Thread by @WendySparrow

Convo with daughter:
Me: I found advice that suggested we overuse the word "it" and it's often a weak word that can be replaced with the actual object of reference. My 96K word book has over 1800 instances of the word "it."

Daughter: So, your book is like 2% the word "it"?

Me:

I'm here questioning all my life choices. How does this book not read like it's 2% the word "it"? It seems like it should.

My daughter also mocked me because while trying to explain how ridiculous it was to have a 2% "it" book, I used the word "it" a bajillion times. I now no longer question how my book is 2% "it." My actual dialogue IRL is 50% "it." 50% "it" and 50% "actually." That's actually it.

Seriously, though, how does this book not read like it's 2% "it"? Because it seems like that should be noticeable. I should have picked up on that.

So, for all my middle of the night self-mockery, going through and targeting the heavy uses of "it" instead of the reference objects is remarkably effective for improving narrative and dialogue. A lot of sentences with "it" can be vastly improved or cut. I'm impressed.

It's also hell. I mean, I'm hating this. The unrelenting nature of seeing twenty "its" in a paragraph is daunting. This is miserable, but it's effective.

One-third the way through the book in my battle against "it" and I'm down to 1563 "its." It'll be interesting to see how this'll read when it's all said and done. I'm leaving most of the ones in dialogue because they fit.

I think part of the reason this is so effective is because I'm finding a lot of sentences that begin "it was" and that's never going to be the best way to convey emotions or a description.

For those curious about my "it" book changes, this is what I'm talking about. I *think* the second one is better than the "its"-heavy version. This isn't the final copy, by any means, but I think it's better with three less "its."

Also, yes, every "it" I put in a tweet describing my bizarre dilemma is a nail in my soul. 😭

Also, watch, the whole thing will get cut by the final draft anyway. That is the way it goes in writing. You spend six hours down a rabbit hole for a single sentence that you cut before the final draft.

BTW, eventually, someone needs to comment because my OCD paranoia is strong right now and I will delete this whole thread thinking that you all believe I should have embraced the "its." I've been writing for 14 years but I still feel insecure about sharing anything.

The "it" purge continues. I am down to 1450 "its" at halfway. It would be cool to get it down to 1% "its" but that might be ambitious or too much given how dialogue-heavy this is... and that my tweets discussing it are like 10% "it." 🙄 (I know, okay! I know!)

I accidentally dropped the "find whole words only" after heavily revising the content of a scene for technical issues. I suddenly had 3428 "its" and I think my heart may have actually stopped.

I was preparing myself to handle a bit of a loss of progress because the revision added several paragraphs of material, which would, naturally contain more "it."

There was an entire second when I legitimately believed I'd added 2000 "its" in 4 - 5 paragraphs.

Hey, you spend 10 hours trying to kill "its" and come back and judge me!

BTW I am still hating every second of this endeavor. I am also hating that I will be doing this going forward on all manuscripts because it's so effective for catching shallow description and passive voice. I still have a list of other words to search for but "it" is... amazing.

Oh, I should add that, at this point, I've worked with over two dozen editors who've taught me how to fix my mistakes. I wouldn't tackle this if you're not accustomed to reworking narrative in revisions. You're probably just as likely to mess things up as fix them. Just FYI.

Also, shout out to all the editors out there, you're fantastic teachers. I have learned so much from you. It's good to be able to revise further on my own before dumping it on an editor's lap though.

I'm 2/3rds through the book (pg 200 out of 308) and I'm down to 1345 "its." Weirdly enough, removing 450+ "its" has resulted in adding over 1k in words.

*bangs head against wall*

I think it'll work out, but that remains to be seen. This is such a process.

Done with my "it" purge! Bwahahaha! I would feel bad that I didn't get below 1%, but my manuscript has 1111 "its" in it, and my OCD loves odd numbers.

When I wake up, I'll move on to the next word on my list. I don't know that any others will be that intense though. Thankfully.

Back to work on the first page of my checklist of my own personal demons. I skipped ahead to the "its."

(Your mileage may drastically vary. I just know my "words.")

(BTW, Gaiians are my primary other "alien" race and their speech and POV are distinct because I'm a masochist.)

It feels weirdly ironic how rarely the word "again" is actually necessary.

BTW, I know there are far more important conversations going on today than someone going through a manuscript for problematic words and issues, but this is what I can handle. The endoscopy three weeks ago was so hellish it triggered PTSD that I've had managed for two decades.

Add to that the OCD that *gestures* you can see I have completely under control...this is what I can do.

Anyway, I'm back to eliminating "again" but I wanted to say that.

I have moved on to "away" and holy wow, friends, I had no idea how many "aways" were in this thing. *sighs* There are sentences in here with multiple "aways." Paragraphs with like five "aways." I'm a monster.

I'm on "like" and I am not liking it. 294 "likes" is my starting line. We'll see where this goes.

Finished "like" and a few other words, but I'm tackling "in" tonight. I'm looking for repetitions within the same sentence or like five of them in a paragraph. Starting point was 1236 "in" and I'm 1184 at 1/3 through. I'm guessing I won't kill TONS of "in."

BTW, if anyone would like a copy of my list, it's still a work in progress and some things are specifically my own issues, but I don't mind sharing. If you DM me an email address, I can send you a word doc of the list. It's not perfect, but it's helpful.

Also, to be clear, there is not anything I'm eliminating entirely--that'd kill voice. A lot of the words just flag passive voice or I'm looking for overuse. I just fixed a sentence with three uses of "in" that has made it through soooo many drafts. Ugh.

Seriously, the 3 "in" sentence reminds me of those building children's songs where you keep adding more prepositional phrases each repetition like: "There's a frog on the bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea."

How did it survive so many revisions?

Another three "in" one:

“Yes. I backed in, as I would in a port I anticipated leaving in a hurry."

I am ashamed--deeply ashamed.

This is beginning to feel like it could be a drinking game.

*Wendy takes another drink* (It's Mtn Dew, but still.)

Oh good heavens.

"He turned to the viewscreen in time to watch in awe."

*Wendy takes another drink*

I think I'm done for the night. My shame is too deep. Also, I just realized my "it" book is also over 1% "in."

HOW?

*defenestrates laptop*

Also, I swear this book doesn't suck as much as I'm making it seem. It is actually more than just prepositional phrases and the word "it." There are entire sentences without either. Short sentences. Mostly dialogue. But, hey, it is what it is. *stares at "its" in tweet* *cries*

Back "in" the hunt tonight. (Do you see what I did there?) Almost halfway through.

*gasps* I found a sentence with 4 "ins" and, wow, where do I return my author card?

In contrast, the array of Gaiian ships, assembled in groupings—rather than lines, looked much like a port in Bogarta—ships in a multitude of sizes and shapes with pilots of varying skill levels.

Also, that's just a terrible sentence. It's probably good that it popped up on my radar due to the extravagant "in" usage. *cracks knuckles* LET'S AUTHOR!

While I'm working on this, my daughter (21), who is an extreme night owl, has decided that one a.m. is the perfect time to plant strawberries. The dogs are losing their collective minds because she is OUTSIDE.

There's something mystical though about gardening in the moonlight.

Something I'm learning from this preposition hunt--many prepositional phrases are completely unnecessary. You don't need to say, "She sat in the seat," because it's obvious where she would be sitting. You don't need to specify over and over something is "in front of her."

I killed four or five times I referred to something being on the viewscreen "in front of her" in the same scene. Similar to the "it" hunt, this is proving to be a good way to easily tighten up writing while making it actually do more work.

I remember when I learned, early on--and I think it was on Twitter--that "just" is used waaaay too often. I began "seeing it" in my writing and cutting down its use so it became less problematic. I wonder if I'll be able to do the same with unnecessary prepositional phrases.

I have added more prepositions to my "kill list" which seems to grow each day. Luckily, some of the items on the list are much easier. I have "insured" on it because I need to swap it out with "ensured." Okay, back to killing "in." Bwahahaha!

Ugh. Another sentence with 3 "in." Those bastards are pervasive.

In the time since that first battle in the dark system, she’d been able to see the universe and participate in battles while still collecting specimens and studying them.

Okay, I think this is better.

Since that first clash in Lyatan’s orbit, she had experienced so much. Mari had explored a multitude of fascinating planets, studying their flora. She’d expanded botanical databases with rare entries, some found in the middle of battlegrounds.

Done! Hah! So, "in" went from 1236 uses to 1064. I think that's good enough. If any of you end up doing word searches, you'll have to tell me if you're 1% "in" also.

*Wendy checks off the word with fiendish glee*

"Large" is done. I cut it from 20 uses down to 10. Some I swapped with better words. Others I cut because knowing the size wasn't actually important. Those are kind of odd. I stare at them, thinking, "Why did I feel it was necessary to describe the size of that?"

I've been toggling in the Word options menu for Search and Find between "find whole words only" and "find all word forms" in advanced search. I plugged in the word "little" while still on "find all word forms" and it grabbed "less" too. That's interesting.

Okay, I'm going to bed. I'll leave "maybe" for when I wake up.

BTW, if this thread is annoying anyone, sorry. 😬 It's been nice to chat with people about writing. I feel like with the world like *gestures* that my interactions on Twitter have been super stressful. This helps.

I'm discovering that most of the times I use "maybe" are weak sentences with "maybe" in them. Also, I don't think one of my POV characters would use "maybe" very often. I started off with 68 "maybes."

I'm learning some hard truths with this "search and find" experiment. I waste a lot of words in the name of "voice" when the reality is that I can replace those words with more evocative choices or delete them and get more emotion while improving pacing. I did not expect that.

I am still hating every second of this experiment. This is tedious. I'm also starting to see the results of it though as I go back through for other words and the writing is so much better. The narrative is so much more compelling that I start reading and forget to edit.

32 of 68 maybes survived. It really is a surprisingly useless word. Wow. I did not see that coming. The voice was stronger without it and retained the "casual" tone that I had assumed the word "maybe" brought to the table. No. Bizarre. Wow.

I'm working on "now" and similar to several other words, I'm discovering that "now" is often implied and unnecessary...especially if you repeat it over and over in the same paragraph. *winces*

Oh noes. I just did a search for "of." It's bad, friends. It's horrific. So, I thought maybe there aren't multiple "ofs" in a sentence and started hopping through them. There are. There are so many. IGNORANCE! I choose ignorance. Someone find me a damn blue pill! *cries softly*

Double noes. I was so proud of myself for getting rid of this pernicious double "of" and hit search again, and it flagged the bit I'd just replaced...with another "of" phrase.

My head and heart hurt. I need Mtn Dew. Seriously, I have opened Pandora's box and evil has escaped.

What fresh hell is this? Four "of" in a sentence? Burn it all down! What have I done? Is it too late to walk away? 😭

Bogarta port might trade in all sorts of plant life, some of it outside of the regulations of the Prime Allegiance, but the planet didn’t support crops.

Here's the fixed sentence FWIW. I think it's better without 4 "of." I really want to replace that first comma with a semicolon.

Bogarta port traded in a multitude of flora, plant life which was often outside the Prime Allegiance regulations, but the planet didn’t support crops.

So, I'm plugging through "of" still, and I'm discovering that I often use "of" to establish a possession. Like, for example, I say "streets of Bogarta" instead of "Bogartan streets" or "Bogarta's streets." I rely on prepositional phrases when I could cut to the chase.

I haven't tackled "on" yet obviously, but check out this gem:

Leaning down, Crey wiped his blade on the cloak of the lead Thalarin before sheathing the sword on his back.

Fixed:
Leaning down, Crey wiped his blade on the lead Thalarin's cloak before sheathing the sword.

I'd already established that the sheath was on his back, so I didn't need to hammer that nail in with a fresh load of prepositional phrases.

Why do I do this? Why all the prepositional phrases? It's like someone is paying me per prepositional phrase. I need more Mtn Dew.

When I tap the arrows to jump to the next instance of "of" and I see 20 highlighted instances on a page--a small part of me dies.

*counts*

Okay, only 12.

*sighs forever*

I feel like I needed a prepositional phrase intervention a long time ago, but none of you loved me enough.

I'm still on "of" because I was a mess on Wednesday from the second massage attempt to get my bones back in place. (Mission accomplished. My hip is no longer dislocated. Booyah!) But, I'm back at "of" destruction. They will meet their maker!
So...me. Underwhelming threat really.

My book went from 1632 "of" to 1222 "of." By the end of this experiment, I'll have all the percentages worked out.
.25% all
1.8% and
.15% back
.3% but
.2% down
.15% even
1.2% in
1% it
.3% like
1.3% of
and so on.
It's awesome (.01%) to (2.3) know (.15) these (.9) things (.1)

There's that famous quote misattributed to Hemingway that you should "write drunk and edit sober." My friends, I'm making a real case for the alternative. I haven't tackled "to" yet and there are 2613 of that preposition. I'm done for tonight...this morning...it's 4 a.m. Done.

It's definitely better without all those "of" though. *checks off the list with an exuberant flourish* This is working. It's just also miserable, and I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. It's impressive how much better it reads. BUT I HATE IT.

What do you think is a reasonable percentage of a book to be solely the word "more"? Asking for a friend.

It's odd how many words I'm discovering don't actually add to a narrative a lot of the times I use them. It's weird how frequently I can delete "more" and it doesn't change the meaning or impact of the sentence.

Many years ago, I discovered I have a real "seem" problem. Rather than committing to a description, I tacked in "seem." Everything "seemed" to be something. Since then, I've reduced the number of "seems" when writing. I still had 75 in this ms. Now, I have 26.

It's one of those words that mutes narrative in almost all cases.

He seemed to be happy.
The trees seemed to be bending in the wind.
They seemed to be waiting for something.
The relationship seemed to be a risk for her heart.

It's nearly always unnecessary. Still, I persist.

In revision notes, I used to write notes to myself saying, "Commit dammit!" I still think that as I go through the manuscript and think, "Seriously, why are you still using it so often, Wendy? Commit to the description, dammit."

Not sure if anyone is reading this anymore, but it's effective for motivation, so I'll keep at it. I'm fighting some pretty decent depression so motivation is at a premium.

I am working through "start" currently, but there aren't many. Hoping to cross off page 3 in "the list."

"Start" is another filler word that lacks commitment and makes sentences rambly.

Ex.
Mari didn’t want to complain, but seven hours of walking was starting to drain her.

Fixed:
She'd trudged onward, without complaining, but seven hours of walking had drained her.

Or this one:

Ex: Crey started rummaging through his pack.

Fixed: Crey rummaged through his pack.

It's bizarre that I don't catch these during any of the drafts. I have to look for them specifically.

Okay, I'll spend another day or two on page 3 of the list. Page 3 contains the dreaded "that."

I did knock off like a dozen words, though. I got my "still" count down from 131 to 69. 😁

Working through all the "some" in the manuscript currently. Some, something, somehow, somewhere, someone, and somewhat. Inexactness is generally an author's enemy. Aside from in dialogue, you're just sacrificing depth. Even in dialogue, you're dampening immediacy and impact.

Ex: “I do not know this Earthen custom, Mari—this kissing good night. It will require some instructions.”

Fixed: “I do not know this Earthen custom, Mari—this kissing good night. I require instruction.”

Obviously, in some scenarios, your voice is more meandering so it works.

"Some" is pernicious. It sneaks in everywhere. And it adds distance in a third deep narrative, which is no good.

Ex: For some inexplicable reason, this inspired lust in his mate.

Fixed: Inexplicably, this inspired lust in his mate.

Finished "some." I took it from 256 uses down to 159.

The weird thing about doing micro-editing like this, where you fix a sentence here and there before jumping ahead, is that there's a big reveal when you're done. You can't see the forest for the trees--until you do.

All these little things will add up and it's always staggering to read through after the fact and realize how much of a difference it makes to drop wasted words and go deeper elsewhere. The pacing improves and the world, characters, and voice all feel more real. It's amazing.

I have finally arrived at "that." I have 1339 "thats" in this manuscript, despite trying to limit them while drafting. Ugh, this story is over 1% "that." I hate this part.

I got it down to 1112 "thats." And that, as they say, is that. Until I wake up, and then, it's "then." 168 "then." *sighs*

Working on "then." It's weird how often I stuff "then" into a manuscript when I'm just describing the linear portrayal of action. It's like I've written an instructional manual, instead of a sci-fi. I think it's because "then" is a sloppy segue between sentences.

For example, here "then" is unnecessary, but it "feels" like it belongs.

Crey flung the dead monster into nearby bushes, which chomped enthusiastically on the carcass. He wiped his sword on hissing angry grass and sheathed it. Then, with a tender look, Crey took her hand again.

IMO, sometimes, if you're not looking for specific words, filler words will just persist because they feel right. And, honestly, they feel that way because dialogue is that way. Natural speech is messy. We use tons of unnecessary words. But they kill flow and muddy description.

Wow, I just found a sentence that read:

"What are we doing right now then?"

Right now then.

I'm guessing that's survived a ton of drafts. I have brought shame upon us all. *hangs up laptop* *shows self out*

Making progress. I might actually finish page 3 before sleeping. (I keep reorganizing and adding to my list, so I've done things on later pages.) I think I'll finish revising this week. It's really satisfying to check off things.

Ended up going to sleep instead of working on revision. I'm back to killing "there" today. It's going well. "There" is another marker of passive voice. Especially when it appears with its friend "was." You can almost always rephrase to make the sentence more dynamic.

Ex:

There was a monster in the cargo bay that had torn into the ship and was hell-bent on killing them.

Fixed:

A monster had torn through the metal hull of the cargo bay and was hell-bent on killing them.

"There" also kills the effect of other words.

Ex.
“It is unlikely there are enough nanobots remaining to be problematic; however, it is best to be certain.”

Fixed.
"It is unlikely enough nanobots remain to be problematic; however, it is best to be certain."

Done. Moving on to "thing(s)" which is often sloppy inexactness. Usually, you can just reorganize or replace "thing" with the actual word you want. It's like the great "it" hunt of earlier this month...only to a lesser degree--thankfully.

Ex:
The captain only accepted grants for very specific finds, so she could profit from the additional things discovered and logged on a planet.
Fixed:
The captain only accepted grants for very specific finds, so she could profit from the additional discoveries logged on a planet.

One of the big name writers has suggested never using a thesaurus while writing...ever. That advice has always annoyed me. Then, I try to work through fibro and FND flares, and I have a thesaurus open constantly because I cannot find the word I'm thinking of.

I'm really struggling to find the word I want right now. I've been hopping from entry to entry trying to narrow the field until I find the word my brain is keeping from me. Writing with processing disorders is often like a fun game of hide-and-seek with your brain--that bastard.

I might call it a night instead of revising. I think the aura from the migraine is lingering because words are all jumbly tonight. It's like I've forgotten how words work. So frustrating.

I'm working through "at" overuse now, and, wow, the amount of times that "at him" and "at her" can just be deleted is staggering. Also, I swear some of my sentences are just 20 prepositional phrases strung together.

Egads, I say "looked at" a thousand-million-billion times. *cries softly* I wish there were better synonyms for "look" in all its uses. There's only so many glances and gazes you can swap out.

I feel the same way about the words: slide, turn, shift, pull, and brush.

I might need a cupcake...which I will first have to make. *sighs*

Made cupcakes. (I acquired mixes last week for this sort of emergency.) Cinnamon-sugar, lemon, and chocolate frosted. Unfortunately, my sense of smell/taste is still on the outs due to my diseases. (Not COVID.)

I finished "at"--dropping from 438 to 320. Moving on to "behind."

"Behind" is done. Moved on to "between" and immediately found a sentence with three uses of the word "between." HOW? How did I not pick up on that?

I skipped both "this" and "was" on my list because they were intimidating, and I've circled back to work on them. I want to check off page 3 so bad. It's funny how motivated I am by checking things off a list.

I have had four cupcakes today. Today is brought to you by cupcakes.

I was just thinking that you can tell this book was written during the pandemic and with the thought "write the book you want to read."

This has an A+ groveling scene. He screws up badly and does A+ groveling.

I tried to find a section of the groveling scene to tweet, but it was difficult to find a portion that stood on its own. You'll just have to hope this gets published or volunteer to beta-read. Otherwise, I'm just golluming the groveling.

I've started on "was" and this was a mistake. This was an epic mistake. I see that now...just from this tweet. So many "was."

I will have to say that I think I'm three weeks into this "revision by list" and it's so much better. Every time I do a pass for a word and get to the groveling scene, I stop to read it because it's so much better now. It's got so much heart.

It's nice working on something that I wrote a year and a half ago. I'm not quite as attached to the writing. It's not all precious and special. If it doesn't work, it's gone. Pull your weight or be cut.

“I was injured by a red moss, which secreted a toxin. Do you know of it?” If not, Mari almost wished she’d taken samples. Though, now, there weren’t enough credits in the universe for her to go back “for science.” Science was on its damn own with that bastard moss. #WIPline

Sweet! Finished "was" and, thus, page 3. I think page 4 will go faster. Though "look" is on this page, and I anticipate that being brutal. Check marks are so satisfying. Knocked "was" from 1823 to 1676. Less than 2% "was" now! Yay!

Was working through "by" and thought it was a waste of time, but I'm finding prepositional phrases repeated within the same paragraph and, also, poorly worded descriptions this way. So, that's interesting.

Also, I can track how often I use the phrase "by the way"...which can be excessive.

So far, I have fixed something with each search. I think the "it" search was still the most effective.

Hah! This sentence:

Crey nodded and pulled Mari by her hand toward the door.

Or, he just pulled her toward the door.

No, Wendy! Let the readers know it was "by the hand," dammit! He could have been grasping any part of her body! Any part! (Wendy gets lost in the visual.)

I was picturing her foot... Geez, tweeps. What were you picturing?

No, seriously. *pulls up stool* *sits down* What were you picturing? *stares avidly*

Cut "by" from 211 to 197. Finding, similarly, that with "during" I'm mostly killing duplicates or rewording when it's poorly phrased.

Whoa. I went through to find all the beginning numbers for page four, so I could hop around and do easy ones to give myself a feeling of accomplishment like a cheater.

There are 2597 "to" in this book. My book is 2.7% the word "to."

Do you think that's normal?

I scrolled up, and I looked "to" up at one point, I guess. But that seems like a lot of "to." I need a woobie and someone to sing "Soft Kitty" because...wow.

I could skip it and no one would know that this book is 2.7% "to." Shh. No one. I'm sure it's not noticeable.

I have not edited yet but I did create "cover pics" on DALL-E mini. (As an author does when procrastinating real work.) It took me a bit (as you can see) to get the hang of what words to use to get the AI-generated pics closer. My male MC is a silver-green alien humanoid.

Sexy!

So, then, I was like, okay, let's steer closer to romance and away from an angsty retelling of the "The Martian Chronicles." I plugged in "green silver human warrior man romance" and generated these two.

So, I thought, "I got this. More specific!" I tried: Silvery green muscled man in a desert with a sword romance.

And DALL-E had my back and threw chiselled men at me.

No, seriously, I GOT THIS.

I thought, "Maybe cut the green..."

"Silvery muscled man in Dune holding a sword science fiction romance."

And I have created the Terminator - Dune crossover we never knew we needed.

I REALLY got this.

"Silver skinned muscled warrior man from Dune romance cover sexy holding a sword."

I should get real work done.

If you haven't gone to the website DALL-E mini and fooled around, it's hilarious and awesome.

It did think a sword was a euphemism once, though.

I knocked off a few more prepositions tonight, but I think I'm going to bed early. I haven't been feeling well lately. The last few days have been rough. It's reading so much better, though. I'm loving the improvements from tightening up the writing, but hating the journey.

I'm working through the manuscript, searching for "on" but I'm taking a break to make cupcakes.

The body needs fuel, people. That's just science.

Cupcakes are done and cooling. I found a mix that is really easy to use. Shortcuts like that are everything currently. My body has felt so broken lately. Okay, back to editing. I'm on the downslope with this manuscript. Victory is mine...eventually.

Finished "on." I keep thinking that maybe a specific preposition isn't necessary, but then I find sentences that are clunky due to overuse of prepositional phrases.

But I'm done for right now. My body is exhausted. I feel pretty messed up. Not sure why, but I'm done.

Wow. I'm working on removing unnecessary uses of "out" and these two sentences are extra.

A loud commotion erupted outside. The captain and Mari gazed out the viewport as a fight broke out.

*sighs*

Really? Is it breaking out in the outside where they're gazing out?

It's funny that when you're writing, you think, "No, I definitely need this word here." Then, you come across: "He reached out toward her." And, you don't need "out" there.

It's always funny when you come across the double contradicting prepositions like "out into."

Ex. If Neva was going out into the universe as soon as she desired, she needed better fluency in the universal language.

I'm discovering that most of the time I have the words "reached out to"--I can typically cut that whole thing and just skip to whatever they are reaching out to do.

Ex.
He reached out to grasp her hand.
She reached out to shift the lever.

After I've finished with the prepositions, next on my list is tackling repetitive actions. I would not be surprised if some of these actions are killed entirely in that run through.

This made me laugh. I don't know why since I wrote it.

“Are you, similarly, contemplating the nature of this unusual orange sauce?”
“It’s cheese.”
“That sounds unappetizing. Its name suggests it is something Earthens squeezed out of a less sentient creature. Cheeeeese.”
#WIPline

Ugggggh. Cutting the amount of "to" in this manuscript is painful. It's also difficult. I'm only cutting serious overuse--like two in a sentence or six in a paragraph. And I know what you're thinking, "Is it necessary?" It is. Multiple "to" phrases add an odd cadence.

I love when I find unanticipated alliteration in a sentence. My character would sound like Porky Pig if I let this stand:

Crey tried to parse out the meaning due to its apparent importance to Mari.

Fixed for alliteration and "to" overuse:

Her stiff posture and the tightness around her mouth indicated this was important, but he was unable to parse out the meaning of her words.

Oh for goodness sake!

“I think I want to get to know you to see where this goes."

*Wendy cries softly* *gestures at the half-"to" sentence*

It's dialogue so I could leave it, but...that's ridiculous, and it's not a great sentence anyway. It's meh. *sighs*

I'm done for tonight. My diseases have been kicking my ass lately. I'll pick up the Great "To" Hunt of 2022 when I wake up.

Back to hunting the fierce "to"--most prolific prepositional beast of all time. The number of sentences containing two or even three "to" prepositions, tweeps, is mind-boggling. The sentences sound ridiculous once you notice it.

I don't know if other writers do this, but I read my completed manuscripts in my Kindle to look for stuff I need to fix. I add notes and highlights and my Kindle does predictive text now. I type 'A' and it offers me: attribution, apostrophes, and alliteration.

Those are the things I'm noting most frequently that begin with an A. (I use apostrophes to mean "single quotation marking.") If you're wondering if I ever catch these sentences with a billion prepositional phrases. I do. Let's look at "C." Clunky. I mark them as clunky.

Just for fun, do you want to see some more?

Well, if you don't, scroll away! Scroll away!

R is particularly harsh. Reorganize! Relocate! Relationship! Okay, not really the last one.

Some of these read like advice from my Kindle. It's sentient. Ohhhh noooo.

I actually checked last night to see if this endless thread is costing me followers. I think if you stuck it out through the waffle thread of 2019/2020 and the bread machine thread of 2022, you're probably keepers and tolerant of my rampant weirdness.

Or Twitter is kindly cutting you out of the loop. *side-eyes Twitter*

*feral writer scream*

How can every page just bring more prepositional hell? There are times when you can tell this manuscript is 2.7% "to."

*defenestrates laptop* *again*

*cries softly*

Actual, real sentence (with emphasis added):

“Do I have permission *to* touch your waist and entire right arm should I need *to* draw you *to* safety if we are attacked?”

*feral writer scream*

I swear the right-click synonyms list provided in Word is always comprised of synonyms matching the least likely definition of the word. There used to be a sort of "Easter Egg" that if you right-clicked on "wicked" you got a list of words meaning awesome.

I'm done for the night. I'm going to bed. I'm 1/3 through the manuscript in the "to" hunt...partly because focus has not been optimal. Focus, Wendy! Focus! Sometimes, I wish I had more self-discipline.

Oh my giddy aunt! I scrolled down and found this horror story told in "to."

*gestures*

It's like I'm campaigning for Big Preposition and being bribed for each "to."

Oh, sorry, the second screenshot was where I fixed that horror story of strings of prepositional phrases.

I would guess, if I'd read that one horrific paragraph allowed, I would have caught my excessive usage of "to." I like to believe that. I need to believe that. Because...yikes.

Also, research for this series is how I learned that asteroid fields as seen in sci-fi are a big lie.

Also also...this is where you've seen my workaround so I can still have my asteroid field scene. BWAHAHAHA! This is writering at its finest. "I will make it work!"

Uhh, if you didn't know that about asteroid fields, and I have shattered your perception of time and space forever, sorry. I should have announced a spoiler. That's on me.

Also, birds aren't real--they're drones that work for the bourgeoisie. <--spelled it right the first time.

Halfway through the manuscript, and I've cut 230 "to" from it. I'm discovering that almost all sentences with 2 or more "to" are sloppy for one reason or another.

I'm hoping, in the future, I'll pick up on these things while writing, as I did with cutting "just" while drafting.

I think if I wasn't so easily distracted, I could have plowed through this in two weeks, which is typical of a second pass with an editor. But, I just can't seem to maintain my focus. It's so frustrating.

I'm back on the "to" hunt again, but I'm almost done. I think the reason this is proving to be so effective over just revising as I go along is that there is nothing "wrong" with many of the sentences I'm working on. Grammatically, they're correct. They move the narrative along.

So, I skip by the sentence because it's good enough to move on to the next sentence. The sentence isn't as deep as it could be or doing much more than leading to the next one, but it's enough. It's difficult to spot weak points without markers indicating they're "meh" not great.

But, then, I do a search for a preposition and it pinpoints all the times that a character or object is having action occur to them/it, rather than a more in-depth interaction. It's easier to find better ways to describe actions, emotions, and locations when you have a reason to.

I've got roughly 70 pages left, and I've cut 386 instances of the word "to." It still has a ton, but they're pulling their weight or contributing to voice. It's much better.

Finished "to" and "under" but I'm leaving my final prepositions (up, with) for when I wake up. I've got a nasty headache. After that, I move on to repetitive actions (laughing, grinning, sighing, etc.) Then, I have unnecessary dialogue tags, third deep breaks, and nitpicky stuff.

The third deep breaks are when your POV character in third deep "realizes" or "feels" something instead of you being in their heard and experiencing it.

Ex:
Frank felt afraid upon seeing the ghost.
Fixed:
A ghost stood before him. Frank shivered and sucked in a breath. A ghost!

Unnecessary dialogue tags are either dialogue with obvious attribution or places where I can swap out a dialogue tag with a character's action for attribution. My nitpicky list is things like using "insured" when I mean "ensured" or problematic words.

Prepositions are done! On to repetitive actions. First up is a character biting their lower lip. 🙄 Then, I'm on to blinking. (Nooooo.) I have a feeling the repetitive actions section will be humbling.

Hah. I did a "find all word forms" on "bite," and it's giving me instances of "bit" also. This includes "a bit of" or "just a bit." Oh well, probably good to deal with those anyway.

Nine. Nine times she bit her lower lip. I cut it to eight times because two were a page apart. Then I axed a few of the "a bit" uses. The other bites were of various and sundry things. (Sundry means sexy in this case.)

I plugged "breathless" into the thesaurus to see if I could vary it up a bit. The first choice was asthmatic and it didn't get much better. Luckily, it had the option for "breathlessly" instead, which gave me a range of options.

Fill in the blank, Twitter. I like "zestfully."

I always forget that I make stupid faces while working through actions until other people in the room start staring at me.

So much throat clearing. It's almost shameful how much throat clearing is in this. I think my characters need to invest in antihistamines.

Wow. I've just realized, whenever my characters gasp, I gasp. *headslap* And I just mouthed "Oh no!" as I typed it. I'm a hot mess of a writer. Thankfully, I write a lot at night.

I feel like repetitive actions more than three pages apart are acceptable...as long as there are fewer than fifty of these actions in the book. If my characters smiles fifty times in a book...that's not excessive. Maybe. Possibly.

I'm discovering that the more extreme emotions often get cut on a second pass like laughing, growling, yelling, etc. In a draft, you almost use them as markers for emotions, but then you build the emotions around them and they're no longer necessary in later drafts.

Also, excessive laughing reads as awkward in books. It's the equivalent to laughing at your own jokes. I cut a lot of laughing and tone it down to a smile or show amusement in their replies or other actions.

Laughing went from 47 to 28 in fact. I'm to the dreaded "look" though. It's the last thing on page 4. *cries softly* Starting point is 175.

Finished page 4. Got "look" down to 117, which is enough given that I used it as noun with two definitions and as a verb. I went through and filled in all the numbers for the remainder of the pages. Oh nelly. I have a lot of em dashes when I get to the final page. 651 em dashes.

I have 60 nods in this manuscript.

Sixty Nods is my alternative 90s cover band name.

45 nods now. Booyah! This is so much faster than all those prepositions. I'm blowing through these. Winning.

Finished repetitive actions. I'll work through unnecessary dialogue tags when I wake up. I have a feeling a lot of them will be shifting to actions for attributions. I anticipate that taking a while. But, this is going faster. The flow is so much better now. It's amazing.

I did "asked" earlier (224 down to 145,) and I'm working through "said" now. I started off with 580 "said." Hoping to cut that in half by replacing a lot of them with action.

I don't know how many other authors have experienced this, but I feel like the first few years of being an author were spent learning to disregard "school rules" on writing. Don't use every dialogue attribution out there. Don't exclaim, retort, postulate, vocalize, or announce.

Just use "said." "Said" is invisible. Only use "said." Then, you get a few years past that and you're to the point where you're dropping dialogue tags whenever it's implied who is speaking. Then, a few years after that--you're shoving in action to replace them.

I think this is one of the benchmarks of an evolving author. First, you break from institutional instruction and trust in publishing "truths" such as the invisible "said." Soon, you draw away from that. Eventually, you arrive at this place where the narrative beats conventions.

It's taken over a decade for me to get where the "story is king," and I'm not bracing it up everywhere with unnecessary framework. Well, not in the final drafts anyway. My early drafts are still messy with framework.

But, when I would work with my kids on papers, and I would have to revert back to the institutional method of describing everything to death, it was always painful. Especially when their assignment was to use twenty different adverbs in their stories for descriptive purposes.

Their teachers wanted to see stuff like:

"Liza! You are late!" her enemy chortled gleefully as she carefully and skillfully sharpened her metaphorical stake.

Liza knew that her frenemy had been waiting patiently for the slightest excuse to attack brutally and finally.

The dark days of parenting as a writer IMO.

No, I'm wrong. The most horrific moments of parenting as a writer were helping them with sentence diagramming. Because...why?

I think I'm pushing the rest of "said" until I wake up. I'm also reorganizing my building editing list so that I go through dialogue tags before repetitive actions. I have a feeling I'm adding in actions that I might have cut during that stage. This list is a work in progress.

Previously, I've gone through looking for the common words (that, just, very, etc) but I've also known I'd have multiple editors beyond me when I went with trad publishing. This time, I want it as far as I can get it alone before an editor sees it. Thus, the list.

If I'd devoted 8 hours a day to editing as I do sometimes with writing, I think this editing would have taken two weeks. Since this has proven so effective, I'll probably put the rest of the books in the series through it. Anyway, off to do a load of dishes before bed.

BTW, Twitter friends who asked for the list, I'll send you the final copy after I'm done because I've tweaked it here and there.

I totally didn't do any revising last night.

Friends, I got sooooo high and went to sleep. My joint issues are getting worse from the delayed surgery, and the pain from massage putting them in place was too much. So, I downed some of my RX pain meds and made everything shiny.

Things are remarkably less shiny today, so I'm back at killing the "saids." Die, saids, die!

Booyah!

Other authors (particularly editors):

If you refer to a tone of voice, is that considered (grammatically, punctually) a dialogue attribution? If not, would it require a follow-up dialogue attribution?

Ex. Approaching her tentatively, Crey gentled his voice (as he said,)

Is the above a whole and complete sentence without "as he said"? And, is it a dialogue attribution that would get a comma rather than a period?

Thoughts? Comments? Gifs unrelated to my predicament but ones that will make me smile?

All these years of writing and I still look up the correct usage of lay vs. lie at least once per book.

Scenes involving a ton of random people with dialogue make it difficult to avoid labeling people as "one of the_____ said." I have a battle in space and, while I assign names to some of the people speaking, I leave others unnamed because of the vast number.

In other scenes, I would have the heroine assign them mental nicknames because it's something she would do. But this is from the hero's POV, and his "voice" is vastly different. Argh. In some ways, I hate ensemble scenes. They're so much more complicated for action and dialogue.

Okay, I got my saids down to 349 (from 580) by subbing many out for action or deleting them. A ton of them weren't dialogue tags but part of dialogue like "you said we were safe" type of uses. I don't know how to use "find" to exclude them. Anyway, that's done.

I need to search for shout, scream, yell, state, explain, agree, reply, and call to check for overuse. I often have characters shout, scream, and yell in early drafts to convey emotion and, then, tame it later. I also need to look for whisper and hiss for appropriateness.

I'm not about to get dinged again for hissing unhissable words. That's amateur hour...and, by that, I mean, I will correct it before another professional sees it and pretend it never happened.

In fairness, some of my alien races have serpent tongues--not these ones, though.

I think it's okay to use shout, scream, and yell in drafts to mark emotion. It's like a placeholder. Then, when you go back in revision, you build the scene around them so the emotions are there without punctuation or dialogue tags carrying it. I'll search for punctuation later.

After having gone through my doc...I killed every "scream" dialogue tag. It just doesn't fit. We just don't scream things very often. I live in a two-story house and stairs are difficult. It is genuinely difficult to call up to my kids "loudly." People just don't often scream.

Actually, I don't know how horror actors manage to scream. My voice cuts out at a certain volume when I'm yelling up for the kids. And, I know from rollercoasters that I don't scream. I actually laugh when I'm on rollercoasters. But screaming dialogue tags just aren't realistic.

Dang it! I did have a "hissed." In my defense, it contains the letter "s."

“Hells,” she hissed. Damnation, that was bad. It was Xenobotany 101 not to touch any unknown plant life without gloves on, let alone touching something unknown with a, now, open wound.

Fine! I've cut "hissed." Is that what you wanted? Are you happy now? Are you?

I'll finish the dialogue tags when I wake up.

*Wendy bows*

Thank you for joining this evening's edition of "Revising with a Weirdo and Experiencing Her Every Thought." As your host, I commend your tolerance.

Tune in next time for "Exploring Deep POV and Killing 'Feels.'"

I'm working through my shallow POV markers because this book is third deep. (So, narrative is essentially from a specific character's POV like first, but written in third.) Just searching for the word "feel" is turning out to be eye-opening...and, yet, simple to fix.

Honestly, sometimes, it's as easy as taking out the "feels."

Ex. They swooped down into the forested world, close enough that she could see individual trees. Her stomach felt like it dove along with them.

Fixed: removed "felt like it." Done.

Another example:

The heavy weight and warmth of Crey’s arm felt comforting after the day’s misunderstandings.

Fixed:

The heavy weight and warmth of Crey’s arm were comforting after the day’s misunderstandings.

Sometimes, it's that easy to pull the POV narrative inward.

Now, you're watching a squirrel strip corn off cobs on a pinwheel instead of revising.

Is it wrong that each time this squirrel goes for it, I'm hoping in equal parts that it succeeds and is flung off?

Does that make me a bad person?

Or are you hoping I get video of it because you're also a monster?

Havoc woke up and barked through the window at the squirrel, chasing it off, because, as his name implies, he is chaos and fury once unleashed...sort of. He barks a lot. From a distance. It's very havocky. Now, he is watching the window--like a lurky-loo.

So, I've found something shameful. SHAMEFUL. Apparently, I really like to make work for myself. I often have sentences that say: "He found himself thinking that..." He found himself? Why, Wendy? Why?

I am now doing a find on "find."

I'm such a weirdo. He found himself?

I am now on "know" among the markers for shallow POV. It's the most populous, but like "felt," it can easily be deleted. "Mari knew the city was dangerous" becomes "the city was dangerous" and so on. Other contenders for top shallow markers are: need, see, think, and want.

"See" is complicated in that you need to take the POV character out of the equation.

The example I already "fixed" above popped up with "see."🙄

Ex. They swooped down into the forested world, close enough that she could see individual trees. Her stomach dove along with them.

Fixed:

They swooped down toward the forested world, close enough that individual trees became visible. Her stomach dove along with the ship.

In 3rd deep, you're experiencing the world through the POV character, so you nix some of these words whenever you catch them.

I feel really silly that I didn't catch that stuff earlier when I fixed the sentence below it, but that's why this is proving to be so effective for me. When I can dispassionately consider portions of a narrative, independent of the rest, it's easier to fix them.

Speaking of feeling "sheepish"--I've tried not to use that word in this series because I've decided that other races in space don't have sheep.

At some point, I tend to go so deep into a world that I make decisions like this.

Also, "sheepish" is a difficult word to replace.

I just did "suspect" and killed every single usage outside of dialogue. There was no reason for the POV character to suspect something in 3rd deep. They would just state it. If you have internal dialogue (I don't) then I "suspect" you don't ever include "I suspect."

Unrelated, but you know how I mentioned I can't picture things in my head and I don't have inner dialogue? I only have 2D representations of living things in my memory. I only remember what people look like if I've seen pictures. I remember pictures.

I don't know what anyone in my family looks like when not in the same room with them, without remembering a picture of them. I don't know what I look like, outside of pictures. I don't remember what our dog Nanaimo looked like without remembering a picture. I guess that's weird.

This is all to say that it's amazing what you accept as normal when it's been like that for so long. I think it's part of FND and I first got hit with it after my disease took my gallbladder at 22. I think before that, I might have known what people looked like in 3D. Weird, huh?

Okay, I'm determined to finish this revision before going to sleep tonight. I'm getting there. Then, I'm going to read it all through and see how it turned out. *fingers crossed*

I am to the final section--punctuation. I have so many exclamation points, ellipses, question marks, semi-colons, and em dashes to deal with.

What is a reasonable number of ellipses and em dashes?

I started with ellipses. I have 260 ellipses, which is so yikes. Wow. That is so many ellipses. Though, it's 314 pages formatted like this. That's less than an ellipses per page. Any editor who has worked with me would be impressed by that.

I feel like many of these ellipses are just becoming em dashes. 😬

I'm on exclamation points. I'm trying to cut them down from 304 by picturing some poor person doing an audiobook and having to shout for each exclamation point. It's proving remarkably effective.

I'm in the em dashes, and this is rough. I might have to finish this when I wake up. So many em dashes. I still have to strip out some question marks because this book reads a bit like an episode of Jeopardy at some points.

I've kept at it. Still working on em dashes.

So, it looks like this will have taken me a month to revise. I have to say, though, that every other time I've spent this long working on a revision with editors in second and third passes, I've started hating the manuscript.

I still like this book. I think the jumping from place to place using "find" helps keep this from being awful. And it's so much better. I can't believe how much better it is. Anyway, back to em dashes.

Done! It took a month, but I have finished going through my 7-page revision list of words. I'm going to toss the manuscript on my Kindle and see how many typos I added before I declare it done.

I'm kind of excited to see how this turned out after all this work. *fingers crossed*

Is anyone who followed this saga interested in how it all turned out? I can write a thread about it tomorrow if anyone is interested.

@threadreaderapp Unroll please.