Filler Words

You’ve probably heard that you should revise to remove “filler words.” There are whole lists of filler words that are commonly overused. For example, “just” is often unnecessary. So is “very.” (There are more colorful ways of indicating that something is ‘very good,’ but that’s a topic for a different day.)

What I want to point out here is that individual writers often have their own personal filler words. There are words and phrases that YOU may overuse even if other writers don’t. For example, I use the qualifier “a little” far too often.

Example 1: “Honora’s eyes blurred a little as she blinked back tears.”

Just a page later, that filler phrase crops up again: “Honora’s angry heart softened a little at the sight.“

In both cases, “a little” is completely unnecessary. “Honora’s eyes blurred as she blinked back tears” and “Honora’s angry heart softened at the sight” both work better.

Words like “feel,” “see,” and “hear” also sometimes place an unnecessary barrier between the reader and the character.

Example 2: “Maddie felt her face begin to burn.”

Try removing “felt”: “Maddie’s face began to burn.” Shorter and stronger!

But in this case, the sentence might be made even more concrete: “Maddie’s cheeks burned with shame.”

“Began to” is another phrase that I sometimes overuse. You do sometimes need words that indicate when something starts, but I don’t need that phrase nearly as often as I think. Consider this example:

Example 3: “A sweet mellowness had begun to fill her bones.”

Try taking out “begun to” and the sentence becomes:

“A sweet mellowness filled her bones.”

I like that much better, because it’s short, sweet, and strong.

Avoid Repetition!

People often talk about filler words as being problematic in that they add to word count without contributing much. But when it comes to you personal filler words, the other problem is that repeating a word too often can annoy readers.

For example, the early versions of my first Regency fantasy romance, Secrets and Visions, frequently used the word “hardly.”

I used “hardly” in constructions like this:

Example 1: “This was hardly the first time I had had recurring visions, of course.”

Or like this:

Example 2: “That hardly seems likely,” Papa said, but he said it slowly, as if he were considering the idea.

As you can see, I used “hardly” as a way of negating something. I could have simply written “It wasn’t the first time I’d had recurring visions” or “That seems unlikely.” Using “hardly” added to the distinctive voice of the manuscript. Christina Morton, the narrator, was partial to that expression. Other narrators of mine wouldn’t have used it.

The problem is that I used “hardly” far too often! In fact, the word showed up 150 times in the second draft of the manuscript. Even I got annoyed by it after awhile. In later revisions, I replaced “hardly” with other constructions, except when I felt it really worked best. The most recent draft of Secrets and Visions uses “hardly” only 59 times.

Every writer has their own filler words. My guess is that you, my reader, don’t overuse the word “hardly” the way I did. But there are probably other words that you use too often. Learning which words you overuse can give you more direction when you revise.

As things get weirder on social media, I’m going through my old Tweets and deleting snippets that I posted as examples of Sentence Level Revision. Since I don’t want to lose all my examples, I’m going to share more of them here. Expect a few more of these Sentence Level Revisions post!

First, we’re going to take a look at the dreaded verb “to be.” You may have been told to avoid it. As I’ve said in previous posts, it’s not always possible to avoid is/was/were, etc. Don’t worry about using “to be” when you really need it. But DO be on the alert for places where a stronger or more colorful verb could be employed.

Example 1: “Consequently, I was exhausted and quiet at dinner.”

You don’t actually need “to be” in this sentence. There are more direct ways to word it.

Try this instead: “By dinner time, I had faded into exhausted silence.”

“Faded” is a more active verb, and “faded into exhausted silence” may also paint a clearer picture of someone who’s dragging at the end of the day. My next example is similar:

Example 2: “I was very surprised to hear a knock at the door”

Revised, this becomes: “A knock at the door startled me.”

This revision avoids the use of “was” by switching the order of the sentence and swapping in an active verb.

Finally, the example below involves a much more specific verb choice.

Example 3: “The seriousness with which she spoke was disrupted by a mischievous smile.”

Becomes:

“A mischievous smile belied the seriousness with which she spoke.”

“Belied” isn’t a word that most writers use often, and it might not work if you write with a more contemporary voice than I do. But I think “belied” works well in the above example, which is from a historical romance.

Revising for stronger verbs isn’t just about avoiding the verb “to be.” Sometimes it’s about replacing a GOOD verb with a BETTER verb: a verb that’s more specific, more concrete, more colorful, or packs more sensory detail.

Example 4: “I looked forward to a slice of that pie.”

Revise it for more sensory impact, and you get: “My mouth watered for a slice of that pie.”

Sometimes revising for verbs involves using a colorful verb rather than a pedestrian verb coupled with an adverb. Have you heard the advice to avoid adverbs in your writing? Again, this is a tip that I think can be taken too far. Adverbs aren’t the devil, and they can be very useful! I don’t think you need to avoid them all the time.

But there’s a grain of truth to the advice, because using a more colorful or more specific verb can render an adverb unnecessary. Take this example:

Example 5: “and he spoke more gently”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with “spoke.” But you can make this phrase shorter and more direct:

“and his voice gentled.”

“Gentled” is a lovely word, and when you use it, you don’t need an adverb to modify “spoke.”

Here’s a similar example from RUNES AND RUIN.

Example 6: “You don’t usually want my advice,” Carrington said sleepily.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using “sleepily” here, but there may be other ways to convey that Carrington is just waking up.

Try this: “You don’t usually want my advice,” Carrington mumbled.

In context, “mumbled” helps convey his not-quite-alert-yet state. Other clues, like yawning or rubbing his eyes, may make it clearer that he’s still sleepy.

Keep in mind that when we’re talking about sentence level revision, we’re not always talking about revisions for which there are clear-cut rules. These revision tips are not about grammar errors, but about writing style or personal taste. Some writers will disagree with my tips, or think I should have made other word choices. And that’s ok! Take what you can use and leave whatever isn’t helpful behind!

Today I’m going to talk about one of my pet peeves. I don’t know why comma splices bother me so much, but they do. When I see a traditionally-published book with multiple comma splices, I tend to think worse of the publisher. (Sorry.) One of the things editors or proofreaders should do is look for comma errors, right? (Please tell me I’m right!)

Okay, so what’s a comma splice? The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University has a good explanation. Basically, it’s when two independent clauses are linked by only a comma. What if you don’t remember what an “independent clause” is? No worries: the OWL covers that, too! In simple terms, an independent clause can stand on its own as a complete sentence.

There are specific rules for how to combine two complete, individual sentences. If you struggle with this, don’t be embarrassed. You’re in good company! In my experience, lots of writers don’t know these rules.

Here’s an example of a comma splice: “The dog was hungry, its owner forgot to feed it.“

Why is that a comma splice? Because “The dog was hungry” and “its owner forgot to feed it” can both stand on their own as separate sentences. A comma is not “strong” enough to link two separate sentences.

One of the ways to fix that comma splice is to break the sentence up: “The dog was hungry. Its owner forgot to feed it.” That’s grammatically correct. If you use a lot of short sentences like that, some people may consider the writing to be “choppy,” but that’s a style issue.

There are other options to fix that problem, though. Perhaps the easiest is to use a conjunction: “The dog was hungry because its owner forgot to feed it.“

Some conjunctions need a comma, too. As I tell my students, a comma and a conjunction is “stronger” than a comma alone.

“The dog was hungry, and its owner forgot to feed it.”

Sometime important to notice about the above examples is that they don’t mean the same thing. How you combine two clauses can change the meaning of the sentence.

Another way to fix a comma splice is to use a different punctuation mark. Some punctuation marks are “stronger” than commas and can combine two independent clauses without the use of a conjunction. This includes the dreaded semicolon, which gets a lot of hate. Personally, I love semicolons. I think they’re elegant. But some editors disagree, so be cautious in using them!

Here’s an example of semicolon use from one of my manuscripts:

Lord Inglewhite would have made an excellent husband; she was certain of that.

“Lord Inglewhite would have made an excellent husband” is a complete sentence. So is “She was certain of that.” Therefore, joining the two clauses with a comma alone would be ungrammatical, though that error is very common.

Lord Inglewhite would have made an excellent husband, she was certain of that.

That’s a comma splice. Similarly, it would be ungrammatical to remove the semicolon and replace it with nothing, like this:

Lord Inglewhite would have made an excellent husband she was certain of that.

That’s a run-on sentence.

As usual, there’s more than one way to fix that problem. For instance, you could reword the sentence to make it simpler:

She was certain that Lord Inglewhite would have made an excellent husband.

Alternatively, you could reword the whole thing to avoid the use of “was.”

She knew Lord Inglewhite would have made an excellent husband.

Or break it into two seperate sentences:

Lord Inglewhite would have made an excellent husband. She was certain of that.

For this example, breaking the sentence into two works quite well. If I wanted to remove the semicolon, that’s probably how I’d punctuate it. Again, though, that’s a matter of taste.

By the way, the character in question in this example is absolutely right: Lord Inglewhite IS good husband material! He’s a sweet, soft cinnamon roll, and I can’t wait to introduce him to readers!

Have you noticed that people in the writing community sometimes have strong feelings about dialogue tags? Some people hate them. Some people defend them. And some people insist one should never use a word other than “said” in a dialogue tag.

Sorry to disappoint anyone, but I am not going to weigh in on the debate about using tags other than “said.” Instead, I’m going to talk about using action beats (also called action tags) as an alternative to dialogue tags. Most of the time, this is my preferred method of handling dialogue. Action tags make it clear who’s speaking without requiring direct “he said” or “she murmured” tags.

Example One

Here’s an example of a traditional dialogue tag:

“I know, Mother,” he said, trying not to show his irritation.

There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that line, but it could just as easily be rewritten without the dialogue tag:

“I know, Mother.” He tried not to show his irritation.

One of my Twitter followers suggested substituting “He bit back his irritation,” which uses a stronger verb. I approve!

Example Two

Here’s a case where a wordy line can be simplified.

“You met her, then?” he asked, though it was hard to force the words out.

This line can be shortened considerably while also avoiding the verb “to be.”

“You met her, then?” He struggled to force the words out.

Example Three

Keep in mind that revisions don’t always reduce word count. Sometimes it takes MORE words to strengthen a line. For example,

“Where is my notebook?” I muttered.

That’s short and direct. Simple is often best, and in some cases, this would be ideal. But you could also use an action beat here, if you preferred.

I looked about in confusion. “Where is my notebook?”

As the above example shows, action beats aren’t just an alternative to dialogue tags. They can also help readers better picture what’s going on during the conversation. This helps you avoid the problem of having “talking heads” just chatting back and forth for long stretches.

Example Four

Action beats can also help you picture a character’s facial expressions, as in this example from THE LADY, THE WOLF, AND THE ROSE:

“Just a scratch?” My jaw dropped. “It’s going to need stitches!” I closed my mouth and swallowed uneasily as I studied the injury.

That line makes it clear that the narrator (a woman named Janet, if you’re curious) is the one talking, but without using a direct dialogue tag.

A Word of Caution

It’s important to remember that dialogue tags or action beats are sometimes necessary. You need to make it clear which character is talking, especially if there are more than two characters involved in a conversation. Even where there are only two characters talking, too much back and forth without dialogue tags can make it hard to follow the conversation. I’ve read published books in which it was hard to figure out who said what when three characters conversed together. Throw in the occasional tag or action beat to help keep your readers on track!