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

Are

Was

Were

Has

Had

Have

Have Been

Did

Does

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.

Just

Well

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

Tags: active, craft, passive, show, writing

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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on October 5, 2011 at 7:16am: You are most welcome Colleen!

Comment by Colleen Green on October 2, 2011 at 12:52pm: good advice! Thanks!

Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on October 1, 2011 at 10:35am: Hey Victoria - thanks for commenting! My biggies are 'that' , 'seemed' and 'was'. It seemed like that was all I was looking for during my line edits! haha

Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on October 1, 2011 at 10:32am: Hey Maggi - You are most welcome!

Comment by Victoria Landis on October 1, 2011 at 8:15am: Good list. Thanks. I'm guilty of overusing 'just' and 'so'. I think the comment by Chloe Jeffreys was an excellent point, too. Women do tend to 'soften' things. It took me years to learn to stop apologizing for things I had nothing to do with.

Comment by Maggi Summerhill on October 1, 2011 at 7:20am: Thanks Jan.

Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on October 1, 2011 at 5:48am: Thanks for visiting Kay Dee! Best of luck to you!!!

Comment by Kay Dee Royal on October 1, 2011 at 4:27am: Hey - thanks Jan. I like to collect these little gems (your article & those like it) - anything to help my editing process.

I appreciate you sharing your wisdom and expertise.

Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on September 30, 2011 at 8:01pm: Hi Monica! Thank you so much for commenting and pointing us to Chris Roerden's book!!! Have a great weekend! Jan

Comment by Monica Epstein on September 30, 2011 at 7:10pm: Thanks for the post, Jan. Those words are on my list of things to look for during my next edit.

I'd like to mention a book that I have found to be extremely useful. In addition to discussing overused and unnecessary words, it covers many other topics to improve your final manuscript. It is called Don't Sabotage Your Submission, and it's written by Chris Roerden.