My word to stomp out in almost every situation is "somehow." I was SO guilty of overusing it early in my writing to try and introduce a touch of mystery. It was a terrible use of the word.
AGREED. It’s one of those words I’d categorize as a writing tic. I’ve also seen it used when writers are secretly worried that things aren’t making logical sense and they want to skip over the need to explain, and tell the reader to skip over it, too.
Great one! I may be guilty of that so I will begin hunting it down...So much of this is really about mindfulness, it occurs to me. These words roll off our fingertips, we're not thinking about them. And good writing requires thoughtfulness.
My word to stomp out in almost every situation is "somehow." I was SO guilty of overusing it early in my writing to try and introduce a touch of mystery. It was a terrible use of the word.
AGREED. It’s one of those words I’d categorize as a writing tic. I’ve also seen it used when writers are secretly worried that things aren’t making logical sense and they want to skip over the need to explain, and tell the reader to skip over it, too.
Suddenly, I realized that I needed to remove that word from novel manuscript.
Ha, you DO. I will accept that you are still processing and allow this usage.
I loved this post!
Another word I often cut is "currently."
He is currently editor of ...
She currently lives at ...
They are currently investigating ...
Not necessary!
Great one! I may be guilty of that so I will begin hunting it down...So much of this is really about mindfulness, it occurs to me. These words roll off our fingertips, we're not thinking about them. And good writing requires thoughtfulness.
I just learned something! Thank you.
This was great. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for reading! So glad you enjoyed :)
You're welcome!
Great advice. Fire up the find and delete function.