As I’m working through the last edits for BLOOD & HOLY WATER, I am feverishly cutting out filter words. This is an alternating POV novel (3rd person) and my filter words are OUT OF CONTROL!
When I learned about these little attention detractors this past fall, it opened my eyes. Perhaps other (new-ish) writers don’t know about them either? Knowledge is half the battle, right? In this blog, I’m sharing a list of them, and my super-special trick to help remove them from my writing.
Definition of a filter word (per Pub(lishing) Crawl): “Filters are words or phrases you tack onto the start of a sentence that show the world as it is filtered through the main character’s eyes.”
Why eliminate them?
- They make your writing less direct.
- They separate the reader from the action and emotion.
Here’s my master list of filter words I try not to use when writing:
- See / saw
- Hear / heard
- Think / thought
- Touch / touched
- Wonder / wondered
- Seem / seemed
- Decide / decided
- Know / knew
- Feel / felt
- Look / looked
- Notice / noticed
- Realize / realized
- Watch / watched
- Sound
- Can / could
- To be able to
- Note / noted
- experience / experienced
- remember / remembered
Here’s an example of some changes I recently made:
- Before: He wondered where Ava had gone.
- After: Where did Ava go?
- Before: She felt the tingle of electricity flow up her arm.
- After: Electricity flowed up her arm.
- Before: He watched her dance in the rain.
- After: She danced in the rain.
See how the changes make the reader closer to the action; almost a part of it.
Sometimes, it’s nearly impossible to eliminate a filter word, and I end up leaving them in.
So, as I become a more “experienced” writer, I’m more aware of these and write less and less of them into my story, but many times, I get captivated by my characters and end up writing a pile of filter words. When you have a novel-length manuscript, removing them can be a daunting task.
Here’s my super-special trick: I don’t worry abut them until the end—removal of filter words is on my final editing checklist. (Along with removal of my personal list of overused words including: really, very, that, just, then, totally, completely, back, finally, little, definitely, certainly, probably, start, begin, began, begun, rather, quite, somewhat, somehow, smile, said, breathe breath, inhale, exhale, shrug, nod, reach.)
This trick only works in Microsoft Word, but I’m sure other programs have something similar.
- Open your document.
- Select what color you’d like your filter words changed to using the “Text Highlight Color” button on the “Home” tab.
- Still on the “Home” tab, click “Replace”
- In the “Find what:” box, type your first filter word. For example: Hear
- In the “Replace with:” box, type in the same exact word. For example: Hear
- Click “More” then “Format” then “Highlight.”
- Click “Replace All”
- And there you go. Now when you do your final read through, the highlighted words will remind you they need attention. Cut them if possible.
- When you’re all done, select your entire document and remove the highlighting.
Setting this up is a little time consuming, but worth it in the long run. Keep in mind, that you SHOULD NOT highlight words within words. Example: “Hear” will highlight all “Hear” including the “Hear” part of “Heard”, so you don’t have to go back and do “Heard”.
Wow. Now get back to editing. 🙂
As always, thanks for reading.
–Joy
Read more? Check out these sites:
What are your thoughts on filter words? How do you keep them out of your writing?
Great advice! Thanks, Joy!
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You’re welcome! My mission is accomplished: One person read & appreciated my post.
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Think you’re describing passive versus active voice… but I’m a noob too!
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I always looked at passive voice as something different than filter words, but they both do the same thing to your writing–distance your reader from the story. (Notice I have a filter word write in this sentence. Urgh! I’m terrible with them.)
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I try to tell a compelling story and let my editors earn their money! 😛
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Reblogged this on Rosco's Reading Room and commented:
Great tip here for how to make your writing more active, less passive.
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Thank you for the reblog!
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Adding a link to my blog about this idea. Smart thinking!
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Awesome! I’m glad you liked it.
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I’ve never encountered the term filter words before, but after reading your post I see how they can be an unnecessary distraction. I could quibble with one of your examples — “He watched her dancing in the rain” would be preferable to “She danced in the rain” if the focus is on the watcher and his reaction to the dancer. But overall, I find your advice very helpful. Thanks!
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I’m glad I taught you a new word! I like your quibble. It creates good conversation. The “He watched her dance in the rain” vs “She danced in the rain” example would depend on the rest of the paragraph–whether the “He watched” is needed. And the best thing about writing? It’s everyone’s individual preference. That’s what gives each author such a unique style. Thanks for stopping and the comment!
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Hi, I’m reading through a lot of blogs on filtering words (still learning!!) and found great advice directly relating to your comment. When the filtering word is the key action, it’s not filtering.
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That is a fabulous, easy way to remember the difference. Thanks for adding to the discussion!
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Ah filter words are so annoying. I will need to come back to this list once I start editing.
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Those words are all on my search list during editing, too. The more practice we get at writing, the less we will use those words during the first draft. When I was leader of a critique group, beginner writers used to use ‘had’ and ‘that’ a lot. I was the slash queen in that critique group. 😉
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Argh! I write “had” and “That” too much! Someday, I’ll get this whole writing thing down.
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Just did this in my manuscript and cringed at the amount of filter words it found… Great tips! 🙂
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I’m working on revising/editing another novel I’ve written and I dread this step. It always seems to take me forever!
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Haha it’s definitely tedious. I’m putting it off until I’m finished. At least now I can be more careful not to use those filter words from this point forward!
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This has opened my eyes! Please post how to take off the highlight colour after editing (if you keep a filter word as the key action). Thank you.
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I’m glad you found this useful! Taking off the highlights is super simple. Just go to your home screen and “select” then “select all.” Once your whole document is highlighted, click the “text highlight” button (also on your home screen) and select the drop down arrow-then “no color.” Hopefully that helps! I usually do this when I’m done going through the whole document and get rid of all the highlights at once. If you wanted to go word-by-word, just highlight your word and go to the “text highlight” drop down arrow.
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I’m more of a reader than a writer, but when I write I always use the dialogue tag “said.” Why? Because when other authors use different words fro “said” such as “informed” or “queried” or “insert $5 dollar thesaurus equivilant here” it pulls me out of the story as it sounds really pretentious and amateurish. That said, the odd “whispered” or “shouted” or “mumbled” is fine as long as it fits the scene. The dialogue tag “said” is meant to be repetitious as it’s designed to fade away and NOT be noticable to the reader.
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