As writers, we often use words in our novels that become repetitive, boring, cliche or unnatural. I'll teach you what you need to cut from your stories, inner monologues and dialogues to make your writing simply flow better and grab your readers attention. As readers We all have those paragraphs that we tend to skip over, because they're simply too plain. Here's how to make sure your readers don't do that to your novel.
1. Filter Words
(Seem, thought, feel, realised Etc).
These types of words have no real purpose other than to slow down the pacing of your story. Specially when writing suspense or fight scenes - You want your sentences short and choppy in these scenario to built a sense of fast movement and struggle.
2. Adverbs
Replace adverbs with stronger verbs and nouns - this will make your writing more impactful.
3. "Down" And "Up"
An example: "she sat down" - the 'down' in this sentence is unnecessary because the direction is already implied through the word 'sat'. We don't want your readers reading unnecessary words - it's boring.
4. "That"
this word normally isn't needed and the sentence works just fine without it. cut that filter out and get to the point.
5. "Really" And "Very"
these words tend to reduce the impact of a sentence and can make an otherwise normal sentence long and wordy. (Note: this rule normally doesn't apply for dialogue).
6. "Then"
Not every action needs to be separated from one another. For example "Anna picks up her backpack then walks to the door. Then she opens the door and walks into the front yard". where's the flow in that? To improve this sentence, consider this: "Anna grabs her backpack and leaves the house". Short and simple.
7. Overusing Articles (A, An, The)
"The Wind blows her hair" could just be "wind blows her hair". Try using comas instead of overusing articles.
8. "Starts" And "Begins"
The phrase "She starts walking towards the door" is boring and overused. "She walks to the door" gets to the point quicker. descriptions of actions, more often than not, only need to be subtle - your readers aren't dumb, they can follow along just fine without you spoon feeding them every action.
9. "Somehow" And "Seems To"
We don't use these words in our own inner monologue, so why include them in your book? Most writers do this because they think it makes their characters sound natural. In reality though, it just makes your characters seem slow and constantly unsure of themselves. For example, "he seemed to be mad" makes the emotions appear unclear and the MC not emotionally intelligent. But when compared to "His face tightened with anger", your readers get a visual image and can understand what is happening better.
10. "Suddenly"
Oh my God, why would you warn your readers that something's about to happen right before it happens? All this does is makes the event even less sudden in the first place.
For example, "She was sitting in science class before suddenly, out of nowhere, the lights went out." compared to: "she was sitting in the middle of science class when the room went dark". The second version is Much more of a sudden surprise, right?