Filler and Filter Words: When To Cut and When To Keep

Hello! This post is long overdue, but as promised I am making it.

I just finished undergoing edits on my WIP Curses of Lavender and am now in the process of querying. In November, I started doing videos outlining my editing process, however I was still figuring out what that process was. Now that I have completely edited by book, I feel as though I have a process down. That's not to say it won't change, but it helped me through the grueling final edits of my book.

This particular post is about a vital step in the editing process: word cutting. More specifically, what words to "automatically" (I'll get to why that is in quotation marks soon) cut in your novel. You may have heard of these as filler and filter words.

Before we start, I am going to give you my definition of what these words are, and a list of the words I look for in my writing.

Filler words: fluff words; words that give little to no meaning to a sentence.

• That

• Really

• There

• Rather

• Back

• A little bit

• A lot

• Just

• Some

• Somewhat

• Now

• Stuff

• Down

• Walk

• So

• Like

• Almost

• Then

• Thing(s)

• Again

• All

• Slightly

• Very

• Here

• Quite

• Maybe

• Turn

• Suddenly

• Somehow

Filter Words: words that create a partition between reader and character.

• Saw / See

• Smell

• Taste

• Hear

• Watch

• Think

• Thought

• Realize

• Notice

• Feel

• Look

• Seem

• Held / Hold

• Could

• Had

We have our definitions and our list of words. But what now?

Having these words in your writing is fine—in moderation. Having too many, however, can water down your writing and pull your reader out of the story. And, achieving an ideal word count can be hard! In my final edit of my WIP I had to go from 112,000 words to at least 98,999 words. At first it seemed impossible, but by the end of my edits I didn't just manage to hit my goal—but superseded it. My total for my WIP is now 94,000 words. I didn't cut any content from my story. In fact, I added to it.

I will get to how I did that in another post but something that helped me greatly was identifying what words watered down my writing so I could get rid of them.

Identifying these words is easy enough, especially with a handy dandy little list to help you out. My favorite trick is going to Microsoft Word and searching for all these words and then highlighting them with two different colors—one for filler words, one for filter. Then, while I am going about my edits I can easily see where these words are. A link to the video I posted on Instagram showing how I did this can be found here.

Now that we've identified the words, we need to cut them. Here are a few examples of how to cut filler words from your writing using examples from my WIP.

If she didn't, then she would ruin her only shot—her only chance—of making a life for herself.

There's nothing wrong with this sentence, but remember—filler words are words that have little to no impact on the sentence. This means that if we cut the word, the sentence should not change in meaning. Let's try it.

If she didn't, she would ruin her only shot—her only chance—of making a life for herself.

It reads exactly the same! The 'then' tells us that if she didn't do something, then something would happen. But we are smart individuals. We understand that concept, so the 'then' only serves as fluff. We don't need it to understand the sentence.

Let's try another example.

A young childish face filled the vanity mirror, fit with chubby cheeks that were splattered with a storm of freckles.

Once again, let's remove that filler word.

A young childish face filled the vanity mirror, fit with chubby cheeks were splattered with a storm of freckles.

Okay. So in this case, this sentence doesn't make sense without the filler word. We could do one of two things: put the word back in—or, edit the sentence further. Since my goal is to cut words and there is an easy solution, I am opting for the second. In this sentence, the 'were' doesn't make sense without the 'that'. If we cut the 'were', is the sentence understandable? Let's try it.

A young childish face filled the vanity mirror, fit with chubby cheeks splattered with a storm of freckles.

It does! Since it is clear that I am describing the cheeks, I don't need to use words to point to them. I can just describe them. In this instance, we cut two words in one sentence.

In other times, you can go even further to omit an entire section of unnecessary words, aka descriptions that serve little to no purpose, but I will discuss that in another post.

Now that we understand how to cut filler words, let's try filter words.

Filler words aren't an easy cut and go because of the way they impact the story. The words have meaning, but not enough meaning. Once again, these words water down the story. However filter words do something else, too—water down the reader's experience. As readers, we want to escape reality and immerse ourselves into the lives of the characters. We want to become them. Filter words hinder that experience by putting up a wall between the character and reader that makes the reader aware that they are reading about someone else's experiences, and not experiencing it first hand. As a reader, I want to hear what the character hears. See what the character sees. So in order to fix filter words, you may have to do a bit more work—and perhaps add a bit more words.

Let's try editing this sentence.

She could hear things here.

Let's start by finding a way to simplify this. Instead of saying 'could hear', couldn't I just say:

She heard things here.

Okay. Great. One less word and the sentence has the same meaning. However, 'heard' is still a filter word. Therefore, I as the reader am not hearing what she hears (in fact, I don't even know what she hears). I only know that the character hears something, therefore leaving me out of the experience. Let's fix this.

She heard echoes ricocheting in the distance.

Okay. Now we know what she is hearing, but we are still filtered out of the experience. Let's try cutting the filter word.

Echoes ricocheted in the distance.

Wow. I don't know if it is just me, but that sentence just reads so much better and is far more vivid. I feel like I am there.

In my book, I stuck with 'She heard things here' because I go on to describe in fragmented sentences next. I do this 1) because it is my character's voice. And 2) because it creates mystery.

She heard things here. Voices. Movement. Sometimes close, like a brush of air against her face. Sometimes far, like echoes in the distance.

If you have a specific reason for something, my advice is to leave it. But choose when you leave it and edit it. Sentences like the one above on repeat can become too words and overtime loose their effect. In this scene, I am revealing something pivotal to my readers and want to bring on the tension and drama. Know why you have it a specific way. If you don't, it is probably best to cut and revise.

Let's try another example.

...she cut herself off before she could say too much more.

Once again, 'could' takes away that immediate feeling. If we cut it, however, 'say' would have no reason to be there. We could use 'said'. That way, we could remove 'could' and have the sentence maintain the same meaning. Have we removed the filter word? Yes. However, could we make the sentence stronger? We can.

The whole point of editing filter words is to enhance the reader's experience. Said gets the meaning across but does little to enhance the experience. So, let's try replacing it with a stronger word. The word I chose was:

...she cut herself off before she revealed too much more.

That adds a lot more meaning to the sentence. 'Revealed' gives us the sense that the character is hiding something, rather than just speaking too much—which could be interpreted as rambling or any number of other reasons.

To take this sentence a step further, I cut 'more' as well.

*Fluff can be more than the filler words I laid out. Any words or sentences that does not enhance your book must go to avoid watering down your writing. Less is more.*

So that's how I go about cutting filler and filter words. However, I there is one more important step to my process that saved me a lot of time and stress. That step is determining when to keep a filler or filter word (which is why I put automatically in quotations, because we don't always want to blindly cut them). We would want to keep them for multiple reasons.

1) As I said earlier, you can keep them if you are using them for a specific purpose.

2) If the sentence does not make sense or read the same without it AND you cannot find a stronger word OR a way to get the meaning across without sacrificing simplicity.

3) And lastly, if it isn't even a filler or filter word at all.

I already touched base with reason number one. All writers have a writing style, and all characters have a voice. If using a filler or filter word suits that purpose, do not stress too much. Take them out when you can and make sure you have a reason for keeping it that enhances your writing.

For reason number two, I will provide an example.

He loved that she was unique and creative—one of a kind, he would tell her.

In this example, if I would remove the filler word 'that' the sentence would sound off.

He loved she was unique and creative—

Eek. Could I edit it? Sure.

He loved her unique and creative qualities—one of a kind, he would tell her.

He loved how she was unique and creative—one of a kind, he would tell her.

The first part sounds fine. However in the context my character is remembering something her father told her, so the second part is pivotal. Both parts together just don't sound right to me, and the second example adds two words, which doesn't help my attempts to filter out some words.

Could I edit it to find the perfect way to say it without using a filler word. Maybe. Would it take a lot of time and frustration? Probably. In these circumstances, you have to decide whether the sentence is the best version of itself with or without the filler or filter word. When in doubt, go with simplicity. One thing I struggled with when I set out to eradicate filler and filter words was just that—I set out to eradicate them. The goal should be to enhance our writing by removing the unnecessary fluff so everything else can shine. Not to make something complicated and odd.

And lastly, the third reason. This one took me a bit to figure out. I remember going through and trying everything I can to change the filter or filler words, frustrated when after my edits I still saw a lot of those little highlights pointing them out. It was a good while until I realized that context matters.

Let me put that in bold.

CONTEXT MATTERS

Why? Because context determines the meaning of the words. Cold could either be goosebumps brought by chilling winter weather or a stare that sends a shiver down your spine. Context determines when cold is a feeling or a look.

Confused? An example may help.

The wallpaper was rough, as though time had worn down its smooth coat to the scaly, raw paper beneath.

In this sentence, is down a filler word? Let's put it to the test by removing it.

The wallpaper was rough, as though time had worn its smooth coat to the scaly, raw paper beneath.

Does it read the same? Yes it does. In fact, I think it reads better without the fluff. It allows the verb 'worn' to immediately proceed what I am describing without fluff watering it down.

Now what about this sentence?

She had to bite down her anger, shove it deep, deep inside her.

Let's remove the filler word.

She had to bite her anger, shove it deep, deep inside her.

Ummm... She had to bite her anger? That seems rather odd—not to mention impossible. In this case, down isn't a filler because it holds meaning. It allows us to know that she isn't really biting her anger, but rather inhibiting it.

(Side note: upon further reflection, I could simplify this sentence to read: she bit down her anger, shoving it deep, deep inside her(self). Sometimes, you miss things. The book won't suffer for one sentence, but doing your best to make the majority of the sentence clear and concise will make a difference. Don't obsess about making it perfect, just focus on making it better.)

To summarize all of this information up, the rule I follow is:

Cut when the word adds no meaning or can be replaced with a stronger word, and keep it when the sentence doesn't make sense without it and there is no simple edit you can make to remove it without changing the meaning.

At the end of the day, filler and filter words aren't bad. Sometimes they are necessary. But knowing when to keep them and when to get rid of them can strengthen your writing and help your word count significantly.

I hope you found this helpful! This is a key part of my writing process and I am so glad I took the time to do it. The change is startling, and just being aware of these words helps me to craft better sentences without taking the time to edit them all.

Next week, I will go a step further and explain how I remove the big fluff in my writing: sentences, details—and possibly, even paragraphs.

*P.S. Word Loss Diet by Rayne Hall is a great book that goes into even further detail. I started off there and then made the idea my own when I struggled to cut all filler and filter words, and found additional words to add to the list she provides. She even tells you how to highlight the words in Microsoft Word and gives helpful examples about cutting specific categories of filler and filter words.*