29 Words to Cut From Your Novel

last week I discussed how to get rid of passive voice from your novel so that you can make your reading experience more immersive I briefly mentioned in the beginning of that video that I also have some other writing demons that I've been dealing with this week we're going to talk about filter words and other useless dirty words that you can get rid of when I say dirty words I don't mean bad words like s bombs I mean dirty words that make your manuscript not really clean they kind of make it a little messy bring up I had the idea that all novels were just these perfect creatures and they were born that way and the first time the writer sat down to write on their page it just came out looking like that that's not true and any writing that you read that has clunky words or words that don't really carry any meaning to them seems like novice writing it's difficult to immerse yourself in a story when you're too busy noticing how many times the author uses the word that means getting rid of these dirty words as part of the finishing touches phase of novel building disclaimer don't delete every instance of each one of these words that I'm going to talk about some of the below words are good some uses in some cases they're not so before you go diving that Delete key make sure you read every sentence that has one of these words to make sure that you should delete it so here are 29 dirty words you should delete out of your novel start step filter words now most writers want their readers to be fully immersed into their novel to feel what the character is feeling and even imagine themselves being that character my definition of filter words is Satan's words both our words are used when writers try to filter the readers experience through the point of view of one of the characters we no likey filtering we want real drama raw and first-hand the following are examples of filter words that you should avoid using in any tense of these root words see look here know realize wonder the side notice feel remember and think I had to do that in part with speed oh that was a lot that list is not all-inclusive but if you want to see a paragraph example of this with two paragraphs side by side with filter words and without filter words just on the link down below to my post and I have an example laid out there for now we'll just look at one sentence Lucy felt the cold air against her skin and decided it was too late to leave compare that to the cold air pressed against Lucy's skin it was too late to leave now that wasn't the best sentence but you should get an idea of what we eliminated the unnecessary storyteller don't tell me how Lucy felt allow me to experience it as she's experiencing it also your word count typically goes down and do this and that raises here punched a word ratio more punches less work the next word is that this is my most commonly committed crime if the sentence makes sense without this word and there are some cases where it will make sense the don't go Rambo on this one then delete it for this sentence it was easy to see that the dog was hurt you don't need the that it's just not needed Oh as in all of themes I don't know why I love this one so much but it pops up everywhere that of is not required delete it really and vary these words weaken earrings oh my gosh let's never happened before just kidding ask look well I'm awake now that scared of Jesus out of me well that was exciting really it's very these words weaken your storytelling I recommend finding a word to replace this and then the word that they modify instead of saying very happy you could say excited or ecstatic adverbs or words that end and L why not all of these words terrible but in general you should avoid trying to use them in every single sentence that you write usually there's a better word that you could use instead of that adverb or you could delete it all together I love adverbs and I spend a large majority out of my editing time getting rid of them down or up as in sit down or stand up these words can be deleted immediately when found back to sit or stand so ctrl F fat joker and kick it to the curb then much like filter words this is an unnecessary storytelling word it should be happening as the readers reading it so he knows then it happens start or begin I'm guilty of using these words because I want to mark the beginning of something but usually you don't need it for example the boy began to cry instead of things began you could say the boy cried or even better you could say tears welled up in the boy's eyes sudden this suddenly makes a sentence bliss but don't waste the time to write this word when we're hanging on the edge of our seats know what happens next just I always hate mixing this word because I like to use a lot in dialogue but most times it's not really needed next up redundant phrases it can be a little trickier to find because a lot of them are actually figures of speech in the English language so we're used to saying them things like final outcome or actual fact they're redundant and you don't need one of those works other examples are added bonus close proximity which I have been guilty of protest against brief heat again or armed gunmen next up the I was surprised to learn about this word because it rarely pops up in a deletable form but it's good to know about consider the following since it's the rain pattered on the skylight the first D is not needed you can delete it so instead you could say rain pattered on the skylight that vs. who make sure you try to use the appropriate one here even though this is not a set in stone rule but if you're referring to a person don't follow it with that so he's one of the men that ran for president should really be he's one of the men who ran for president that's not really a deleting one and more of a make sure you do those four sets but whatever almost rather and some what pros can be tightened by deleting this word or rephrasing the sentence all together to make it sound better instead of saying he was rather large you could say he towered over the three men again if you would like to see more examples of these words used in sentences please check out my blog posts listed down below in the comments I just didn't really have a way to write them each individually would just take too long I had two minutes this isn't too many examples so make sure you check out that post editing these dirty words out of your novel does take time and trust me I know but your manuscript will improve tremendously because of it now some would argue that you don't really need to self edit these words out in that you know that's what you pay an editor for but well this is true the best way to learn something is to crawl through the trenches I'm taking the time to find each one of these dirty words in my writing so that I don't make this mistake again I want to drill it in my head that I shouldn't be using those words so in future writings media I use less alone last year line editor might not enjoy you giving them such an unpolished manuscript and usually it cost more because they have to take more time go through stuff as always I hope that was really helpful for you guys and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving whatever your plans for this week are if you have a topic that you would like me to cover that I haven't already covered just drop a line down below or tweet me at Vivian Reece and let me know subscribe to my channel because for two weeks in a row I have posted videos alright and I should be posting them every Wednesday hi guys

Channel: Vivien Reis

Views: 427,451

Rating: 4.8984518 out of 5

Keywords: how to write novel, how to write a book, writing a book, writing a novel, how to write, writing, writer, book, how to outline a book, how to outline a novel, character building, world building, how to make characters

Id: qhV4lsrvMNI

Length: 7min 42sec (462 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 23 2016