February 26, 2010 | Uncategorized
Oh, dear.
I’m doing the last bit of revisions on my next book and, knowing my weaknesses and foibles, decided to do a quick search for use of the word “just” to make sure I hadn’t used it unnecessarily and repetitively.
Um. Well. I have.
I really have. Like, several times on a single page.
Yikes!
Thank God for the delete button.
What’s your bad word?
Lizzie says:
Hi Julie,
I’ve only recently found your site and I now check in every day to see what you’ve got to say,
My words seems to be ’she sighed’ and ushered’. There was far too much sighing and ushering going on!
Lizzie
Julie says:
I understand “sighed”. But “ushered” is very unusual! I must say I’ve never noticed anyone over-using that word. LOL!
I do notice when an author has a “favourite” word, especially if it’s something unusual. The last book I read over-used the word “truly”, and especially as it was used in an odd way, at the beginning of sentences, I really noticed it.
Thanks for visiting and commenting, it’s nice to see you here.
Shirley Wells says:
Mine is ‘just’ too. I, urm, just can’t resist it. Another is ’seemed’. But I have dozens of bad words. When I come to my final polish (aka deleting the rubbish), I’m only surprised I have any words left!
Nicola says:
Dear Julie
I’m ashamed to say I had about 30 ‘a bits’ as it’s a phrase my narrator overuses. Now I think it’s probably ‘then’.
I really enjoy your blog – your posts on character arcs were among the most helpful things I’ve ever read. Good luck with your revising!
N
Suz says:
I overwrite ‘just’ as well. Also the words ‘though’ and ‘that’.
It’s why I’ll be using the overuse word counters at WriteWords:
http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp
http://www.writewords.org.uk/phrase_count.asp
Laura says:
I use far too many ‘looked’, ‘glanced’ and ‘gazed’.
Fiona Harper says:
“Suddenly”. And “shrugged”.
Julie says:
“Just” is the devil, Shirley. I used it SO MUCH, mostly in dialogue. But it has been severely trimmed, and with other revisions I seem to have gained 1000 words on the manuscript despite this. So the justs won’t be missed.
I didn’t check for “seemed”. *shudder*
Julie says:
Nicola, I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the character arc posts. They were really fun to write. I’ll need to do some more craft posts soon, though they take some time so I think I’ll do a bit of writing first.
I am also guilty of “then”. That’s one I notice as I write it, though, and edit as I go. The really evil buggers are the ones you don’t see creeping in there!
Julie says:
Laura, I used to have a lot of trouble with the looking and synonyms. I use it less these days, or notice it less. Maybe it’s because when I edited my first few manuscripts I got so ruthless about cutting it out, that I’ve trained myself to make my characters do things other than look.
It’s a hard word/concept to minimise when you’re writing romance, though (if you’re writing romance) because so much of falling in love, and expressing of emotion, is done through looking. I had to consciously choose to use other senses too.
Julie says:
Fiona, I’m thinking we could probably write the ideal sentence with these words.
“Suddenly, as he ushered her out of the room, he just looked at her a bit and then shrugged, before he seemed to sigh.”
Jan Jones says:
“Just”, “that”, *whispers* “truly”, and also… “jolt”. Yup, jolt.
Julie says:
Jolt?!?
Kate Johnson says:
In my last book it was ‘was’, and ‘were’ as a close second. “She was sitting…” “We were walking…” “I was thinking…” Everything was so passive!
Then again, once I got told off for using the word ‘wanton’ too much. Says something, I’m sure, but what it says I don’t think I want to know!
Julie says:
I am not one of those people who get cheesed off at the presence of the verb “was”. Especially as you say you used it, Kate—”she was sitting” is NOT passive. It is the past continuous tense of the verb “to sit”.
It sort of drives me crazy when people condemn the use of the verb “was” in these situations, because it’s a perfectly legitimate verb tense, and doesn’t imply lack of action.
Sure, use active verbs rather than “to be” or “to seem” or “to become” as much as you can. That’s a good recommendation. But to toss out the past continuous tense, just because it requires an auxiliary verb, is silly. You might as well toss out the future tense because you have to use the word “will” to form it.
“Was thinking” has a completely different meaning than “thought”, and is no less active.
Right. Sorry. Rant over.
“Wanton” can be over-used, I’m sure. Unless you’re talking about the soup kind. Because that is really tasty.
Or is that won ton?
Ehle says:
Just. That. Like. Well. You know? I don’t mean to use them. It’s just that… well, they like just come out, you know?
PS – it’s won ton. Wanton soup is what you get when you forget your safe word…
Kate Johnson says:
I know what you mean about ‘was’ having its place, but its place wasn’t where it, er, was.
To write, “He was holding my hand when I stumbled,” is fine, and that’s where it belongs. Or to have my heroine rambling on (they do this) and then noticing, “He was staring into the distance,” also works. But I had passive little bits like, “He was holding my hand,” without anything else. What I needed was the action of him taking her hand.
Argh. It makes sense to me. (This is the part where I wish I’d learned more about Eng lang so I could actually explain the sentence parts I’m talking about. I understand how it works, but I don’t know the names for it. Stupid modern education.)
Julie says:
It’s the use of the word “passive” that got me going, Kate. What you mean, I think, is that you wanted more action in your novel rather than describing continuous states of being. That makes a lot of sense and is a good tip.
But the passive voice is something completely different—it would be, in your example, “my hand was held by him”. Which also has “was” in it. But it’s not the “was” that makes it passive, it’s the action itself.
I just hear that “don’t use ‘was’ because it’s passive” argument all the time, by people who think it’s gospel, and in fact it’s grammatically inaccurate and just plain wrong, and I’m a damn English teacher at heart so I can’t help it.
Sorry to jump on it. I do in fact agree with what you meant.
Kate Johnson says:
Julie, I wish you’d been my English teacher. They never even tried to each us stuff like this.
Julie says:
I have an awful suspicion that if I’d been your English teacher, I’d be even older than I am now.
Or something like that.
Shelley says:
I recently discovered this blog after reading Girl from Mars, and am pleasantly surprised at how interesting and witty the comments are. I’ll definitely be back for more.
On the word front, I overdo “just” also and find myself going back and deleting it when I’ve gone a “just” too far. I used to write a column that was a humorous take on single life; I opened one up at random and found the word “guy” about 10 times in a 1,000 word piece. Sometimes you just need a lot of guys, I guess. And a few justs.
Julie says:
Hi Shelley, and welcome to my blog! My commenters are definitely very interesting and witty.
I agree, sometimes you do need a lot of guys. Maybe a lot of just guys. Maybe some guys who are just Justices of the Peace, called Justin.