Get Over Overstating: Trimming Unnecessary Words

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Every time we tweak or polish, or even just write, we tend to repeat ourselves. Sometimes this is good, as it reinforces something critical to the story, but sometimes it just gunks things up and tosses in extra words. So today, I'm going to show some things I cut from Blue Fire while doing my own revisions, talk about why, and how you can spot these in your own work.

Tell Me Everything

It's common to state something the reader can clearly figure out from the text. Trimming that out can tighten up the prose and make it read smoother.

I darted to the window [and peeked out.] Enzie was running down the walk, waving her arms above her head and yelling.

It's clear that the narrator here looks out the window after she darts to it because she tells you what she sees. Leaving in "and peeked out" won't hurt the story, but the goal is to start picking up the pace in this scene since something bad is about to happen. Having a shorter sentence achieves that.

What you can look for: Places where you're shown or implied an action, then went on to explain the action anyway. Senses are common offenders here. You listen to hear, look to see, touch to feel.

Whoa, TMI

Let's look at one that actually weakens the story by leaving it in.

She sure as spit wouldn't go quietly, [so I would have heard something.]

If she didn't go quietly, it makes perfect sense that noise would have been made and it would have been heard. Not only does cutting the back half of this sentence tighten the prose, it ends it on a much better dramatic punch. "She sure as spit wouldn't go quietly" suggests all kinds of interesting things to the reader, while "so I would have heard something" is just flat explanation. Who cares if she would have heard something. But we wonder what she would do to not go quietly.

What you can look for: Great punchlines that are weakened by explanation or reinforcement of the idea. You can usually tell the lines that land well, and when you end a sentence or a paragraph with those, you entice the reader to read the next sentence or paragraph. If you deliver a great line, then keep talking, you might be weakening that line.

Say it Again, Sam

Sometimes you say the same thing in two different ways:

Had she lied about the others or were they cleverly blending in with the mob looking for work? They'd already proven they were sneaky. [The streets were packed and it would be easy to hide in the crowds.]

Blending in with the crowds conveys the same basic information as saying it would be easy to hide in the crowds. You don't need both. And ending at "sneaky" leaves the reader wondering what else they might be sneaky about.

What you can look for: Repetition of ideas. These are harder to spot because they feel right and are usually well written, so they don't jump out. Keep a sharp eye out in scenes you know feel slow, but can't figure out why, or places where you want to trim and don't know what to cut.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Sometimes a line is fine, but it has to go because it restates something used close by in the same scene:

Relief bobbed above my terror for a heartbeat, but finding her first didn't mean we could get to her first. [I risked a look around the edge of the shed.] The woman tracker was by the ramp now, a blue-black pynvium rod in her hand.

This one's harder to judge without the whole passage, but the line, "I risked a look around the edge of the shed" doesn't really add anything to this, especially as she's been peeking and looking a lot in this scene. Alone it sounds fine, but after three other similar actions, it really stands out, and that will distract your reader.

What you can look for: Similar actions or thoughts in the same scene. These are really hard to spot, and the easiest way to do it is to read large chunks at once. That way, you'll remember the three other times you used a similar line in the same chapter and can cut the ones that aren't necessary. If you find yourself using the same word (like look, or peeked) you can a search for them and see how many you used. I've found making them bold and red, then looking at the pages in full page view lets me see how often I've used them.

Repeating ourselves is so easy to do, especially when we're revising and not reading the story in chronological order. But once you start training yourself to look for them, they tend to jump out at you.