I spent hours and weeks and months trawling through YouTube lesson after lessons and I can recommend quite a few (in fact, that will probably be my next article).

Now this one will be part one. Because I think there are a lot of these. If you have spent time online, you would have heard this one: Cut These Words From Your Novel. The examples are of “filter words”: Like, feel, think, see, wonder, didn’t/don’t etc.

Granted, sometimes it is apparent, but it doesn’t always apply. I know I am simplifying this but there is a lot of advice used for the purpose of content creation…err…just like this article can be just for the purpose of an article (win, wink). Here is the basic issue with this advice. But be careful in applying it or you will drive yourself insane. 

It’s kind of like the rule we were given in school not to start a sentence with conjugations like: so, but, and… . It doesn’t (and should not) always apply. A better tip is to be careful of overusing words. If you are really paying attention to your writing, you will soon discover your particular signature and speech pattern. For me, it’s in the use of words like, really, actually and very. 

So, after my manuscript was done. I made a list of these words and did a search. This led to over 3 months of additional edits which were laborious but mandatory. Sometimes, it’s a very frustrating task. But it was worth it at the end.

There will be more posts like this. What do you think?