Cut!

Read Holt Uncensored on ten common writing mistakes and how to avoid them. A lot of articles of this nature are interchangeable, but I love this one. It picks up on the overuse of filler words. I think of them as verbal tics. They're pervasive in real life and can make dialog more realistic. But here's what Holt has to say:

"Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally - these and others are words that promise emphasis, but too often they do the reverse. They suck the meaning out of every sentence."

Writing short stories for competitions concentrates the mind because there's usually a word limit. I tend to write the story first, then have to cut a few hundred words to make the limit.

This is incredibly good for my writing.

The cuts happen in several iterations. First time through I remove the obvious dross. Then I think the story's perfect. But I still have to lose 200 words.

I run through a few more times, becoming more ruthless but wincing with each cut. Whole sentences are culled. I become convinced that the story is losing its character.

I take a break. When I come back I'm amazed at how much more effective the pared-down story is. I might still have to eliminate twenty-odd words. Make it forty to be on the safe side. But the few remaining dispensable words tend to leap out on the last run.


Two of the stories I've put through this process benefitted enormously. Sparse prose rules! The third story was just too long for the word limit. It retained its sense after the cuts, but I felt it lost some of its humour. I will probably reinstate much of it before I send it out into the world again.


Cutting ruthlessly throughout my novel would make it so much better. But there are over 300 pages. It'll be no joke. Of course, I discarded some of the dross on previous read-throughs. But while reading Holt's article I did word searches... and an appalling amount of this stuff remains, begging to be hunted down and killed.


I appear to be especially fond of the word 'really'. Really, it's everywhere. It's really scary actually.