"Beautiful essay, Sarah! My own contact with some of the best books ever written took place mostly before I was 24 years old. Maybe I'll give some of those classics another try."
List of Weak Words to Seach for While Editing! Print and Save This!
Today I am not blogging about book marketing! Shocking, I know!!! Instead, I am posting about writing mechanics. So, here we go!
Show, don't tell is a direction often given to writers to write in a such a way that allows readers to "experience the story through a character's action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the narrator's exposition, summarization, and description." Source: Wikipedia
While you are writing and editing your work, search for the following words and see if you can improve your sentences by eliminating many of the following words. Print this off and keep it handy! (If you haven't started editing yet and it's your first time, trust me, you'll thank me later!)
Words to Watch Out For:
Felt / Feel
Heard / Hear
Saw / See
Knew / know / had known
Wondered
Realized
Decided
Seemed
Began
Wished
Hoped
Use Active Voice, Not Passive: Style of writing that helps to show, not tell!
Words to Check: (remember in the 'find' feature to check the 'find exact match' box for words that are only two or three letters long)
To be
Is
Are
Was
Were
Has
Had
Have
Have Been
Did
Does
Do
Also: Past Participles (verb form often ending in -ed)
Other Weak Words: I found myself starting off a lot of dialogue with "So, ..." and "Well, ..." and "Oh, ..." which are really not needed.
Oh
Just
Well
So
Like
As
As if
While
Jill Elizabeth Nelson presented some great before and after examples in her article "On With the Show; Off With the Tell":
Instead of writing, He thought a good bath wouldn’t hurt the dog, write, Whew! A good bath would do this dog a world of good.
Instead of, She feels a sinking sensation in her middle, write, Her stomach drops to her toes.
Instead of, He knew that if she did that, she’d fail, write, If she did that, she’d fail.
Instead of, She wondered how she would get through the next day, write, How could she possibly survive the next day?
Instead of, I wished I hadn’t said that, write, If only I hadn’t said that.
View her article HERE - it is very helpful!
More in depth articles on Show, Don't Tell:
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/showing/
http://www.freelancewriting.com/articles/show-dont-tell-in-fiction-writing...
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art47547.asp
http://www.suite101.com/content/show-dont-tell-a110319
Does anyone else have other advice or words to watch out for??
I have been doing line edits this week, so this has been on my brain! Best of luck to everyone! Cheers! Jan
Comment
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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on September 27, 2011 at 12:58pm -
Hi Courtney - it is amazing how these words can make your mind really turn on and get creative! Thanks for sharing your comment! Jan
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Comment by Isabella Louise Anderson on September 27, 2011 at 12:34pm -
Thanks so much for sharing this! Great blog! :-)
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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on September 27, 2011 at 11:41am
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Autumn - Just fyi, my other posts are pretty much about marketing, so you might check those out if you need any mkg tips! (how many weak words did I 'just' use???) ; )
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Comment by Autumn on September 27, 2011 at 11:35am -
Jan ~ I'm glad I did too! :) I'm new and still finding my way around the site but love it so far. :D And thanks for the tip ~ I'm not sure why I always forget to use that feature but I'm definitely going to start the habit. (and yes I realize that I've started a sentence with "and". lol!) I've noticed that there are words/phrases that I tend to overuse - not so much that they are overused in general but that I personally fall into the same pattern.
Bridget ~ too funny! lol!
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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on September 27, 2011 at 11:30am
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Bridget you are too funny!
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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on September 27, 2011 at 11:26am
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Hi Autumn - glad you came by today! And, here's a trick for doing search and find: Use the find feature and highlight all of a particular word, then move on the the next word, and so on. Once all of the 'weak' words are highlighted, you just need to go back through once and work on the highlighted words - it has been a great timesaver for me!!!
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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on September 27, 2011 at 11:24am
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Tia - so right! You can get away with more in the dialogue. And, not all of these words should be changed and never used - just not overused, which creates an entire work that doesn't 'work'!
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Comment by Bridget Straub on September 27, 2011 at 11:23am -
I agree in dialogue it sometimes works really well. And yes I'm aware that I "just" used "really" and "well". lol
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Comment by Tia Silverthorne Bach on September 27, 2011 at 11:06am -
Yet I use all of these don'ts in dialogue, because it's a true representation of how people speak. It's hard to remember as a writer and editor to switch back and forth. ;-)
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Comment by Autumn on September 27, 2011 at 11:05am
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Thanks for posting this, Jan, I needed the reminder as I continue to edit.
Diane, that's a great tip ~ a friend had mentioned using the search feature on her short stories but I always forget to utilize it! Also the comment about background noise ~ loved that, thank-you.
Saundra, loved the link ~ especially the Justin Reilly. lol! :)
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