That is one of the most egotistical, hypocritical remarks I've read on this board so far. In one breath you make the insinuation that my disagreement with your stance is me being unwilling to listen to other's criticism, then in the next breath you make a definitive statement as to what is quality work and what isn't. Who are you to judge what is quality work and what isn't? Statements like your's eat at me like acid being poured on my skin. If YOU don't like reading work done by authors that use that list of words, that is one thing, but by saying people who use those words don't create quality work is an entirely different animal. It's akin to the neophytes who get online and proclaim that JK Rowling or Stephen King are actually poor writers despite the millions of books they have sold. If they were such poor writers than millions of people wouldn't be buying and reading their books. If you have an opinion on how people should write that's fine, but if you continue to make statements like the one you just made, I'm going to probably join the long list of people that seem not to care for your opinion on subjects and consequently put you on ignore.
Sigh.... I am not the only person in the thread saying the same thing to you that you are defending against. It's just an observation of your comments in this thread, I don't know anything about you except what you are posting.
Lewdog, you're the one that called someone's advice "totally silly." Not exactly a company-manners entrance into the thread.
Cogito said the same thing as me. Those words are a part of the English language for a reason. It's the misuse or over use of them that makes them bad. Does the world need baseball bats? Yes, otherwise what would players use to hit with. If you have a spider in your kitchen, do you kill it with a baseball bat? No, but that doesn't mean baseball bats are useless?
@Lewdog - Using those words sparingly is common knowledge among most writers and writing classes. As was stated, there are rare exceptions, but they don't add anything to a sentence, as has been shown in this thread. I relly don't know what you're arguing against. Just relax.
Did you miss this part of Ginger's post? I'm not asking that sarcastically--I'm really wondering if you mistakenly "heard" her say that those words should never be used, when that's not what she said.
That's not what GC said. Go back and read it again, especially her assertion that people that use those words have less quality work.
She said 'good work has certain qualities', and that means that good writing doesn't rely on excessive needless intensifiers.
If you read through all her posts in this thread, you will see she contradicts herself. In one instance she says she deletes all such words from her work, then says they can be used (with a few rare exceptions). Then later mentions how authors that use those words lower the quality of their work. The statement you are referring too is simply a cop out. It's quite obvious what her true feelings are on the subject.
Where? Please point me to this statement, because as far as I can tell, the quote that I presented is from her very first post in the thread.
I'm not going to argue this point anymore. The nuts and bolts of the matter is I hate when people try to tell other writers, especially new ones, words not to use and give a reason that it lowers the quality of writing. Words are building materials and each has their own function, and if they weren't meant to be used, they wouldn't exist. ...and using an addendum such as (with a few rare exceptions) is a cop out. I would never use the word David in my writing process, unless with the rare exception one of my characters is named David.
For the record: There is no absolute, no always, and certainly no telling writers (new or experienced) what they must and must not do. However, for the record, I think most of us would say we are discussing a basic newbie writer mistake. It is one I not only made in the past, I still do. That's why I have to go back when editing and get rid of the words. Were I a top notch writer, I wouldn't use them in the first place.
I take my words on a case by case basis. If I'm writing in the voice of a 20-something, I'll use those words just, like, totally, for sure, I mean, anyway, whatever, etc... If I'm writing as a learned college professor or congressman, I'll tone it down and use more formal language. That's one thing I hated about 50 Shades of Gray is that while Anatasia Steele was supposed to be 19-20, her narrative "voice" sounded like a formalized block of wood. Personally, I don't care if "educated" writers think I'm downgrading the quality of my work, I'll use whatever sounds natural to my MC. If that means she says "like" or seemed every third sentence, then so be it.
Oddly, I like the fact that I keep in using those words, because removing them is my entrance point into editing my writing. Removing them helps me to clarify exactly what I wanted to say, and helps me progress into the more difficult editing.
Not in the dialogue, but in the narrative. Then again, I write in a unique style of first person/present tense ala Sophie Kinsella/Madeline Wickham where the narrative sounds more like dialogue than a true narrative.
In that case, using them deliberately to give a particular voice to a narrator would be acceptable. Maybe not the easiest to pull off though, if it's not dialogue. Except maybe if the POV narrator is the character with the same voice in dialogue.
Published writers or novices? 'cause to me this looks like a rookie "mistake." At some point you just realize you've become the Abuser of Words, your favorite victims the likes of 'seem', 'actually', and a whole bunch of intensifiers and qualifiers. 'Seem' was one of those things I learned by writing with my head up my ass first, then re-reading, and realizing that it looks clunky and repetitive. Heck, sometimes you don't even need the 'like' in a simile. It was done wonderfully in Herbjorg Wassmo's Dina's Book, but I didn't think for a moment the MC had turned into a fish or anything.
I suspect lots of people—definitely myself included—have 'pet' words we use more often than we may even notice. A neutral reader WILL notice the repetition, so it's a good idea to tone them down. Like @GingerCoffee, I have a list of those words particular to myself which I keep on my wall in front of my computer. My list includes: somewhat, a bit, rather, very, just, hopefully, beautiful, quite, really, actually, kind of, sort of, possibly. These are mostly empty qualifiers, which, when removed, don't alter the meaning of what I've said. These aren't words I never use, of course, but they ARE words I pay attention to now. About 90% of the time I do remove them if I find they've crept in. I suspect Ginger didn't mean 'never' use those words she listed. She's just saying 'watch these words.' You might well have specific words that you tend to over-use yourself. It's not an unbreakable rule, but I feel it's a good thing make sure you don't use them out of habit, but choose them deliberately for a given situation. ............. In these days of 'search and destroy' functions on our computers, it's fun to run a piece of writing through the search function, checking for a particular word. Sometimes it's scary how often certain ones creep in. Recently, I discovered I'd used the word scrabbled five times in one chapter! (Thank you, beta reader, for pointing this one out to me!) It's not one of my list words, because I only applied it to a certain event, but it was an embarrassing discovery, to be sure.
I too have a list of words I actively root out and remove. That's not to say words on my blacklist don't ever get used, I'm just very sparing with them. Nine times out of ten, when I consciously use them, I use them as a placeholder, realising they are not really making a contribution. I either highlight them or add a comment box, and go back to them at a later point. Very often, a better substitute will occur to me, one that makes for a more evocative sentence. All of @GingerCoffee and @jannert's words are on that list. But, that said, I did use one incidence of 'beautiful' when I last sat down to write my novel. I'd thought of a host of variations, but in the end settled for it. It was delivered in a line of dialogue, so despite querying its inclusion, it's what my character would have said, so I went with it.
Is a list really necessary? When you proofread, you notice overuse of a word, at least if you're paying attention to the narrative flow. Of course, that's after you have done enough reading to recognize what if flowing well, and what is not. It als assumes you've ironed out the more intrusive flaws, which is why its important to work with the cleanest manuscript you can manage at any point in thr proofing/critiquing process. You can't judge the flow if you're still tripping over boulders.
