MBM: Weeding Your Words, by Charissa Stastny

 

Welcome to the first day of

MARCH BOOK MADNESS!

You can read more about March Book Madness here, but basically it’s an excuse for me to discuss everything about writing, editing, and reading books with some amazing authors and readers.

Fun, fun, fun!

Because I had so many awesome people agree to post, there will be a few extra days in March. 

Here’s the schedule:

• Tue, Mar 5: Weeding Your Words, by Charissa Stastny
• Wed, Mar 6: Know Your Audience–Even the Subtle One, by Cindy Piper
• Thu, Mar 7: Beating a Dead Horse, by Julie L Casey
• Tue, Mar 12: Why Everyone Should Be a Writer, by Sharon Belknap
  
• Wed, Mar 13: Reading in the Digital Age, by JoLynne Lyon
• Thu, Mar 14: The Art of Accepting Criticism, by Mary Bateman-Mercado
• Tue, Mar 19: Pinterested in Books, by Sarah Belliston
• Wed, Mar 20: The Power of Storytelling, by Christopher Rosche
• Thu, Mar 21: Never Pity the Adverb, by Anthony Mercado
• Tue, Mar 26: Creating Flawed but Likeable Characters, by A.L. Sowards
• Wed, Mar 27: Priorities and Choices for Writers, by Braden Bell
• Thu, Mar 28: Premise vs Plot – Which Do You Have? by Janice Hardy

The collective talent listed above . . . Wow! It’s going to be a great month.

 

To start MARCH BOOK MADNESS, we have author, Charissa Stastny. Charissa’s second book was just released, entitled Secret Keepers. You can read about it here. It’s a sequel to Eyes of Light, a romantic suspense which I read and loved. Charissa has a way of creating realistic characters that are flawed but lovable. Plus she’s great at teaching cultures. I learned a lot about Guatemala and organized crime while I read. I’m anxious to read the sequel to find out what happens to Suvi, James, and Austan.

Today Charissa’s discussing the daunting task of editing out pesky, weedy words.

Take it away, Charissa.

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CHARISSA STASTNY: Weed Your Words

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Spring is approaching, and that means war looms on the horizon. The War of Weeds.

I despise weeds—especially the thorny, spidery ones I can never pull without leaving half the root in the ground. I don’t know what they’re called (I call them all sorts of names in my head), but if I don’t fight them, they take over and eventually swallow my yard whole. At least it feels that way.

There’s another type of weed that author’s deal with—Word Weeds. These pests clutter paragraphs and strangle the life out of a story. Word Weeds go by such scientific names as Unnecessary Nettle, Redundant Root, Weakweed and Thoughtless Thistle. But no matter what you call them, they serve no purpose and find their way into our stories way too easy.

Just as it behooves me to keep on top of weeds in my yard, it’s also wise for a writer to learn to strip sentences to their cleanest components so they don’t bore or annoy readers. Use Roundup generously. Roundup in writing is your Delete and Backspace keys.

Kill weedy words now, so they don’t kill readers later.

To help you weed your stories, I’ve made this key to the more prolific literary weed families known to writers..

UNNECCESSARY NETTLE

Knotty Adverbs: These are like dandelions — pretty when alone, but destructive in numbers. Use sparingly, if at all.

• really, very, quite, extremely, severely, weakly
• very tired (exhausted); really hungry (famished)

Peacockweed: Don’t try to impress readers with lengthy words or phrases. Simple is often best.

• assistance (help); facilitate (ease); numerous (many); individual (man or woman)

Prickly Prepositions: Don’t link unnecessary prepositions to a verb that doesn’t need help.

• stand (up); Sit (down); head (up) a committee; face (up to) the truth.

REDUNDANT ROOT

Blind or Can’t Seeweed: These roots emit a laughing gas when pulled, and you realize how silly they sound

• Final result; personal opinion; false pretense; true fact; twelve noon; I saw it with my own eyes

Circular Spurge: Sentences that repeat what has already been said; retelling something; restating the obvious; giving a recap of what you just said the line before; saying the same thing again, just in another way (like what I’m doing)..

THOUGHTLESS THISTLE

Verbose Vine: Common name: Wordiness

• The comedian at the end of the line tried to sweep up the spotlight.
• Fixed: The last comedian tried to sweep up the spotlight.

Sallow Mallow: Empty openers like this weed rob sentences of energy before they even get started.

• There is a present under my bed. vs. A present is under my bed.
• There are two girls standing by my locker. vs Two girls stand by my locker.

ClichéGrass: Clichés are overused phrases that lack luster. Try to think of new ways to say the same idea.

• She fell head over heels in love.
• New: She floated on a rose-tinted cloud of desire..

WEAKWEED

Stinkgrass: These words are weak and tell nothing.

• a bit; in a sense; sort of; as a matter of fact, type of

Pigweed: Ambiguous words are only fit for pigs (hence, the name). Replace unclear nouns with specifics, or eliminate them.

• it, type, thing, area, place

Mourning Glory: Don’t let its name fool you; it’s a weed. Euphemisms substitute weaker phrases for harsh or sensitive subjects. Good writing tells the truth plainly, not masks it in political wish-wash.

• he passed on (he died); sanitation engineer (garbage man); surgical airstrikes (bombing raids).

You’re now prepared to Weed Your Words

Don’t be a sissy. In the words of William Strunk Jr. in his literary bible, Elements of Style:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

That’s the ultimate test of whether a word is a weed or a seed. Does it show or tell? If it does, keep it (even if it’s labeled a weed). If it doesn’t, use your handy Backspace key to ZAP it before it germinates. We want our yards and writing to be a bit of heaven. No weeds allowed..

Weeding Helps

Here’s a link to SmartEdit. I downloaded the free trial version and copied my novel into it. It spit out a sheet of all my overused words, clichés, tags, etc., so I could find my weeds easier. There are other tools out there on the web as well, if you’re willing to look for them.

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BIO:

Charissa Stastny hails from Las Vegas, Nevada, but has never pulled the handle of a slot machine and can’t shuffle cards to save her life. Since 4^th grade, she has envisioned herself an author after writing the creative work, The Creature from McGool, and continuing in shame to pen some cheesy romance scenes as a teenager. Thankfully, she has matured somewhat and is a member of the Idaho Writer’s Guild and tries hard not to spread too much cheese around in her writing now. She graduated from Brigham Young University and enjoys writing, reading, hiking and biking. She resides in Idaho’s Treasure Valley with her husband and children (where card shuffling isn’t required).

• Website | Twitter @CharStastny | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest

OTHER MARCH BOOK MADNESS POSTS:

• How to Energize Your Writing
• Constructing Context Clues
• Weeding Your Words

BOOKS:

 

 

 

 

REBECCA:

Thanks for your insight, Charissa. I’ve noticed in my writing and others that when there’s a lot of useless words, I struggle to focus and catch the meaning. (It’s my short attention span.)

Our job as authors is to get our message across in a clear, easily-read format. We don’t want readers tripping over cluttered sentences. That’s why I love your weeding analogy. It’s perfect. My flowerbeds are prettier when I aggressively weed. My books will be, too.

I took one of my finished projects and plugged it into Smart Edit. Very cool. It calculated all my adverbs, repeated phrases, misused words, and clichés. You know. The whole DON’T DO THIS! list. I didn’t even know this software existed, so thanks, Charissa! Free trial here. Now I have a lot of weeding to do. Yikes.

(By the way, are those your gardens above, Charissa? If so, I’m impressed. Mine never look that good. I hate weeding. Haha.)

Thanks so much for your thoughts, Charissa, and for being our first guest on MARCH BOOK MADNESS. If you don’t know it yet, Charissa is a super nice person with a ton of knowledge. You should follow her blog here.

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What ideas do you have on weeding your words? What words are peskiest in your writing? How do you zap the stubborn ones? Join the discussion below.

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Up next on MARCH BOOK MADNESS…

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Check out last year’s MARCH BOOK MADNESS here.