lovessign

It's a lot harder to demonize queer people when the person helping you pass calculus is a trans woman, or your lab partner talks about his boyfriend exactly the same way you talk about yours. It's a lot harder to believe that immigrants are out to get you when your Hindu roommate cheerfully shares a care package of homemade goodies from home, or Malia down the hall covers your lunch because you forgot to bring your wallet to study group. You start rethinking some assumptions when the 6 foot spike-encrusted goth who sits behind you in lecture hall shows everyone photos of his baby niece dressed like a puppy for Halloween with all the pride of a new parent, and you remember when your flannel and camo-wearing uncle did the same thing at work last year with photos of your little sister.

on friends and soulmates and that type of love that feels like it's going to burst right out of your heart

I'm going to try it.

First, let me preface this with something very important: you can treat all of this advice as SECOND-DRAFT ADVICE. It is so much easier to rewrite this kind of stuff once you have words on the page. Telling yourself the first draft is totally appropriate and acceptable.

What we’re talking about here are FILTER WORDS (and to some degree verbs of being). Yes, “thought” words are included. But so are “heard, saw, looked, tasted, smelled” etc.—most words having to do with the senses.

This isn’t black and white advice; sometimes you’ll use these words and that’s okay. They’re not WRONG. They’re just weaker. And they’re weaker because they create distance between the reader and the experience of the character.*

If you want your reader to feel like they’re experiencing the story right alongside the character, you want to cut down on filter words.

*This is particularly important with first person and close third POVs. The reader always knows whose eyes they’re seeing through and thoughts they’re privy to. So you don’t need to tell them “I saw X.” Or “I heard X.” Or “I thought Y.” You can just jump into the action/observation as it’s happening.

This is also where you want to pay attention to verbs of being.

you want to pay attention

to verbs of being.