Was
Quickly
Slowly
These words have taken over my brain when writing and made my fingers type their sexy little letters. They seduce by buying you a drink, sweet talking in your ear and then they go in for the kill.
My CPs have had enough of you so get out of my WiP.
Now.
My one CP caught 'was' invading a sentance three times.
Oh and don't send 'just' over to try and talk to me.
I have to go and quickly eat my breakfast because my brain is slowly going back to sleep. I was going to write. I just need to get some sleep. ARGGH! Blasted words.
If you didn't catch yesterday's post go here. Have a great weekend!
I've slowly come to the realization I had a problem with "was" and "that". Some realize these things quickly, but not me.
ReplyDeleteI was aware of the 'ly' words as I wrote and hacked out even more when I edited.
ReplyDeleteMost adverbs are bad, all the writers tell me so.
ReplyDeleteStates of being are trickier though. They can be powerful, but they do usually weaken a sentence, and they are much more clever about sneaking their way into our writing.
Thanks for the reminder Christine!
Today's guest blogger is THE Elana Johnson!
You know, before I learned 'the rules' about writing, as a reader none of the rule breaking bothered me. But yes, I've learned to remove from my WIP the hateful little words that have been ostracized.
ReplyDeleteHe, he, he. You aren't that bad, really. I hold the record for using was, don't you know? :):)
ReplyDeleteLove this funny little post.
Poor was! He really is hated even though he does have a purpose. I use 'slowly' and 'quickly', but not very often. 'That' is the bane of my existence. :)
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend, Christine.
When I took all the "just" out of my ms, it lost 357 words. That's crazy. Add that with all the other needless words and I lost over 1,000.
ReplyDeleteI find teh craft to be fasinatingly odd. ;-) (not sure I spelled that right, but that's ok...it's Friday!)
~JD
LOL. LOVE this description of yours: "They seduce by buying you a drink, sweet talking in your ear and then they go in for the kill." Perfect! :)
ReplyDeleteGo back to sleep, and have a great memorial day weekend!! :)
ReplyDeletei have a warrant out for:
ReplyDeleteWas
Just
Felt
And
But
Suddenly
ahhh good times
*giggles* I have words I need to put a warrant out for most of them Falen just covered. I use the find feature a lot to track down these buggers and if they can be ditched then they're given the boot. A cool site I go to quite often to get the same concept and kill these words is the Reverse Dictionary. Give it a looksie it's pretty cool. They tell you how to search on the home page. It's saved me agony many many times.
ReplyDeleteSo funny!! I'll keep my eye out for these offending words! Have a great weekend.
ReplyDeletehahahaha love this!!
ReplyDeleteHaha, yeah, I think we all have these kinds of words that we're looking to get rid of. Mine are "just", "went", "was", "feeling" or "felt", "but", "like"... the list goes on...
ReplyDeleteI keep using Wordle to check out my most common words. So far they're names (TOM being the biggest), swear words (you can probably guess which one), and "just." I don't really notice using just all that much, but hey--who am I to argue with Wordle?
ReplyDeleteat least you only have three words- I have the same ones to look out for plus a few others!
ReplyDeleteI must write this quickly because I am slowly forgetting the rules!
ReplyDeleteI've seen posts on this before, but NEVER as creative as this. Nicely done. Ha! Now if I could only make this info stick in my brain. Practice, practice. :)
ReplyDeleteI love it! I use "just" so much that I think I may have an obsession. But shh, don't tell the other words I overuse because they may think I'm cheating on them.
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend, bloggie buddy!
"Was" is such a sly little thing. It's so difficult to get rid of.
ReplyDeleteGood luck on revisions!
I LOVE "just" and "something". Go figure. :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome, C. Also, congrats on winning at Elana's the other day, I just now saw that she's been posting the winners the same day, duh.
ReplyDeleteMatthew said it correctly: "MOST adverbs are bad." But, they are a legitimate part of speech and if used with originality, can be very useful. We need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater (to use a cliche, I, for one, never... well... almost never... get tired of hearing....). Adjectives sometimes get blamed as well.
ReplyDeleteWhen description doesn’t work, or falls flat, it is usually because of the overuse of weak adverbs and adjectives. Voltaire observed that the adjective is the enemy of the noun and the adverb is the enemy of the verb. John Gardner said, “Adverbs are either the dullest tools or the sharpest tools in the novelist’s toolbox.”
Adjectives may seem to strengthen nouns when in fact they usually weaken them. Adverbs are not designed to augment a verb--as in walked slowly--but to create friction with the verb or change its meaning. For an exercise (not an assignment - just something to illustrate for yourself how this works), pair the following adverbs with different verbs to see how they change those verbs: conscientiously, uncharacteristically, reluctantly, furtively, and relentlessly.
All of this is not meant to say to NOT use adverbs and adjectives. Used thoughtfully, these sentence components can sharpen and illuminate prose, as in the following examples (examples in all caps):
She had been to Germany, Italy, everywhere that one visits ACQUISITIVELY.
Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September
She jammed the pedal to the floor, and like something huge and pre-historic and pea-brained, the Jeep leapt STUPIDLY out of its stall.
Sharon Sheehe Stark, A Wrestling Season
So closely had we become tied to the river that we could sense where it lay and make for it INSTINCTIVELY like cattle.
W.D. Wetherell, Chekhov’s Sister
When Sula first visited the Wright house, Helene’s CURDLED scorn turned to butter.
Toni Morrison, Sula
With a BLADDERY whack it (the boat) slapped apart and sprang away.
Sharon Sheehe Stark, A Wrestling Season
Hank was not accepted at Harvard Law School; but GOODHEARTED Yale took him.
John Updike, “The Other”
On the far side of the room, under the MOILING dogs the twins are playing.
Francois Camoin, “Baby, Baby, Baby”
It's when we use adverbs and adjectives without originality that they kind of suck...
Blue skies,
Les
Lovely post - very funny:) It's always fun to see what kind of words you use too often - and you learn a lot too! I'll make sure not to be seduced by any "was"'es in the future:)
ReplyDeletehaha very true and very funny! Looking forward to catching up with your previous posts, your blog looks great!
ReplyDeleteRegards
Val
really, just, very, though (although) - these are my watch words for revisions.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks Les for the lesson on adverbs/adjectives.
Have a great weekend Christine. Good luck with the edits.
......dhole
Very cute post!
ReplyDeleteBut important stuff, too. Bad, bad words.
I've heard the warnings to look out for these words so much, I now keep an eye out when I'm writing. You'd think my ms wouldn't have so many of these offenders, but you'd be wrong. Good luck arresting all those words! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only repeat offender of -ly words. :) I have to do word checks through every first draft but sometimes, they leak through. Basterds.
ReplyDelete