I just finished the first draft of DIVE (Hooray!), but now I’m left with no writing to do (Boo!). So I decided to compile a list of words to eliminate from my writing once I get back to work on my manuscript.
With the help of Twitter and Facebook, I came up with a pretty solid list. Obviously this is a) not a complete list, and b) not meant to suggest that you MUST ALWAYS REMOVE THESE WORDS.
In fact…a lot of the time these words are EXTREMELY useful (see what I did there?)
Take a look, and if you can think of any more words to add to my list, let me know in the comments!
WORDS TO ELIMINATE
• Very/Really/Totally/Extremely
• Basically/Actually/Generally
• Definitely
• Suddenly/ All of a sudden
• Then
• In order to
• Is/Am/Are/Was/Were
• Started/Began
• That
• Like
• Had
• Got
• So
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• Just
• Kind of/Sort of/Type of
• I believe
• Specific/Particular
• Seems
• Saw/Heard/Felt
•Asked
•Noticed/Realized
• Thing
• Up/Down/Back/Around
• Maybe
• Might/Could/May
• Possibly
• Always (#50!!!!)
• But
• Actually
• Being
Will this list help you with your writing? Do you disagree with my list? Did I miss any? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
Lauren
Said, sighed, gazed, answered…to name a few. I find that I also get stuck on repeating specific phrases.
First draft of my first novel, I removed about 300 instances of “really.” From 86,000 words. I put myself in Really Rehab. 🙂
A few more —
“up”
“down”
“back”
“around”
I’d add “maybe” to this list. I have several words like that but I’d say each author has his/her own faux pas words that they overuse. An easy way to fix this is when reading through a draft (out loud works best), when you notice an often repeated word, use the find/replace function and it will tell you exactly how many are in your manuscript of that particular word. It will be clear very quickly if you’ve located another word to search and destroy.
Thanks for the reminder.
One of the worst and most meaningless words ever: thing(s).
I don’t really see any benefit to taking out “individual” and “had,” ha!
Never, always
“That” is actually my very least favorite word ever, because I have a journalism degree and the Associated Press removes “that” in almost every instance.
“reached” is one of my problem words. I’m constantly using it in place of a stronger sentence. I’ve learned to look for it and I almost always re-write the sentence to get that ugly word out.
I’m having troubles with “had” in my novel. The main character is telling her life story just before her death… so it’s a lot of, “He had never said that to me before” (or other such sentences). Gah!
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I had so many instances of “sighed” in one story I ended up writing dialog for a character that said “I do so much sighing these days.” And then never used it again.
I get lazy and/or rushed and use “something” quite a bit. I know that so I do a search and then try to figure out what that “something” should be…and replace with a much stronger word.
Sometimes I get fixated on some random word. My son reads drafts for me; one of the first thing he will point out is repetitive word usage. “You’re doing it again…here.” And I get a page with check marks all over it.
Perfect timing – I’m at the point in my editing where I’m searching for overused words. I think you’ve got most of mine – “just” and “actually” show up way too often and my characters are always “grinning”. Thanks for the list.
any adverb to me is open for elimination. also, i like to keep action words that create visual flow. haruki murakami has that gift
Love this list! I keep a running document with words to eliminate, but I think I’m going to have to go add a few of these. Thanks for compiling this!
I’m a horrible abuser of the word “just” and do edits JUST to remove it. Sadly, I sometimes have a “really” and “that” problem also. 🙂
Actually is somehow on both the good and bad list. Which should it really be on? I’m feeling confused about that one now.
I’m editing a short story and removed about 32 instances of “had” 🙂 I have a long way to go 🙂 Thank you for this great list!
Somehow. Every revision, I go through and take out the “Somehows.” I think I put them there as a place holder until I figure out HOW.