Editing Tip: What are filter words?

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What are filler words and how do they hurt your writing?

Transcript

Hey, friends. Author Alison Spooner here, author of the Lost Girl: A Neverland Story. Back with some editing tips that I learned after I got feedback from an editor. And now I want to share with you because we all need to know these things, because the more you can do on your own manuscript, the less time an editor has to spend with it and the less you need to pay, although you should be paying your editors what they’re worth. But anyhow, today I want to talk about filter words.

To be honest, when I first started saw them mentioned, I thought it said filler words, which could also work. But I think that might be something else. Filter words are verbs that increase a narrative distance. So if we’re trying to really pull the reader into our character’s point of view, what’s known as deep pov, we really want to be immersed in this character’s pov. Filter words are what’s going to pull us out of that.

So some examples of filter words are noticed, realized, felt, thought, wondered, things like that. Because when you’re in a deep pov, you don’t need to know that your character realized something. You’re gonna see it. You’re gonna experience it happening, if that makes sense. You don’t have to say that.

So and so realized he needed to tell so and so something. You could just say John needed to tell mary. If before that John didn’t know he needed to tell mary, it hadn’t even crossed his mind. And all of a sudden you’re like. Or you could even add like an action that portrays the fact that this just occurred to him.

We’re assuming John is your main character. John gassed he needed to tell mary. Like, we know that he’s realizing it in that moment. But if you say John realized he needed to tell mary, it’s kind of pulling you out of his deep pov. We’re out of his head not experiencing what John is going through.

We’re being told what John is going through. Does that make sense? So some examples from an article I’m looking at by Louise Harnby. Louiseharnbyproofreader.com citing my sources, I could not find specific examples in my manuscript because it’s already been all cleaned up. Here’s a good example.

If you’re doing a first person, I notice the address and realize it’s typed on a sticker. You don’t need to say you notice and realize we’re experiencing that with the character. The address is typed on a sticker. That’s clearer. You know that the character is seeing that and it must be significant because they are noticing it.

Otherwise we wouldn’t get that information right. So there you go. We took out notice and realized from that sentence, taking out filter words is going to help your writing feel cleaner. Louise in this article says that filter words tap the reader on the shoulder and say, you’re not in this book. They’re a reminder that doing is being done and they can be the sign of an inexperienced writer.

And hopefully your editor, even if you use these a lot, hopefully your editor will point them out and help you remove them like mine did. And I’m sure I still put them in my latest manuscript. Hopefully I use them less because I’m learning, but, but that’s her job. She’ll help me take those out. So maybe something to look at.

Maybe go through your most recent manuscript and see how many times you use words like seemed. He seemed. I use that one a lot. Noticed, spotted, he saw, realized, felt, thought. Felt is a big one because you don’t have to say your character felt something.

If they’re feeling it. We’re gonna know if I’m crying. If my character is crying, we know they feel sadhesthe. You don’t have to say that. So it’s a lot like show versus tell, but these are words that are specifically giving away the fact that you’re showing and not telling.

So there you go a little bit about filter words. I hope that was helpful. Let me know if you have any comments below. I’m just kind of learning about them as I go along too, so you can ask questions and I can try to help and we can just have a conversation together.

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