I often encounter on-line writing advice that urges writers to bid good-bye forever to seemingly innocuous words. The advice-givers promote getting rid of a word like “very, “then,” or “that” as a magical way to transform prose into leaner, more interesting, and clearer copy. “Look! Just stop using this one word, and you will be amazed at how professional your writing will sound!!”
The blogger presents a sample “before” passage glutted with the offending word and an “after” passage with the word wiped away. “There. See how much better the second version is?” The advice is confusing because in rare cases, it might actually help.
But unless a writer pours words like “very” onto the page like tomato sauce, the “trick” will do little to strengthen writing. In fact, it does harm by strapping writers with arbitrary limitations. Meanwhile, the “rules” shift attention away from what really matters in writing, such as content, voice and even clarity of expression.
I went to a writing workshop once in which the speaker spent almost an hour talking about why a writer should never, ever use the word “very.” Her reasoning was not all bad. She argued that the word slows down sentences and that using a strong adjective to begin with eliminates the need for “very.”
I agree that the word “very” is best used sparingly like salt. But never use it? Not ever? Not in a million years? I disagree. Like all words and parts of speech, the word is in our language for a reason. “Very” is an intensifier. If you have carefully chosen the adjective you want to use and want to make it more of what it already is, “very” is not a very bad choice. Also, because the word is so common in everyday speech, “very,” along with other common words, can help to establish an informal tone when one is called for.
Granted, a passage of text in which every other word is “very” will be far from Pulitzer quality, but any word that is splattered all over the page will create an aesthetic mess. Why pick on “very”?
Other common expressions that have come under fire are “then,” “that,” and “began to.” The advice givers always give valid-sounding reasons for pulling the words from the linguistic grab-bag and casting them into the fire.
In the case of the word “that,” some writers argue that if the sentence makes sense without it, the word should always be thrown out. The proofreader of my novel Paw struck the word “that” almost everywhere he saw it, leaving a trail of confusing and clunky sentences. The reasoning is that removing the word makes sentences leaner and easier to read.
Let us test the “rule” using the last sentence I wrote. What happens if I remove the word “that”? You have: “The reasoning is removing the word makes sentences leaner and easier to read.” The sentence still makes sense, although you might have to read it more than once to decipher it. The pacing feels off, and the first thing the reader sees is “The reasoning is removing,” which is confusing. A comma helps. “The reasoning is, removing the word makes sentences leaner and easier to read.” The new sentence works fine, but is the comma such a big improvement over the original? Replacing the relative pronoun with a comma to get rid of three letters is fussy and silly. Of all the things I have ever disliked about the writing of others, seeing too much of the word “that” is the least of them.
Another “rule” I came across just yesterday was to never have a character “begin to” do anything. Just have them go ahead and do it. Change “She began to sing” to “She sang.” Change “He began to dance” to “he danced.”
In cases like action scenes, the change may be helpful since action scenes generally benefit from fast pacing and strong verbs. But is it the hallmark of a bad writer to ever say a character began an activity? Why would any good writer do that?
For one thing, saying something “began” can add a wistful and lyrical quality to prose, perhaps because beginnings imply the existence of endings: “It began to rain and continued late into the night.” The alternative, while correct, has a different mood: “It rained and continued late into the night.” Both versions work, but they feel different. The choice between them needs to be guided by intuitive artistic preference, not a hard and fast “rule.” I personally prefer the more lyrical first version.
Another candidate for editorial extinction is the word “then.” Some bloggers say you should never use it because it is nothing but a filler word which slows down the action, and that it is “stronger” to go ahead and say what happens next. However, “then” serves an important purpose: It links separate actions and clarifies their sequence. Like any transition, using “then” makes writing more cohesive.
Example:
Version 1: She went to the park. She went to the grocery store.
Version 2: She went to the park. Then she went to the grocery store.
In this case, the word “then” is doing a job. Without it, going to the park and going to the grocery store seem cut off from each other, and which activity came first is unclear. Both versions are grammatically correct, but they are not the same, even in content. Which one is used should be determined by the specific writing context and purpose of the writer.
As rules of thumb, such “tips” may offer general guidance, but they start to go off the rails when people began to quote them as dogma and apply them blindly to every situation, so that the “tips” become substitutes for thinking. What writers need is not formulas and inflexible rules, but the ability to analyze and decide what is best case by case.
Many proponents of jettisoning certain words give only one reason for throwing the words out. “It ruins the flow” or “it slows down the action.” But writing is complex. There are usually many dynamics going on in writing such as voice, rhythm, pacing, and mood. Ignoring those factors in favor of a rule that addresses only one problem such as “making sentences lean” is likely to lead to bad writing.
Decreasing the options writers have for expressing themselves is not a form of magic. It will not transform sloppy text into clear and beautiful prose.
I found a passage in one of my favorite books A Separate Peace in which the author John Knowles beautifully violates three of the “rules” I have mentioned. I have put the no-no words in bold lettering.
“…he kept quiet for approximately three minutes. Then he began to talk. He never went to sleep without talking first and he seemed to feel that prayers lasting more than three minutes were showing off.”
Every word of the above paragraph is indispensable. For example, what happens if you take away the word “then”? For one thing, the new sentence runs too choppily into the next; the cohesion breaks down.
What if the author had followed the rule against using “began” and written “he talked” rather than “he began to talk”? Saying “he talked” destroys the fluid rhythm of the passage, and even the content changes. To say “he talked” ties the action to one moment, suggesting he spoke only once and stopped. Here the phrase“he began” – paradoxically – moves the action into a more progressive tense, suggesting that the speaker not only began to speak but continued to speak, leaving the reader to wait for an endpoint.
Finally, what if you removed the word “that”? The missing word subjects the passage to initial misreading since it at first suggests that the character was feeling the prayers themselves, interrupting the verbal flow by forcing the reader to recover from a moment of confusion.
The changes choke the narrative voice, change the mood, stagger the pacing, and work against readability. Every word in the paragraph is doing an essential job. Striking any of them would make the passage feel incomplete.
Writing is a skill acquired through practice, and any “rule” is a rule of thumb at best. General guidelines are helpful as long as they remain guidelines and not inflexible mandates that become a substitute for thought.
Word elimination as a way to produce more “professional” writing is the snake oil of the writing world, a click-bait trap, a “quick fix” that appeals to wishful thinking, constrains artistic growth, and strangles creative freedom.
If you enjoyed this post you might like my other writing. Take a moment and sign up for my free starter library. Click here. Also my new novel \”The Ghosts of Chimera\” will soon be published by the folks over at Rooster and Pig Publishing.