Maybe you’ve heard of James A. Michener. He wrote some books. And he once said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.”
Rewriting is the better part of writing, and deleting words (or “killing all your little darlings,” as Faulkner put it) is a key part of rewriting. It is a painful process at times, but some words are more easily deleted than others. Here are five that can almost always be safely and productively stricken from your fiction (except, perhaps, in dialogue):
Then
Your readers are experiencing the sequence of actions in the present (even if you’re writing in past tense). So “then” is almost always unnecessary. Replace it with “and.”
Suddenly
“Suddenly” is similar to “then.” Both the character and the reader experience everything “suddenly” (that is, in the moment), so unless you’re describing a drastic change from what was expected, it’s usually best to delete it.
Said
Dialogue tags are sometimes helpful to, well, tag whoever is speaking. But dialogue is best tagged with action (She ended the call. “We have to go.”). And if your characters and their voices are distinguishable from one another, you may be surprised at how many “saids” can be deleted, which will move things along faster and keep the reader turning pages.
That
Almost everyone overuses the word “that.” Here’s a fun game. Go through your scene or chapter, finding every “that.” If your sentence still makes sense without it, delete it. For example, “God can restore things that the enemy tried to steal” can become “God can restore things the enemy tried to steal.” I’m not saying that you can or should delete every “that,” but that you can and should get rid of many.
Up
No, not the movie. The word “up,” when appended to an action, is often unnecessary. For example, “He stood up and went to the window.” We (your readers) got the “up” part from the word “stood.” You can similarly delete “down” much of the time, but “up” is much more common.
So there you have it. Just five words. But finding and deleting these as often as possible will strengthen your writing.
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Bob, my writing is a memoir of my journey with Christ.Maybe taking me out of the writing and making the stories second or third person. Maybe a novella. Open to anything you would suggest. Also, a note of thanks to you for your funny posts. You have the gift of making me laugh.
I do have a word of caveat… not all words should be struck that strike, stuck on the list…
We all know about smashing repetition. RIGHT? okay, so I have a woman, blinded by a strike to her head. She wonders… how can I live without sight? When she emerges from the hospital and sees the waterfalls, she thinks ‘eyesight is wonderful, fantastic and not to be repetitive, awesome.’ Or some such I haven’t read that in a while…
But all of those words on your list (and my long one, most can be squashed.
Nodded and sighed. Left to themselves, my characters, as I believe I’ve said before, tend to become disappointed bobbleheads. I try to limit the sighing and nodding to once every 10-20 pages, but they still end up doing those things too often!
I hear that! I find my ‘favorite lazy’ words and have made a list. I go through them and reword. There are several words that I will only use once in the entire MS because as a reader, my eye goes straight to a redundancy even if it happens just once. And I try to only give one character a specific action or phrase, i.e. the MC says hush while the love interest says shut up. Only one raises a shoulder or has a half-smile (or lopsided grin, or signature smile) while the other is the only one to cover her mouth (or cough laughter into her mouth etc).
English sucks when editing for punctuation. But it has many great ways to command the reader into commitment.
and… hopefully an agent.
Those words just sneak into my stories sometimes. “That” is the worst one. But one other word I often have to delete in later drafts is “Back.” For some reason, I seem to really like that word. As I’m editing, I’ll be on the look out for your outlawed five as well!
Thanks. Your article was very helpful. I’m always wondering whether to keep or delete the word “that” from my writing. You answered my question.
I guess I am a rewriter, too. Whenever someone asks me to edit something, I seem to end up rewriting it. It’s not always appreciated.
I hope this question isn’t missed in all this witty and wise humor. I’m trying to get one part solidified in my brain. I remember not too long ago some sage and wise authors making the point that you can’t use “and,” because it implied impossible simultaneous actions. (This was along the same “era” of the Flying Body Parts Movement (oh yes, pun most definitely intended).
So as a young writer I stopped moving eyes, arms, legs, feet, ears, etc. without the body attached. Okay. The solution to the “and” issue?
THEN! Use “then.”
I’m so confused. I thought I had this down, then Bob blew up my world!
Or should it be “and Bob blew up my world?” What do I believe now?!?
Okay, all fun aside, I love this post. Helps me see how certain things can be trends that are still valuable to learn from and more importantly, how fun it can be to toss out a pain in the you know what writing rule. Thank you!
Beyond rules are… art. Art isn’t about breaking rules. But knowing when to use them best.
If I keep reading your blog posts, I’m never going to get my proposal sent to you! (Kidding.) Thank you for this post and the one from a few weeks ago when you sent me back to the editing chair to strike my beloved passive verbs from my manuscript. My writing is better for your direction. Thank you.
I was going to query Bob Hostetler, but his description of his needs includes a statement THAT you deal with speculative fiction.
Does speculative fiction mean you take paranormal romances?
I write Christian YA novels.
Fifteen novels are on Amazon, I have more than three thousand followers on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Are you able to explain why Christian publisher who believe in an afterlife, obviously, cannot fathom ghost-whisperers?
Rohn Federbush, rohn@comcast.net
I have never understood why someone tells you to “listen up”. ‘Up’ doesn’t mean anything in this context, but nobody ever says simply, “listen.”
“That” is my nemesis. Must be something “that” I picked “up” as a child.