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My Favorite Hugs and Chocolate Posts

26 Dec

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need – Jesslee Cuizon

What a good year it’s been over here! I though that the best way for me to end off things would be to share a few of the post by the wonderful ladies I share this blog with. If any of the links go to places they shouldn’t, please let me know.

It’s been such a pleasure getting to know all of you this year. I’m giving all of you big virtual bear hugs. I can’t wait to see what next year will bring us.

It’s been an honor, ladies and gentlemen.

Jamie Raintree

My Romance With Writing

Who Cares About Writers?

Instruction Manual for a Full-Time Writer

Why Character Archetypes Aren’t Just About Commercialism

Why I Heart Scrivener for Outlining

How to NaNoWriMo During Thanksgiving

Tonia Marie Houston

Bring Your Shovel

St. Patrick and the Writer’s Trinity

Gift Ideas for the Writer in Your Life

33 And It Feels Divine

Give Your Characters Quirk

Synopsis Fundamentals

Heather L Reid

Learn to Love Writing Queries

Dream Big and Never Give Up: How I Landed a 2 Book Publishing Deal

The Third Perspective: Why I Love Third Person Narrative

The First Editorial Letter: Let the Revisions Begin… Again

Riding the Revision Coaster: Completing My 30 Day Deadline

Rebecca Fields

What If…

Luck of the Irish?

The Magic of Fairy Tales

A World of Ideas

Pardon Me, Social Media

Read A (Banned) Book

Courtney Koschel

Filtering Filter Words in Your Writing

Questions to ask When Hiring an Editor

I Suck Syndrome: Recognize it and Beat it

Giving and Getting the Most Out of Critiques

Common Comma Issues

Manuscript Formatting

Jani Grey

Support from the obvious places

Need a little motivation or inspiration? I have some of that for you

Personal Perspective: Why I write 1st person POV

Let me tell you why you’re a winner

The Small Things

Why the subject of your blog post is so very important

Guest Posts

Visualize Your Way to Success: Guest Post by Vaughn Roycroft

DIY Editing and Proofreading Part 1 with Karen S. Elliot

Editing, Proofreading, and a Contest with Karen S. Elliot

Pants on Fire: Guest Post by Laura Long

Guest Post by Brian Taylor: Take a Walk… On a Tightrope: One Writer’s Journey

I’ll see you next year. Have a happy and safe new year!

 
4 Comments

Posted by on December 26, 2012 in Banned, Blogging, Books, Characters, Critique, Critique Groups, Editing, Editing and Proofreading, Guest Posts, Inspiration, Just For Fun, Links, Motivation, NaNoWriMo, Plot, Point of View, Revision, Setting, Social Media, Support, synopsis, Writing

 

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Delete! Delete! Delete!

09 May

A while ago Courtney did a great post of filter words: Filtering Filter Words in Your Writing, and I thought I’d expand a bit on it.

Since we’re doing lists this month, I LOVE LISTS, I thought I’d share with you the special words I’ve collected over the last year or so. These are all words that are overused, intensifiers, things that promote tell instead of show, and words that are just generally unnecessary. Some of them are from personal experience, pointed out to me by one of my CPs Ladonna Watkins(with each manuscript I lose the old ones and pick up a new word or two, this time around it’s because), others I’ve seen in blog posts and tweets. I collect them all in what I call my novel notebook. Whenever I’m done with a MS, the first thing I do is start on this list and delete/replace all the words on my Delete List. I do this three times, once after the first draft, then again right before I send the novel to my CPs, then one last time after I’ve gone through my CPs’ notes and made the changes. It takes some time but at the end of the day it’s worth the effort.

So without further ado, here are the evil words! I’ll bold the ones I’m guilty of, just for fun.

Really

Very

Pretty

A little

Look

Feel in all its forms

Look in all its forms

Turn in all its forms

That

Had

was -ing

Probably

Possibly

Simply

Totally

Supposedly

Seriously

Terribly

Allegedly

Quite

Sort of

Kind of

Usually

Extremely

Almost

Mostly

Practically

Actually

Suddenly

Finally

Something

Just

Like

This/these

There was/were

There are

What else

Seem

It is

As if

Began to

Intensifiers:

Absolute

Awesome

Fabulous

Fantastic

Incredible

Magnificent

Terrific

Wonderful

*Back

*Eyes

Here’s a link with more, feel free to stop by: The Search-and-Find Feature

Have you got words to add to the list?

*Words added from the comments.

 
13 Comments

Posted by on May 9, 2012 in Craft, Writing

 

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Filtering Filter Words in Your Writing

24 Feb

image from Wikipedia

Editing. Is it painful? Yes. Is it necessary? Yes. I’ve been an editor for seven years and counting. I’m still learning about the craft of writing and editing on a daily basis. One thing that’s really helped make my writing stronger is taking out filter words.

What are filter words? You know when you’re reading a story and you just can’t connect to the characters? You want to like the story, but there’s something about it keeping you from experiencing the story with the character.

On Writing by Janet Burroway has a good section on filter words. “Filtering is when the writer forces the reader to look at rather than through the point of view character’s eyes” (Burroway 2010). Deleting these words shows the reader what’s going on instead of telling. They distance the reader from the story. It’s one extra step the reader has to take in order to experience action with the character. Only use filter words when it’s critical to the meaning of a sentence. Here’s a list of filter words I’ve compiled over the years. Look out for these in your manuscript (this is for past and present tense):

  • can
  • to hear
  • to look
  • to realize
  • to notice
  • to feel
  • to touch
  • seem
  • to know
  • to start
  • to sound like
  • to seem
  • to think
  • to see
  • to decide
  • to watch
  • to wonder
  • begin
  • to try

Here are some basic examples. Of course you’ll want to add some flavor with the sentences, but this is just to help you get an idea of how filtering out distance words make a sentence stronger.

With filtering word: The white cat started licking its paws.

Without: The white cat licked its paws.

Why would the cat start to lick its paws? Why not have the cat just lick its paws? Make it immediate. Take that extra step out of the equation.

With filtering words: I heard the woman scream for help.

Without filtering words: “Help me!” the woman screamed.

Why did we have to be told the woman screamed instead of shown? Do a search for these words in your manuscript. Delete them and replace them with more vivid imagery to make it more immediate.

Can you think of any other filter words I can add to my list?

 
19 Comments

Posted by on February 24, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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