It's not necessary, of course, but it does help—at least it helps me. It makes sense to me to keep my own personal worst offenders in mind and not use them in the first place, rather than needing to ferret them out at the edit stage. This little trick helps to keep the manuscript 'clean' as a work in progress. After all, using these words isn't a 'mistake,' in that they're perfectly correct words. It's just that using them can become a habit. Totally.
Through proofreading, you'll come to know and loathe your own personal hiccup words. In a sense, it's a list, but a constantly changing one, as you fall out of some word habits and discover others.
In this, I agree with both you, @Cogito and @jannert. There will be personal quirks we each need to guard against that have to do with our individual idiolects, but there is validity in that certain words carry a dynamic across the greater sociolect of writers. This is not unlike the phenomenon I note when interpreting. Regardless of whence a person hails from the hispanosphere, upon crossing into the U.S. there are certain Spanish words that seem to drop from use and get replaced by their English counterparts. Cita/appointment, enfermera/nurse(a), factura/billes, and a host of other words. It doesn't matter if you're coming from Cuba, Spain, or Tierra del Fuego, these switches within a predefined set of words is very predictable
This seems to be an interesting thread and seems to have a lot of posts. Seems like I better pitch in and make a response because it seems like I have a problem with using the word seem in writing.
Once again I agree, and I'll reiterate that the problem being discussed here shouldn't be certain words, but simply the idea of overusing ANY word is going to affect a person's writing.
My list is not a physical list it's a category list. I know them when I see them. It includes frequent fliers but it comes down to a couple things, is this an overused word in spoken English? When one thinks and speaks we add all these extra words, or at least I do. On the page they stand out more. "Just" and "really" are examples. The second thing that guides my elimination of these words is when I ask myself, am I saying it twice? "I feel like I'm going to," is an example. I don't need to say, I feel like. If I say, I'm going to, well, who else feels like it doing it, and if I'm going to do it, I must feel like it. So I don't need "I feel like". But in speech, and/or you might say it if one was telling and not showing, one adds the unneeded extra phrase. Now if I wanted to describe a feeling, that would be different. I feel like I'm flying.
But this isn't the query as presented by the OP. Of course your statement here is correct, but it is also correct that there is an undeniable group of words that gets overused in the attempt to bring imagery to a work in novice writing. JJ made mention of it, many members thought, "You know what, yeah, that's true!" and then voiced their opinion on the observation. It is true that this does happen to a rather noticeable degree, sufficiently noticeable for this thread to come into being and for people of like mind to come and participate in it. It is also understood that this phenomenon belongs to a greater phenomenon pointed out by JayG, known as filtering, which is accepted as a flaw in writing by the writing community as a whole.
Well, it'll be a cold day in hell before I use the word 'scrabbling' again without thinking, that's for sure! Even though it's not actually on my list.
...and I hold the opinion that all words have equal value and a use, and shouldn't be blacklisted. A new writer might pop into this thread and see someone's list and get the idea to avoid those words at all costs, when all they are doing is hurting their self by limiting their vocabulary. Good writers, in my opinion know how to use words correctly, not how to avoid using words. I might be in the minority here, but I know I'm not alone, and I don't think it is right to pass judgement on what kind of writer I am simply on my position without reading any of my work.
I have to agree with most of what @Lewdog has said. We shouldn't automatically dismiss certain words because some writers misuse or overuse them. Let me also point out that we have to consider each writer's style and preference for certain words/phrases. For example, Milton used the phrase "and then" quite a bit. Some critics call this a "mistake." I, however, simply acknowledge that individual style is at work here. However, I have to agree that for the examples in this thread, leaving out the phrase "seems to" strengthens the sentence. That's not to say that "seems to" is an inherently poor phrase; it just doesn't work that well here.
I don't see where anyone in this thread has passed judgment on the kind of writer you are. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing anyone pass judgment on what kind of writer anyone else is. What I have seen, and the reason I remain an enthusiastic member of this forum, are writers with more experience sharing their knowledge and experience with writers of less experience. Such advice does not need to be given, and when given need not be followed. There will always be those who prefer learning through their own experience (as the old saying goes, "Good judgment comes from experience; but experience comes from bad judgment). So, if I, like, seem to so totally not care about what words you, like, might want to use in your writing, it actually means that you seem to want to do things your own way, and that's, like, totally awesome.
I always look at the word seem as showing indecision or creating false mystery - which can be good when you want to show indecision or be mysterious. But not everything should be questionable. Even if your character doesn't know the difference between twilight or night to say something like - it seemed to be getting dark out - is just a waste of developing your writer's voice. Plus it can cloud your message. Unless there's an eclipse or clouds are gathering why create a mystery where none exists?
i'm constantly having to get mentees to stop using 'seem'... have to explain that first of all, someone has to be doing the 'seeming' so it doesn't make sense in most instances, to be that vague/waffly...
Awww Ed, in my opinion I thought you were better than this. Your post I normally would take light heatedly, but today I just can't, especially with the way you ended your post. Here is the quote from Ginger Coffee that I am referring to: As pointed out by thirdwind, there are people who think Milton made mistakes in his writing by the use of certain words, which is somewhat ironic because I doubt many of those critics ever had as much success at writing as Milton did. The point I am making, is having a list of certain words and giving them a tag line that they should only be used in rare exceptions, should not classify quality of work.
Seem is a word I only use is select circumstances where (remember I write in 1st person) the MC truly can't tell one way or the other what's going on. Otherwise, why do you need it? "Amy seems to be fidgeting..." Is Amy fidgeting or isn't she? "The coffee seems a little too hot..." Is the coffee hot or isn't it? Think about it. In 99% of contexts "seems, seemed, seemingly" are nonsense words that need not find any home in your sentences.
It's not about "words", IMO, it's about the use of (if I have my terminology right) intensifying and weakening modifiers when they add no significant meaning. When you add a word--any word--that doesn't add much meaning, you clutter and weigh down your prose. The words in the lists being discussed are very often used as intensifying and weakening modifiers, and it's that use that I object to. If you say, "The store was kind of busy, and it seemed fairly cold outside." the modifiers ('kind of' and 'seemed fairly') aren't adding much. When I see such modifiers, I imagine the writer fearing that someone will come up to him and say, "Cold? You call that COLD?! How cold was it, really?" and the writer nervously modifying the phrase so that it now effectively means, "this is how I perceived it, you might disagree, please don't hurt me!" And that's how it looks to me in my writing, too. Every time I edit, I have to have the courage to say, "Yeah, it was *cold*, all right!" or whatever other idea I was communicating in a timid, watery way. By removing most of these meaningless modifiers, I take fuzzy concepts and adjust the focus to make them clear. Of course, you may say, "But what if it wasn't all that cold? What about nuances? There's nothing wrong with nuances!" In that case, I still consider "seemed fairly cold" to be a cluttery way to communicate an idea. If it's not essential that I provide a precise idea of the level of coldness, I'm still just going to trim it down to "cold". Not every nuance has value; sometimes you have to do triage. If it does matter, I might swap to "chilly" or...OK, I wouldn't use "brisk" because I don't like it, but the idea is that I'd look for a word that expresses my idea without needing modifiers. If the point is that the character felt cold while it wasn't really that cold, my original cluttery phrase doesn't express it that well anyway. If I need that concept (I might decide to lose it--triage again!) I may dedicate more words to it, as in, "Jane wrapped her coat tighter around her, feeling like an invalid when she compared herself to the shoppers parading in shirtsleeves." Now, people use these modifiers all the time, so dialogue that never used them would feel unrealistic. Similarly, I'd expect to see them in some informal first-person narrative voices. Even there, they primarily serve to communicate voice and personality, not to communicate information directly, so too many of them would be problematic. So, again, it's not about words. It's about a misuse of a specific function, and those words are very often used for that misuse.
@Lewdog - I think the point has been made repeatedly in this thread that it was not the words themselves but rather how they were used. And if experience shows a tendency among novice writers to overuse the same words in the same way, then I see nothing wrong with saying so. If some people feel the need to keep a list of such words as a reminder, then they do. As far as @GingerCoffee's quoted post, perhaps I am dim, but I don't see where she has cast any aspersions on you. It is clear to me that in that context she is using "you" as the editorial "you", rather than you, personally.
You seem to have quite the ill temper chap. If I didn't know any better I'd say you seem disturbed, seemingly audacious in approach. You seem to believe you have the authority to tell others what to write....... While I seem to be doing the exact same thing I am accusing you of.... The truth is I am not.... Nothing is as it seems.... My daisy dukes for instance, no mere harlotry... They are cute because I bedazzled the seams
This doesn't really bother me given that we don't have any context (plus it's perfectly acceptable usage). In the hands of a skilled writer, such a phrase says more about the character speaking it than the person who wrote it.
Nah, I'm actually quite mellow. I just have passion for writing and don't like the idea of conforming to certain rules or guidelines. Literature is an art form, and everyone has their own unique style, which is what makes it so great. So when I see threads like this that try to describe what is considered good or bad quality writing based on their personal guidelines, it irks me. Like I have already stated a few times here, people need to worry about the piece as a whole and how it flows and that they are using their words appropriately no matter what the words are. So whether the word is 'seems,' 'therefor,' or 'truck' what matters is if it is placed in the right context and not overly used. Bottom line is, I don't like when people try to use their guidelines as a standard of what is quality work or not, because what doesn't work for them, might work well for others. So in my mind it isn't fair to take away someone else's ability to create their own 'writing voice.'
First Ginger says things she didn't and now we're "taking things away from you". I'm no longer irritated with you. I'm concerned for you.
No one is taking anything from me, I've developed my style, but the idea behind this thread has the ability to influence some others that might not have their 'writing voice' yet. At no point did I say 'my voice.' I said 'their voice.' I'm not going to talk about Ginger anymore because that has become a mine field. I'm passionate, but I'm not suicidal. There is a big difference.
