
I often find myself trimming down words when I do content edits for my clients. I’ve mentioned in earlier posts about that and of and how you often don’t need those words. I also gave you my weasel word list and suggested you come up with your own. One author I know told me she went through one of her earlier manuscripts (she has over a hundred published novels now) and deleted as many unnecessary speaker tags as she could find. She trimmed her word count down 6,000 words!
So here are some words you can take out:
- He thought
to himself[You can only think to yourself, so leave out those words. and if you use italics for thoughts in your novel, you often don’t need to say “he thought” since it’s clearly implied.] - He stood
upthen satdown - He nodded
his head - Amid
st, amongst - First
ly, secondly, lastly - Choose from
amongthree choices [redundant] - I don’t like him, but
neverthelessI’ll go anyway [redundant so take out either but or nevertheless.]