He shrugged off the jibe and returned to his keyboard."
=
"He returned to his keyboard."

Sort of implies to me he's shrugged off whatever jibe anyway.

Or consider more why he's shrugging off the jibe. Because he's upset? If so, how could you show that in the way he returns to or types (or otherwise) on the keyboard, for example? If it's because he doesn't care, how could you show that? Or could it tell us more in a different way e.g. he's so used to jibes they've become meaningless.

Again with nodded, is there something about the body language or a particular character trait that could teach us something about the character when they're agreeing? Perhaps they're nodding but they don't really agree. Or if you overuse "nodded," just have them say "yes" or "okay" instead.

They are the sort of things I think about.

 

[ckatt]

@-K2- The power of word processors, eh! I've been using a similar technique for a while myself. Though I don't colour code for specifics like that, it's an interesting idea.

"He nodded" just before he verbally affirms something is pointless;

You're absolutely correct. I try to avoid redundancies like nodding then saying "okay."
And It's defiantly a beat thing.
Still, I find I often use small body movements in place of "said he" in order to break up long passages of dialogue. Like shrugged, nodded, or he lifted his brow, or he scrunched his nose, or he squinted, or he chewed his lip. But for me, shrugged and nodded seems to appear a lot, as well as head shaking.

I do think that each of these words has a place in a well-written story

Agreed. I have trouble with any list of words that we are supposed to cut. All my favourite books have them so what I really want to get to the heart of is why they don't work in particular cases. One painstaking step in my revision process is going over ever verb and deciding if it actually its the best possible choice for that sentence. Sometimes I decide that "nodded" or "then" or "thought" is is the best word. (though that won't stop a critiquer form complaining about it.) But when I decided it needs to change, I often have trouble deciding what to replace it with. I try to look around the room and see if there's something the character can interact with only to find I have them leaning against the table three times

 

[JNG01]

Great article. Definitely too much nodding and reaching in my own stuff.

 

[.matthew.]

You're absolutely correct. I try to avoid redundancies like nodding then saying "okay."
And It's defiantly a beat thing.
Still, I find I often use small body movements in place of "said he" in order to break up long passages of dialogue. Like shrugged, nodded, or he lifted his brow, or he scrunched his nose, or he squinted, or he chewed his lip. But for me, shrugged and nodded seems to appear a lot, as well as head shaking.

I think we've got to be careful of cutting too much by remembering that people do communicate in redundancies a lot. Now they can be overused, but nodding before saying "okay" is not just a redundancy, but an added confirmation which emphasises the point.

I also find it helps breathe life into characters. If you take most books literally, then what you have is two people standing stock still reciting lines like the worst actors on earth. People communicate physically as much as verbally and while you can't have everything in there, body movements add to the realism of the scene so long as they don't detract from it.

You may as well tell people not to describe the scene surroundings because you don't need to know more than they're in such and such a room... the description doesn't add anything does it? (that's a reduction to absurdity by the way). If you look for things to slash and burn you'll find so many that a book will end up as "Spot had a red ball, Spot lost his red ball, Spot found the red ball, it was behind the elephant!"

 

[Don]

Well, remember that they're talking about overusing those words and not recommending that we cut those words completely out.

This is a good point to remember. ⇇ ("This" replaced "that," which was written at first. Progress!)

Does anyone else use "that" as an alternative for "which" to minimize repetition?

"Solar Lottery," which PKD wrote in 1955, never received a Hollywood treatment. "The Man in the High Castle," which PKD wrote in 1962, did.

"Solar Lottery," which PKD wrote in 1955, never received a Hollywood treatment. "The Man in the High Castle," that PKD wrote in 1962, did.

 

[.matthew.]

I overuse that all the time, it feels more natural than saying which, which I know sounds odd, but that is what it is

Most of the that's in my fiction do get cut on the second pass, so long as the sentence works without them.

 

[Ursa major]

"Solar Lottery," which PKD wrote in 1955, never received a Hollywood treatment. "The Man in the High Castle," which PKD wrote in 1962, did.

"Solar Lottery," which PKD wrote in 1955, never received a Hollywood treatment. "The Man in the High Castle," that PKD wrote in 1962, did.

PKD's "Solar Lottery", written in 1955, never received a Hollywood treatment; his 1962 novel, "The Man in the High Castle", did.


Note: I've only moved the commas because, on my side of the Pond, that's where we put them when punctuating text in quotes that isn't dialogue. (Oh, and I like using semicolons, so you can ignore that as well.)

 

[Montero]

I'd also put in the caveat of whether you are writing in first person or not - I'm currently writing a first person book and there are places where "really" is the natural word to use. In third person I'd be more sparing.
Long ago, I was taught not to use the same modifier two sentences running, and ideally not in the same paragraph. That would automatically spread out the measles......
One of my habits is sentences of two clauses with "but" in the middle. Simple example - She did it, but she didn't want to. I definitely overuse those and have to rewrite.