Just spent the day removing 200 of 'that' and 40 of 'up' and so it goes. Looking at whether 'that' belongs or not is confusing. They can't all go even if the people in the know say to get rid of up, down, that, and he said she said. Any help for an aspiring writer.
I don’t really agree with the modern style advice to get rid of ‘that’ at all costs. I tried another writing forum once, and their near hysteria at the presence of a ‘that’ is one of the reasons I walked away. Or, one of the reasons that I walked away. I’m unclear on the ups and downs. Can you offer an example? And ‘said’ is fine. You don’t want it repeating over and over and over like a drumbeat (unless that’s your chosen effect) but there’s nothing actually wrong with it. And when you snip it out, it’s usually better to snip out the whole tag instead of going all thesaurus and thumbtacking in ‘uttered’ and ‘opined’ and all...that.
Thanks for the response CF Here is a that I removed...René told me that he and Miguel were going fishing for two days The others of sat down and stood up I had a few. I'm never going to finish this thing. I'm sure you'll agree that up doesn't belong after cleaned in this sentence.. The men from the village hunted in the daylight, and we cleaned up and cooked whatever they brought back.
I would keep the 'that' in your example, though it depends on the voice of the narrator. "...told me he..." is more informal than "...told me that he...". Sat down and stood up are fine. I'm curious as to who says they aren't? Sat and stood are also fine. On some occasions the correct choice is unambiguously one or the other, but very often it's a style choice. You don't 'clean up' a rabbit that you hunted for dinner, no--you 'clean' it. But then you may very well 'clean up' the campsite after all that blood and fur gets scattered around from cleaning the rabbit.
Some of them make sense like...I was reluctant to talk to him because of the anger that welled up in me. But others are a mystery.....How could I tell her that I want to go back to the priesthood? The name was Jerry Jenkins some guy from a writers guild that a friend sent me. Jenkins wrote: Generally remove the word that—use it only when absolutely necessary for clarity • Give the reader credit and resist the urge to explain, as in, “She walked through the open door.” (Did we need to be told it was open?)
Take the words out and ask yourself if the sentences are still correct. You don't need up and down in those examples, we know the person did not sit up unless they were already lying down. I think if a person were lying down I would write that they sat up. Going from lying down to sitting up isn't clear if you say something like: She was on the bed. She sat.The reader can't see from that if she moved to a chair. Sat up makes more sense. Ask yourself, are you telling the reader something obvious? Because if you are then the writing is smoother without all those extra words. You need not remove every single extra word, just discriminate a bit and only leave ones that need to be there. Sometimes a filter word is needed. This article is about the usual filter words: Are filter words weakening your fiction? However, other words are similar in that they aren't needed and using them weakens the sentences. When I'm editing I take a lot of words out, asking myself if I'm saying something the reader already knows.
The second example is a question of the character's voice, IMO. My two co-protagonists have very formal voices--he's formal and highly educated, she's informal and sketchily educated. He will use a lot of "thats" that she won't use. I still disagree. Clarity is not the only issue. Removal of 'that' is a style/voice decision, and I don't really think it's appropriate for him to decide that everyone's style/voice should be just like his. Now, if an agent or publisher or style book decrees that the kinda-optional thats be removed, that's a different issue--the writer will have to decide whether getting published by that entity is worth obeying that style-voice directive. Eh...yes, it's a mistake to explain the obvious, but the example doesn't tell us, with any certainty, whether the open state of the door is obvious. "She walked through the open door" tells us that she found the door open, and didn't open it herself. That might matter. But what was his objection to up, down, and said?
I understand if someone chooses a particular style. But one should know why they are choosing it, not just choose it because one lacks experience. Of course the door was open, otherwise the character would smack into it. It doesn't tell you anything you can't see without saying 'open'. If it was closed you'd write the character opened it.
Ah a voice of reason. The ups and downs were about standing up or sitting down. I had a few were they walked up the hill or down to the waterfall. I couldn't figure out how to show they're up or down so I used it once and then said, "Let's take a walk to the waterfall." Instead of, "Let's walk down to the waterfall."
I think you're obeying his advice too, well, obediently. And if he objected specifically to stand up and sit down, why did you eliminate other up and downs?
You're right that was a bad example. Unfortunately I wasn't using track changes for this edit and without check of an older version I don;t have one handy. I did find the article where Jenkins said, Avoid the words up and down unless they’re really needed. He rigged up the device. .. or....She sat down on the couch.
I think that there are a few issues here. The first one I'm seeing is that (heh) of narrative voice versus character voice. (In first person these are of course tightly tied together.) Consider: Mr. Jenkins said, "Sit down and tell me about it." Mr. Jenkins said, "Sit and tell me about it." Mr. Jenkins, a character, used the word 'down'. To me, the second example sounds more like a command. It sounds a bit rude. Does Mr. Jenkins mean to be rude here? If he doesn't, then it doesn't matter that some writing coach somewhere decreed that the word 'down' is eeeevil. Mr. Jenkins should be Mr. Jenkins. I realize that he didn't say that 'down' is evil, but it sounds like you heard him saying that. I think that you're obeying his advice too slavishly, and denying your own right to make judgement calls. If your character would say, "Let's walk down to the falls", then I think that your character should say "Let's walk down to the falls". I'm wondering how far you're letting this guy push you. If a police character said, "Put the gun down," would you feel obligated to say, "Put the gun on the table," just because he's made you afraid of the word 'down'? If a character said, "Could you push the 'up' button for me?" would you feel obligated to make him say, "Could you push the button that makes the elevator rise to higher floors?" or "Could you push the button with the arrow that points toward the ceiling?" Up, down, that, said--they're all perfectly good words. (I still want to know what Mr. Jenkins had against the word said?)
The question isn't whether the door was open when the character walked through it. Of course it was. The question is whether the character found the door opened, or opened it. Of course I'm not going to say, for example: Joe reached the hand that was attached to his arm into the pocket that was sewn into the trousers that he was wearing on his body. With that hand he took a key out of that pocket. Using his hand, he inserted the key from his pocket in the lock attached to the door that was attached to his house and turned the knob attached to the door. He pulled the knob with his hand and opened the door. He walked in through the open door.... But I might very well say, on page 72: As he approached the house, Joe saw flashing lights in the upper windows. He rushed inside and ran for the stairs. The door swung open behind him. And on page 74: As Joe descended the stairs, shaking his head, he saw that damned cat walking through the open door. My point is that every one of these things is a judgement call that depends on surrounding context.
Yeah CF it wasn't Mr Jenkins all I could fined was ... Marian was mad. She pounded the table. “George, you’re going to drive me crazy,” she said, angrily. “You can do it!” George encouraged said. I only have two people talking so I hardly have any tags. The one I am remiss on is after a sentence I was putting ...and I said, Like this one ....Frustrated with myself and a little angry I said, “In a minute! All I need is a few minutes, and we will be on our way again.” Now it's...Frustrated with myself and a little angry. “In a minute! All I need is a few minutes, and we will be on our way again.” I will look and see if I can find the blog I read on tags. I thought it was Stephen King , but he was adamant about dressing up the tag. Like..Laughin he said,
Oh, that's not about 'said'. I saw that, while I was looking up who this Mr. Jenkins is. That's about redundancy--it tells us four different ways that Marian is angry, and two ways that George is being encouraging. Removing that tag makes your specific example grammatically incorrect. And there's nothing wrong with the tag. I'd remove the rest, and just make it: I said, "In a minute! All I need is a few minutes, and we'll be on our way again." The dialogue tells us the frustration and anger, so explaining it is redundant. That doesn't sound like Stephen King. Tags are fine. I'm not sure why you call yourself 'remiss' for using one. Tags are fine. You don't want to have them on every single line of dialogue, but if someone has persuaded you that they're always bad, that someone was very much wrong.
I think certain words are worth reconsidering, if you're using them in a knee-jerk way, but just eliminating them, willy-nilly, seems to be an overreaction. Sometimes the words have connotations that we don't consciously recognise. For example: She sat on the couch. This might be clear in context, or it might not. How long has she been sitting there? Sat implies the state of sitting, which could be for any length of time. Whereas: She sat down on the couch implies that the action of sitting is being performed right there and then. It's a quicker, more specific action. I also like @ChickenFreak 's distinction between 'cleaning' the rabbit and 'cleaning up the campsite' afterwards. Cleaning implies scrubbing, washing, etc. Cleaning up implies tidying or making something presentable. Automatically removing words because they can sometimes be problematic destroys the power of nuance in language, in my opinion. ........... As for 'that,' I still struggle with when to use it instead of 'which.' I know the principle, but applying it isn't always as easy as it appears in these sample sentences. Nonetheless, I persevere.... https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/which-vs-that
Good point. The ups and downs were easy because most of them were apparent like 'cleaned up.' It was a good exercise when I challenged the proper use, I found a better way to express the complete sentence. BTW I have 772 that left out of 90,000 words. Some of them were changed to which. I have a better picture of what to do now, and will apply it in future work. Thanks all... ETA four of that should have been who, a good catch on my part. Hooray for me!
@jannert Thanks for the that/wich link. I went back and challenged every which and changed a few of them back to that. I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do to challenge the use of which until I went to apply it. Now my head hurts.
I'm pretty good with grammar, but that one never comes naturally to me. And yeah, it make my head hurt too! The problem is, both of them sound correct and interchangeable to me. Which they're not.
Does anyone know of a website or app that will pick out all instances of a particular word? Or is the standard find tool the best way?
Yeah, that would worry me as well, but maybe the person is just searching for the word because they are aware they over-use it. (Like me, with the word 'scrabbled,' which I used eight times in the space of two chapters in my first draft. ) Or maybe it's even the wrong word (like a change of somebody's name, or something.) I've used my 'find' feature in Pages a lot, for both reasons. As long as it's not a plan to eliminate all instances of the word 'was' from the MS!
