I apologize for making you wait, but I'm in the midst of an editing quagmire, i.e. 2nd round (reread and revise) of my WIP, Camellia's Choice. In light of that, I decided to post my checklist, a truck load of words and phrases to cull from my story. I know it will seem a tedious, overwhelming task to many, but it really does the job. The first stage of it, anyway. Ah yes, there will be more! As if that's not bad enough, I run through my manuscript one word at a time. Go ahead and count. Yep. That's ... hmm ... around sixty-some? Imagine that. Scanning through 300 or so pages sixty times? No. I confess. I don't do that many. I search each word to see how many times I've used it. If it comes in at a low number, I skip it. Otherwise, maybe one or three years from now, you'd be finding me in a padded cell, gone cuckoo with my mind stuck in editing gear, words trolling through my brain while I sputter and spout all sorts of nonsense. Talk about nonsense ... let me stop, now, and get to that list.
felt
·
decide(d)
·
notice(d)
· realise(d)
·
watch(ed)
·
saw
·
heard
·
thought
·
wonder(ed)
·
look(ed)
·
seem(ed)
·
knew
·
begin/began/begun to
·
start to
·
about to
would
·
could
·
a bit,
·
a little,
·
about,
·
actually,
·
almost,
·
almost like,
·
already,
·
appears,
·
approximately,
·
basically,
·
close to,
·
even,
·
eventually,
·
exactly,
·
fairly,
·
finally,
·
here,
·
highly,
·
instead
·
just,
·
just then,
·
kind of,
·
mostly,
·
nearly,
·
now
·
only
·
practically,
·
pretty,
·
quite,
·
rather,
·
really,
·
simply,
·
slightly,
·
so,
·
some of
·
somehow,
·
somewhat,
·
somewhat like,
·
sort of,
·
suddenly,
·
that
·
then,
·
there,
·
truly,
·
utterly,
·
very
*Phrases to shorten:
·
in front of (before,
ahead)
·
at the back (behind)
·
out of (from, away,
beyond)
·
off of (off)
“Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.”
-Raymond Chandler
Happy writing and editing!
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