ownworldresident
asked:
Hi! So I recently discovered removing the word 'that' from 90% of my writing actually made it more fluid and hardly impacted the readability. Tiny achievement but very proud of myself as a novice writer ^.^ I was wondering if (other than the up/down one) there were any other tiny tricks for removing superfluous words? Thanks!
theliteraryarchitect
answered:

Great question! Honestly, there are hundreds, but here are a few to get you started.

Words You Can (Usually) Safely Cut from Your Writing

  • That
  • Then
  • Start
  • Begin
  • Suddenly
  • Down
  • Up
  • Kind of
  • Really
  • Just
  • Basically

In general, look out for adverbs (actually, really), “hedging” words (kind of, sometimes), and ambiguous words (nothing, everything, someone). Some can be cut; others will need to be revised or swapped out. “That” is a classic offender. “Then” can usually be changed to “and.” It’s only necessary to qualify that an action was “started” if the action gets interrupted, otherwise it can be cut. (”She started to cry” becomes “She cried”).

I have a detailed, exhaustive list of words like this (with explanations!) in my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, which will be done soon :)

Nice to hear from you & hope this helps!

heywriters

Adding some more:

  • started/began (agh, just realized this was already covered, sorry!)
    • he began to walk toward the door
    • he walked toward the door
  • give
    • she gave a yelp of surprise
    • she yelped in surprise
  • feel
    • he felt an overwhelming feeling of euphoria*
    • he was overwhelmed by euphoria / his euphoria overwhelmed him
  • sound (of)
    • they could hear the sound of footsteps
    • they could hear footsteps
  • over (to)
    • I walked over to the bed
    • I walked to the bed
  • looked/appeared
    • it looked like they were out of milk
    • they were out of milk

DO NOT just delete these words en masse from your draft. Sometimes they really do need to be there. Beginning writers or writers who undervalue quality tend to overuse these words, and it makes the reading stuffy and hard to get through.

For example, “He started to walk toward the door” may be a necessary sentence if something happens before he gets to the door. If there is no reason to explain his process of walking toward the door, delete “started to” and just tell us he made it to the door. Alternately I’ve seen writers leave out that “started to” sentence when it was necessary, causing me to backtrack and reread.

The goal is to improve reading comprehension for the reader and sound like you’re great at this writing thing. Train your eye for useless stuffing words and you’ll eventually be able to pick apart your drafts without the help of lists like this.

*Toned down rewrite of an actual sentence I read with my own two eyes.

Source: theliteraryarchitect