Filler and crutch words are the bane of any writer’s craft. Many of us could cut 10 percent from our manuscript by cutting out fluff words and rewriting a few sentences to add clarity.
Sometimes a filler word serves a purpose, but most of the time they are unnecessary. In a post on the Killzone blog, Sue Coletta offers a lot of good examples of junk words and phrases you should strive to eliminate from your writing. They include:
- Filler words: just, then, that, so, well, really, very
- Filter phrases: I believe, I thought, I felt
- Unspecific words: Came, went, had
Lots of good examples in the article. Caveat: Coletta deploys the loathsome phrase “kill your darlings,” but rest assured: filters and fillers are not darlings. They are extraneous words that can be excised from your writing with almost no detriment to your story.
