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Writers Workshop

Everyone knows the old saw that there is no great writing, only great rewriting. Just this year, I realized how true this is, when I stumbled across an editing method that greatly improves my writing. And now that I’ve perfected it, I’m willing to give it away for free.

Yep, that’s right, free — I don’t plan to make any money off of it.

What’s the catch? I hear you ask. Well, here’s the problem. Although it works for me, I can’t guarantee that it will work for anyone else. So I can’t sell it.

Forgive me if the following is a shaggy dog story, but if you read this, you might learn something that you could apply to your own editing. There are no promises, of course.

Anyway, here is my technique, and how it evolved. In June of this year, I finished my third murder mystery novel. Now, it took me four years to write these three books, and in that time I received a lot of feedback on my work — both good and bad. One criticism that kept coming up is that I used too many words to say something that could have been said much more simply.

I found this hard to believe. After all, I’m a journalist, for crying out loud! I’m an expert at condensing.

However, I kept hearing this. And since I’d just finished the third book, I figured that I could now go back to the second book and see what I could do with it.

I recalled the words of one fellow author who said I used the same dumb words over and over again — words like "ever" and "only" and "soon" and "very" and so forth. If I could eliminate this clutter from my work, then the story would flow so much better, she said.

I didn’t believe her. You see, I already agreed with her that words like "very" contribute nothing. (If you don’t believe me, think of the difference between "He was very tired" and "He was exhausted.") So, since I already knew this, I knew I would never load my own work with useless words like that. Right?

I decided to take on her challenge. First, I printed out my second book and copy-edited it the normal way. Red pen in hand, I cut the manuscript from 61,800 words down to 61,600 words.

Then came the hard part. I made a short list of words that I should watch out for, to delete them wherever they appeared. Thanks to the word-search function on my computer (CTRL+F in Microsoft Word.), I could find each of these words, one by one.

Now, before we go any further, keep in mind that the second book had been edited extensively already — by me and other people. So, thanks to thorough editing, my novel was already close to "perfect," and any additional work would take only a few days. Or so I thought.

Anyway, I compiled a list I called the "Dirty Dozen." Most of these were adverbs, since I have a pet theory — "Adverbs are the death of good writing." Since I avoid adverbs, and the book had been edited before, I figured all the Dirty Dozen list would do was turn up a stray word here or there. So, flush with confidence, I typed in "very," expecting nothing to happen.

The damn word was all over the place.

Four times on one page, five times on another. And that’s not all — each of the words in my Dirty Dozen infested my novel. Boy, was I surprised.

I set to work, eliminating each of the Dirty Dozen one by one. By now, I realized this task would take more than a few days. I guessed I’d need two weeks.

Instead, this exercise became a Greek mythology cut-off-the-beast’s-head-and-three-new-ones-grow-in-its-place nightmare. After all, I couldn’t simply excise the offending word — the "very" in "He was very tired." The fact that the word was there at all, showed me that I wasn’t really thinking when I originally wrote that sentence.

So I had to rewrite the entire paragraph. Each time, I had to analyze what I was trying to say and find a new way to phrase it — one where I didn’t lean on my Dirty Dozen. Keep in mind that if I found the word "very" 500 times in the novel, I had to repeat this process each time the word appeared.

Are you getting tired of reading this, by the way? Just imagine what it was like living through it. Don’t worry, there’s a point to all this — and a nice reward, too. At least, there was a reward for me when I got out the other side.

Anyway, I continued copy-editing the manuscript, using the word search function and my list of the Dirty Dozen. Except it wasn’t a dirty "dozen" anymore. Remember, I also put a lot of effort into cleaning up the paragraphs around the offending word. As I continued to work, I discovered I had more words I leaned on way too often. My list grew from the Dirty Dozen to the Dirty Thirty — and then, to my surprise, evolved into the Forbidden Fifty.

So that meant I had fifty words that I used far too often. Fifty words that I had to do a word search for. Fifty words used over and over throughout the book, and each time I found that particular word, I’d have to rewrite the whole paragraph. The two weeks grew to months.

But gradually, the effort paid off. Each time I crossed a word that I was able to cross off my list, that shortened the novel by 100 words, 200 words or more. By this time, the novel fell below 58,000 words — and kept going.

The longer I kept at it, the more amazed I became. My "perfect" novel? With every passing day, I figured out new ways to cut.

And here’s the amazing thing: I didn’t lose anything! In fact, in some places I added new material, such as additional description, or a funny bit of dialogue. And despite all the additions, I still managed to shrink the overall word count.

Yes, each time I eliminated an offending word, the novel became tighter, stronger. And also more clear. Passages which had previously confused some readers now grabbed people, because the clutter which once had interfered was now gone. (In some cases, I found out about this only after the fact, when people who hadn’t complained before suddenly said, "Hey, this part doesn’t suck, the way it used to!")

I also stopped second-guessing myself — for example, mentioning a gemstone which "seemed to glisten." Wait a minute: seemed to glisten? Either it does or it doesn’t. By deleting "seem" from my work — another addition to the Forbidden Fifty — I was able to reduce the excess words and also make everything sound more definite. Now everyone knows the gemstone glistened, and I say it in fewer words.

My detective hero also got a makeover — simply by eliminating the Forbidden Fifty from his vocabulary. He no longer said "guess" or "think" before deciding on a course of action, as in "I guess I’ll talk to him." Instead, he says "I’ll talk to him." Since he’s more certain about everything, he’s no longer a wimp. That takes care of another criticism people had of my writing.

In fact, when my wife reread the second book, she thought I changed the ending. I didn’t — the events are still the same. (I don’t want to get into details, since it is a murder mystery, after all.) All I did was describe everything better, including the characters’ motivations.

Here’s a sample of a few sentences, both before and after. In each case, I reduce the word count and make the sentence stronger.

"It wouldn’t be too difficult for him to figure it out." — "He knew he could figure it out."

"There were four men chasing after him." — "Four men chased after him."

"The color began to darken, turning a deep shade of red." — "The color darkened to a deep amber."

And the final word count on the second novel? After three months, I got it down to 53,900 words. That’s a loss of 7,900 words, or 12.8 percent of the manuscript. I was embarrassed that my "perfect" novel wasn’t that perfect after all — since I was able to remove one out of every eight words. However, I am now more confident that my work is the absolute best it can be.

I am now in the middle of applying this technique to my third murder mystery novel. Before I began copyediting it, the completed manuscript was 79,000 words. Right now, I’ve got it down to 75,500 words without losing anything. And I still have many more words left on my Forbidden Fifty list.

If you want to try this out yourself, here’s how you do it. First, print out your work and copy-edit normally. Then, once you’ve made all the changes you can find the old-fashioned way, get back on the computer and do a word search for the Forbidden Fifty, one by one. Here is the complete list:

About, actually, all, almost, already, also, become (and related words like became and becoming), begin (and began), bit, enough, even, ever, exactly, fairly, guess (and related words like guessed, guesses and guessing), just, indeed, little, oh, only, other (and another), nearly, now, plenty, pretty, probably, quite, rather, really, right, seem (and related words like seems, seemed, seeming and seemingly), such, slightly, so, some (and related words like somehow, something, sometimes and somewhat), soon (and sooner), sound, start (and related words like starts, started and starting), still, sudden (and suddenly), that, then, thing, think, too, truly, try (and related words like trying, tries and tried), very, well and yet.

A word of advice: sometimes you’ll want to select the "whole words only" feature. That’s because if you’re looking for words like "so," you might stop on other words that have "so" in them, like "isolate" and "person." It’ll take you forever to get through your manuscript that way.

Other times, however, you’ll want to turn the "whole words only" feature off. That way, if you do a word search on "some," the computer will also point out words like "somewhat" and "somehow" as well.

Once you’re done with the Forbidden Fifty, go back and look for other formations that waste words and weaken the sentence. For me, these include adverbs (conduct a word search for "ly" with the "whole words only" function disabled). Also look for participles, such as "He was running" rather than "He ran." (Just do a word search for "ing.") Another formation that weakens sentences is starting a sentence with "it is" or "there is," so do additional word searches for "it and "there." And finally, passive voice ("The ball was thrown by Tony" rather than "Tony threw the ball") weakens sentences, so look up all forms of the verb"to be." Remember, every time the computer points out a problematic word, you can’t just delete that word. No, you have to change the whole paragraph.

Then, once you’re done with all that, print out the manuscript and copyedit normally. You might find a few things you’ve missed.

And now, the problem — the one that I mentioned at the start of this essay. Will this work for anyone else? Once again, I don’t know. Some points to ponder before you start:

o My Forbidden Fifty might not be the same thing as someone else’s Forbidden Fifty. Hell, someone reading this may have no problem with words like "very" and "soon," but would instead overuse words that don’t appear on my list. So, writers wanting to use my technique must first discover which words are crutches for them. Also, the appraisal must be thorough and honest. After all, I myself didn’t believe I had a problem with adverbs until my computer beeped the evidence right back at me.

o It takes forever. Anyone searching for 50 words, which each appear 100 times in a work, would then have to rewrite 5,000 paragraphs.

o This technique, by itself, won’t make anyone a better writer. In my case, each time I came across a troublesome word, I rewrote the whole paragraph. What made the whole thing work is that I was able to analyze each sentence, one by one. And what gave me that ability was my years of experience as a writer.

o The person who’s editing his own manuscript is the same person who wrote a work that needs editing in the first place. So there’s a limit in how much anyone can improve his own work, even with the most scrupulous of editing. A bad novel can be elevated only to mediocrity, while "mediocre" can become "good," and "good" may become "very good" and "very good becomes "great." Nobody editing his own novel can make the damn thing climb two steps on the ladder.

Still, anyone who wants to adapt the Forbidden Fifty for personal use is welcome to do so, although I can’t guarantee the results. But even if you don’t try it, your time spent reading this essay wasn’t wasted. Because there are a few lessons to be learned from all this.

Lesson #1: Don’t trust yourself. I had too much confidence in my own ability, believing my novel to be "perfect." Well, it wasn’t — not when there was so much room for improvement.

Lesson #2: Trust others — up to a point. If you hand your manuscript to your friends, they won’t give you the feedback you need. That’s because they won’t want to hurt your feelings, or they aren’t writers and can’t figure out a way to put into words what’s bugging them about your work.

So don’t let the lack of criticism get to your head. The flip side of this is never take one individual person too seriously — all too often, you get some moron who doesn’t get what you’re trying to do, and boasts his uninformed opinion with absolute certainty. I’ve been to writer’s groups where this happens. Hell, sometimes, I’ve been the moron.

However, if you start to hear the same thing from several different people, pay attention. Even that moron may be on to something, although he might not be able to explain himself without falling back on uninformed boasting. Listen to their words, but more than that, see what about your work caused them to form this opinion. Remember: The appraisal must be thorough and honest.

Lesson #3: Copyediting won’t catch it. How many times had I copyedited my novel — and how many other pairs of eyes looked at it, before I submitted it to the tough scrutiny of the Forbidden Fifty? A lot. But I still couldn’t see anything wrong with my own work, even in sentences like, "It turns out he already knew about it already." I knew what I was trying to say, so my eyes didn’t see it.

Lesson #4: Sometimes condensing is the wrong goal. Every so often, I would let the "very" slide. Even though it’s in my "Forbidden Fifty" arsenal, and even though I said, earlier in this essay, that the "very" contributes nothing, it can have an impact. The problem comes when the word is overused. If "very" appears 500 times in a 60,000-word manuscript, then each individual use of the word lose its impact because it’s surrounded by a sea of bad writing. But if it appears infrequently, then it gains some currency.

I also found that condensing usually made the sentence clearer by reducing the clutter. But every rare once in a while, in order to make my meaning clearer, I had to expand on a thought rather than condense it. When that happened, I went with my instincts, sometimes adding a paragraph or two. Of course, the overall word count still went down, because amount of clutter I excised overwhelmed the effects of adding a sentence here and there.

Lesson #5: Surprise! You’re not thinking. Read George Orwell’s famed essay, "Politics and the English Language." Although he focuses on political writing, and the essay’s almost 60 years old, a lot of what he says applies today, and not just to politics.

When writers fall back on pet phrases (Orwell says), they’re not thinking. They’re letting words selected for them by someone else do their thinking for them.

So it was with me and my Forbidden Fifty. Once I accepted the notion that the presence of a "very" showed I wasn’t really thinking, I was able to fix that by analyzing what I’d been trying to say. If you really want to be a writer, you must master the language. Laziness in lethal.

Lesson #6: Don’t be a tortured artist! Too many wannabe writers elevate their "art" to some theoretical level, dismissing people who don’t "get" their work as beneath them. Then, of course, since everybody ends up beneath them, they end up alone, suffering because of their alleged genius.

However, there are few writers who are brilliant enough to get it right the first time. We all could use a little editing. My vehicle, The Forbidden Fifty, works for me because it combines the intrinsically right-brained sphere of creativity, with left-brained analysis. And as for art? I can’t be so pretentious, since I’m just doing a murder mystery.

Does this make me a good writer or a bad one? Let time and history be my judge.

And if you decide to use the Forbidden Fifty yourself, happy hunting.

Lee Zion is the author of Ferriman’s Law, Ferriman’s War and the recently completed Ferriman’s Challenge.

Ferriman’s Law is available at several local book stores and on Amazon.com, but keep in mind that he wrote it before he discovered his Forbidden Fifty technique. For that, he profusely apologizes.

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