I/he saw, heard and thought (filter words)

[msstice]

Constructions like "He saw the river rise up before him." are said to have "filter words" that create distance between the reader and character and the advice is to take out the filter words.

I generally follow this advice and today I came to the conclusion the problem is not that they create distance directly, but that they are redundant. So "The river rose up before him." is more punchy. Except when it isn't. The addition of "He saw" emphasizes the act of seeing and can draw attention to it. Used sparingly, it appears poetic to me.

"The sweet waters of the river were shallow and slow. A bit more and he would be home. He took a step. The water rippled. He took another step. There was a roar. He saw the river rise up before him, dark and angry."

Even without the poetic bit, I am uncertain though about avoiding it altogether. Sometimes I have to use the verb in first or third person. "Thought" is a particular one, since it's like "said" but for internal dialog.

What do people think about filter words and about the "He thought" construction?

 

[HareBrain]

Like you, I ask myself with each one if they add anything. Occasionally they do, mostly not.

Where I think they can almost never be justified is in first-person present tense, where any distance from the narrator's direct experience (to me) calls attention to the artifice of it.

 

[The Judge]

Jo wrote a good post on this back in 2018 -- now in The Toolbox

The Toolbox -- The Important Bits

dialogue punctuation I'm sure it's in here a lot, but I thought I've been working on it a bit recently, and it is the only technical thing I'm confident at, so I'd stick up a post. (how brave am I? in the toolbox - garghh.) If you are using a dialogue tag like he said, commented, asked...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It depends whether or not you're evoking the direct experience (which no human being actually experiences) or the experience of the experience. I almost always go for the latter, "filter words" and all. Too much attention is paid to this sort of thing in my view. What matters is what's imagined and how you get your reader to imagine it.

 

[Steve Harrison]

A lot of the 'advice' on issues like this ignores the rhythm and/or pacing of the writing, which to me are much more important than the construction of individual sentences or whether they contains filter or redundant words or sometimes even incorrect grammar. That's why I like to edit paragraph by paragraph. It stops me getting caught up by agonising over sentences that don't 'look' right, but work in context.

That's my excuse for including those things, and I'm sticking to it...