Sunday, June 22, 2014

Really Very Amazing That Suddenly Started

Oftentimes in severe periods of low self esteem and wracking self-doubt a writer will while away her procrastination hours perusing writing websites that offer tips and tricks of the trade.  During one recent period of obvious non-productivity, I came across the following link: 


"Very" and Other Useless Words to Erase Forever


The link (from Writer's Circle, a blog I follow and respect) points out the redundancy of the word 'very' and five other words that, according to the article should never be included in our work: 'suddenly', 'really', 'started', 'that' and 'amazing'/'awesome'.  

While my first instinct was to troll my manuscript and erase every occurrence of each word with virulent and unrepentant conviction, I did have the presence of mind to reconsider.  While I did not entirely repeal the cull, I did realize that this is merely a suggestion, and not a hard rule.  It did make me aware of the overabundance of most of these words, and I will admit to pulling several instances from my text as a result of the search (apparently 'suddenly' is my personal favorite of these alleged no-nos) I did come across certain situations where the use of the word in my text felt both useful and illustrative. 

Suddenly I am really starting to consider embedding the sentence fragment “really very amazing that suddenly started” somewhere in my novel to see if any haughty editors ever notice.  That would be so amazingly awesome.  

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