We’ve all done it at some point. We’ve tried to emulate our favourite authors and come away with a piece that sounded pretentious.

I’ve had friends who’ve told me cut out words and phrases that I’d thought were pivotal to my manuscript and I’m so grateful that they did! 

Sometimes, we use winding ways to get to the point, sentences that could have been straightforward for the reader but instead, leave them with a headache. 

Or, we just love the sound of a phrase and we force it into a place where it doesn’t belong.

Ergo is a word that comes to mind. It appears in quite a few books and movies (I’m thinking fondly of A Walk To Remember). It sticks out. I’ve never used this word in person, and while there may well be people out there who do, I’m not sure that it’s part of the average teen’s vocabulary.

In other cases, we are simply overusing everyday words. Or, we have fallen into the trap of telling not showing the reader, and try as we might to weed these phrases out, an editor or a reader can always catch forgotten moments in a text.

Today, I want to share with you some words to avoid and phrases to ditch in your writing.

I want you to reconsider their appropriateness before moving forward with them.

Perhaps, they have a place in certain genres and scenarios. They may flow easily from the mouth of the character that you have developed.

But, often they do not and a second opinion, a friend who you can trust to tell the truth, may be needed to make the best choice for your prose.

Here we go!

Jargon includes words that are difficult for most to understand. They may be specialized terms for a particular group of people or words that have gone out of style.

If you need to pause your reading and locate a dictionary to understand the meaning of a word, often that word can be categorized as jargon.

Examples of jargon include cache, mitigation, consumption, promenade, and vexing.

Of course, if I am writing a book set in a particular historical period, a Regency drama perhaps, or even a murder mystery with a court scene, it would be appropriate to use jargon that matches each genre.

On the otherhand, as much as I love reading about women promenading in Jane Auten’s novels, my modern-day romantic comedy most likely doesn’t have a young woman promenading down the boardwalk at the local beach with their man. Perhaps, they’re strolling, bike riding or even just walking?

Flip this on its head and remember that modern jargon used in a historical fiction novel can ruin the authenticity of the story. It pulls you out of the experience!

Jargon can exclude a large portion of your potential readers. So tread carefully here and get a second opinion if needed.

We teach students to use adverbs in their writing. We teach them to add “ly” to the end of a verb.

Instead of searching for a stronger word to use in their writing, we suggest that they modify a weaker word so that it fits into their sentences.

Or, they use adverbs that state the obvious when their sentence would do just fine, perhaps better without it.

Then, we tell them to work on their descriptive writing, and rarely do we say that part of the culprit is their use of adverbs.

What a confusion!

Consider:

“Stop!” he screamed loudly.

Is screaming ever quiet? We could just delete “loudly” here. While the sentence may not be the most interesting, it is stronger.

Or…

She quickly removed her fingertips from the very hot pan. 

Double Yikes! There is nothing quick about this sentence! How could we fix it and still emphasize that she removed her fingertips quickly?

Let’s try:

She jerked her fingertips away from the searing pan.

As Stephen King states in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs…”

While this is a bit dramatic and there are times that an adverb does the job well, it’s worth rereading your work and giving each adverb a second consideration.

Trade them in for something stronger when you can.

Every year as my students begin their language arts unit on “Playing With Words,” I know that we have a long journey ahead of us to improve upon our skills when writing with adjectives.

Here are some common sentences that I encounter. Sometimes I find similarities in books that I’ve read:

It smelled nice.

It smelled like chocolate.

It feels soft.

Sigh!

With the amount of adjectives at our disposal, we can do better than this! One of the easiest solutions is to remove the “it smelled like…” or “it feels like…” and instead show the character’s experience.

Which of these would draw you further into the story?

I could hear the wind howling between the trees. As I felt raindrops hit my skin, I shivered.

The wind howled between the trees and cold drops of rain sparked goosebumps across my bare skin.

Big difference!

Review your writing.

Make sure to show not tell and get some use out of those fabulous adjectives we’ve got in the English language!

Her skin was as white as milk.

We were on the same page.

He was a fish out of water in the big city.

Cliches, metaphors and synonyms.

We can easily pick them up in our reading, our writing and our daily conversations.

Overused analogies, the ones we’ve heard many times are boring. They don’t bring anything new to your story.

As writers, we’re on the hunt for ways to “take something old and make it new or your own.”

This is a great place to start.

You want to let your readers know that the romantic interest and your main character are strongly connected (aka. On the same page), once again…how can you show and not tell us?

Don’t always let what flows easiest from your pen be the words that you hold to.

Play around for awhile.

See if you can discover new ways to invoke these ideas.

When revising your work, take time to consider your readers.

Have you gotten to the point quick enough?

Will your readers feel like their putting in too much work to slog through your sentences? Will they understand your big idea?

Consider your characters and the novel’s genre.

Does the jargon your characters use align with their identity?

Do these words make sense in your written world?

Do they feel out of place?

Are you overusing any words or phrases?

Do they blend seamlessly with the the sentences surrounding them?

Are you using jargon or slang correctly? Is it out of date?

Does it include misrepresentation or a historical context that you’d rather not misappropriate?   

Avoid these words and your manuscript is on its way to engaging your audience.  

If reviewing your writing for these shortcomings has you comparing your work to others writers and thinking about quitting altogether, remember that every book has an audience.

If you enjoy it, there is sure to be someone else who would too. 

Our writing style improves and changes throughout our lifetime. It is dependent on the current story we are writing as every novel is unique.

Let your writing change when it does. Don’t become bogged down in the finer details.

Let a trusted friend or editor help you here.

Be open to revising, but don’t take this as the death sentence for your creative pursuits.

Remember, we all wish to be as great as some of our favourite writers at times. Yet, often trying to copy their style can do more harm than good.

You have your own voice.

Embrace it!

Are there any considerations that I missed?

What other words should we avoid? Share the phrases that stick out like a sore thumb in the comments below (see what I did there?).

Talk soon!

Julia