Excess verbiage is a prime culprit behind a choppy reading experience and a bloated word count. Little redundancies can pile up over the course of a novel and add tens of thousands of extra words.
When I’m line editing a manuscript, there are several common phrases that instantly get cut because they are almost always non-additive.
Find and delete these phrases and your future readers will thank you.
“the sound of” / “the color of”
Example: He heard the sound of footsteps approaching along the path, which had a dark green color.
By definition, if a character hears something it’s because there’s a sound. You don’t need to note the existence of a sound. You can just tell us what they hear.
Similarly, colors are almost always self-evident. You don’t need to point out that something is “a blueish color.” It can just be blueish.
Corrected: He heard footsteps approaching along the dark green path.
“what seems to be” / “what looks like”
Example: She sees what looks like thirty to fifty soldiers approaching in the distance.
Sure, maybe it’s a hazy day and your protagonist needs bifocals. There’s almost never anything to be gained by hesitating with physical description.
Even if you want to pull the rug on your protagonist and it’s actually something other than soldiers approaching, it still doesn’t really help to first hesitate. They can just first be soldiers, oh wait now that they’re closer they’re definitely trained monkeys in uniforms.
And same with numbers. Even if the protagonist doesn’t have time to count the precise number of soldiers approaching, the reader isn’t going to bat an eye if you just give us the amount.
You’re the author. Just tell us what things are.
Corrected: She sees forty soldiers approaching in the distance.
“presently” / “suddenly” / “immediately”
Example: Presently, Nathan returned to his blog post.
You could delete the word “presently” from every book ever written and no one would even notice it’s gone.
Suddenly and immediately may, very occasionally, have their place to convey urgency, but chances are the event that follows those words is dramatic enough on its own that you don’t need to prime the reader that something’s about to happen.
Just let things happen.
Corrected: Nathan returned to his blog post.
“decides to” / “chooses to”
Example: He decides to start running into the forest.
Much like a sound, a choice is almost always self-evident. If you do the thing you’ve decided to do, the decision is apparent. You don’t need to tell us something has been decided.
You also don’t need to tell us something has started happening. If it happens, we know it’s started without needing to be told. Clear out the clutter around those verbs!
Corrected: He runs into the forest.
“of the”
Example: He tried to get the attention of the waiter.
This is not necessarily an auto-delete, but it’s at least worth a gut check. Most of the time, it reads more naturally and more modernly to simply move the object forward and use a possessive apostrophe that avoids the awkward “of the.” Like so: “He tried to get the waiter’s attention.”
The reason this isn’t an auto-delete is because there are some times you may want to employ a slightly more old-fashioned feeling tone, or, if you’re going to provide description of the object, it may read more smoothly to use “of the.” For instance:
“He tried to get the attention of the waiter wearing neon green suspenders” reads more smoothly than:
“He tried to get the waiter wearing neon green suspenders’ attention.”
Corrected: He tried to get the waiter’s attention.
[X] knew / [X] thought / [X] believed / [X] saw / [X] heard / etc.
Example: Nathan saw storm clouds gathering and heard the clap of distant thunder. He knew rain was on the way.
Particularly when the perspective is first person or third person limited, it’s self-evident that if something is on the page the anchoring character has seen it, heard it, etc. If there are beliefs on the page, it’s self-evident that the anchoring character believes them. We don’t need an “[X] believed that…” preamble.
The exception to this would be if the perspective is omniscient and it’s important to connect the observation to a particular character, or, in very limited instances, when it feels important to emphasize the importance of the act of observing itself. But those are rare, and you should really only need to take that approach a few times over the course of the novel.
Corrected: Storm clouds gathered and thunder clapped in the distance. Rain was on the way.
“started to” / “began to”
Example: Nathan started to run out the door.
I have a whole post on clearing out clutter around your verbs, and a big one involves pointing out that a character is starting to do something. Unless the interruption is the point of the description (for example, “Nathan started to run out the door but tripped on the dog”), just delete the “started to” or “began to” and make the verb more active like so:
Corrected: Nathan ran out the door.
“there was” / “there were”
Example: There was a massive explosion that rattled the attic.
“Was” and “were” are danger words in general, and it’s often advantageous to make your writing more engaging and propulsive by turning formulations like “Nathan was sprinting” into “Nathan sprinted.”
This goes doubly for physical description. You don’t need to point out “There was” an explosion. The explosion can just happen:
Corrected: A massive explosion rattled the attic.
“to himself/herself” / “out loud”
Example: Why do people do this? Nathan thought to himself. “It’s already apparent thoughts are interior and dialogue is said aloud,” he said out loud.
If a character thinks something, unless you specify otherwise or if ESP is an important power in your story, it’s self-evident the character is thinking it to themselves. If a character says something, unless you specify otherwise it’s self-evident it’s being said out loud.
Corrected: Why do people do this? Nathan thought. “It’s already apparent thoughts are interior and dialogue is said aloud,” he said.
I’m planning to keep updating this post as I come across more perennially redundant phrases. Do you have any to add?
Originally published July 1, 2024
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Art: Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio
I “very” much agree with this. Another phrase I’m finding in my own writing is “and then.” Thank you for all of your advice!
Nathan! I just did a search for “the sound of” in my manucript and found 17 of the suckers. I found that replacing them not only made the sentences shorter, but they often made me recraft the sentence or in some cases sentenceS so they were much clearer and less passive. I thought there was one sentence that was an exception and then revisited it and realized that NO, it too needed to be recrafted.
As I’ve been working on the second draft of my WIP, I’ve found several of these “ticks” in my writing, but I can’t recall them off the top of my head. I’m taking another dive for your other phrases now and will be on the lookout for others. Thank you for these!!
They can sneak up on you! Glad you found it helpful!
Looked, looked at, saw, heard. Most of the time you can just state those happening or change up, as using ‘looked to.’
Especially if the story is in first person, it is obvious to the reader that the narrator is seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. these various things. Sometimes, for the sake of pacing perhaps, a sentence like “I saw Fred walking toward me” works, but most of the time “Fred walked toward me” indicates the obvious: the narrator sees this.
A fellow writer in my critique group uses language construction like this all the time, and it really slows down the pace and power of the story. “I felt my body begin to tingle with fear” is so much more “squishy” than “I tingled with fear.”
Another construction that drives me crazy (which I see frequently in the work of a number of writers in my group) is “[Somebody] started to begin to …” Just say it! Once these people get past this kind of “throat-clearing,” they have dynamic, powerful stories that astonish me.
Oh $#%@ I found “suddenly” 58x
Thanks for the tips. I’m revising now and will watch out for these mistakes.
For me it is the word “just.” My character “just got back from the store” or “just wanted to” or “just thought.” I cringe every time I write it, but I always leave it in until the edits.
That’s one of mine too!
Oh, yes! Guilty!
This is quite a helpful list, Nathan. Thanks a bunch!
Helping verbs like would/should and all the forms of “to be.” Also, She had a smile on her face vs She smiled.
Great topic. I’ve gotta go clean now.
Yeah – where else would her smile be?
Another obvious unnecessary one is “shrugged his shoulders.” What else can one shrug, other than shoulders?
Great list, thank you! I keep a list of phrases I know I fall back on, and I don’t worry about them for the first draft while I’m getting the story on the page. I use it while revising, though, and I’ll add your suggestions to it.
I have a “crutch word” list for revising my own work, and when I edit others’ work, I create a crutch word list for them, too. Very useful to highlight one’s weaknesses and repetition and to strengthen one’s prose. I set up my lists in an Excel file, so I can check off words when I complete my cruise-through for them.
Thanks for this, Nathan! I’ve got one to add: “I found myself . . .” as in, “I found myself wondering about the stars.” How about, “I wondered about the stars.”
“Presently” does not mean “in the present moment”; it means “in the near future.” “Currently” is what people mean when they say “presently.” English can be confusing. (Don’t get me started on “further” and “farther.”)
This editor, who edits mostly nonfiction and is sometimes tasked with reducing word count, has a whole table of phrases and their shorter replacements (which may be simply no words). A few of the common “just cut” sentence starters (in the trade, we call these “throat clearings”):
“It turns out (that), I’m here to tell you that, The truth is that, In actual fact, When it comes down to it” and a personal favorite, “As you most certainly know by now.”
Finally, “[X] is something that” — just [X]!
I found over 300 uses of the word ‘that’ in my manuscript! Yikes!
I have FOUR “decided to” in my work.
Lip biting turns me off. Most people do not bite their own lips nearly as often as authors say they do. And in first person, the protagonist would not notice her/his own lip biting.
They might sometimes! I noticed it when I was 5 or 6 and switched to biting my nails instead. (But in a moment of crisis I wouldn’t have noticed it!)
Great article! ‘Suddenly’ used to show up very frequently in my manuscripts. Now, I let myself use it in the first draft, but then I do a search for the word and rewrite 98% of them.
Very helpful – I have done all these things. Thank you! 🙂
‘Begin to’ and ‘seemed’ are two I try to take care not to use, but the sneaky things creep in.
‘Then’ is one of my pet hates when critiquing. It’s hardly ever needed.
There are also the filler words like ‘so’ and ‘just’. ‘So’ especially at the beginning of a sentence. Many people do it in speech. It doesn’t work in answer to a question!
Interesting post. I am editing a book now so I searched for these phrases/terms. I only found “the sound of” so I guess I did pretty well. Four of these, which I fixed! Thanks!
Hey there. Many thanks for posting this most helpful article. I will have to check out andfix any of these words and change them.
I had to eliminate so many instances of “seems/ed to” that now I’m allergic to it (I hope.) When I read it in a published book, I’m taken right out of the story. I cringe at least a little.
My worst offender is “apparently”.
Here’s another one:
“I had a woman come into my store the other day …”
Did you go out and find this woman and entice her to come in?
Or is this what really happened:
“A woman came into my store the other day …”