This week: Just Like That Edited by: Annette  
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| "I certainly self-police my language depending on who I'm talking to. I try to be very careful about using filler words, about not drawling certain vowels, even when I can't say "drawl" without drawling. That's kind of sad, because self-policing inhibits communication. You're more focused on the words coming out of your mouth or that should not be coming out of your mouth than making a connection with the person you're speaking to." Kory Stamper is a lexicographer and former associate editor for the Merriam-Webster family of dictionaries. She is the author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (Pantheon, 2017). |
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Just Like That
I came across this conversation about filler words on the newsfeed today "Note: Question. When you check a word count, do you ta...".
Clearly, there is a lot of self-censoring going on for the sake of erasing repetition and avoiding words that don't add anything to a text.
There are times when it is imperative to write as concisely as possible. Eight word stories, flash fiction, micro blogging, or texting are examples when one word can quickly be one too many.
In creating short stories, longer short stories, novellas, and novels our job is to move an idea or image from our mind into the mind of the reader. The best way to do that is by using straightforward language. Several of the commercially most successful books are written at elementary school reading comprehension levels. Not all of these books are meant for young readers. It's simply that the average person who chooses a novel over TV still just wants to be able to kick back and get engrossed in a story.
As writers, most of us here have our pet peeve words. For a while, I thought "was" was a bad word. I agree that "was" is not always the best word. On the other hand, it is a word that is sometimes needed to make a sentence grammatically correct. Rather than flip through a thesaurus and insert some word's tertiary meaning and make my readers wonder what I'm going on about, why not just leave it at "was" and let the story itself do the work.
Yes. Revise and edit your stories. If a word is in the wrong place or it doesn't need to be there, move it or erase it.
No. Don't attach oversized importance to a few, small words and think that you're a bad writer. If a reviewer's only comment is that you used "too much of this" or "too much of that," without any further elaboration, then that person was simply lazy. There are a few one-size-fits-all reviewing phrases that could be thrown at any story or book and if you squint hard enough, it would stick.
That doesn't mean that type of criticism is valid for your text. If the a reviewer dumps an all-purpose "you have too many this, that'n the other" and leaves you hanging, chances are that person has not actually read your story. They may have perused the words, but did they let the story happen to themselves? Did they really feel your story out? Did they let your words wash over them and allow your fictional world to take them away?
Which words or phrases do you think should be used minimally in creative writing? |
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Replies to my last For Authors newsletter "The Best Writing Advice" that asked What bit of writing advice that you got has stayed with you and helped you?
Damon Nomad  wrote: Another good newsletter Annette , pushing the story aside and coming back to it before editing and revising is critically important. As well as "exercise", write more stories to learn and refine your skills.
Thank you. And you are so correct that setting a story aside for a while before editing can make all the difference. |
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For Authors: January 17, 2024 Issue [#12366]
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