I was Solas, first.

I’ll update you in like a week (or whenever I have access to the internet) if I’m still alive

After putting my writing on hold for several weeks, I decided to jump back in. I expected to find all sorts of problems with my story–inconsistencies in the plot, lack of transitions, poor characterization–the works. But what began to stick out to me was something to which I’d given little thought in writing.

Filter words.

What are Filter Words?

Actually, I didn’t even know these insidious creatures had a name until I started combing the internet for info.

Filter words are those that unnecessarily filter the reader’s experience through a character’s point of view. Dark Angel’s Blog says:

“Filtering” is when you place a character between the detail you want to present and the reader. The term was started by Janet Burroway in her book On Writing.

In terms of example, you should watch out for:

To see

To hear

To think

To touch

To wonder

To realize

To watch

To look

To seem

To feel (or feel like)

Can

To decide

To sound (or sound like)

To know

I’m being honest when I say my manuscript is filled with these words, and the majority of them need to be edited out.

What do Filter Words Look Like?

Let’s imagine a character in your novel is walking down a street during peak hour.

You might, for example, write:

Sarah felt a sinking feeling as she realized she’d forgotten her purse back at the cafe across the street. She saw cars filing past, their bumpers end-to-end. She heard the impatient honk of horns and wondered how she could quickly cross the busy road before someone took off with her bag. But the traffic seemed impenetrable, and she decided to run to the intersection at the end of the block.

Eliminating the bolded words removes the filters that distances us, the readers, from this character’s experience:

Sarah’s stomach sank. Her purse—she’d forgotten it back at the cafe across the street. Cars filed past, their bumpers end-to-end. Horns honked impatiently. Could she make it across the road before someone took off with her bag? She ran past the impenetrable stream of traffic, toward the intersection at the end of the block.

Are Filter Words Ever Acceptable?

Of course, there are usually exceptions to every rule.

Just because filter words tend to be weak doesn’t mean they never have a place in our writing. Sometimes they are helpful and even necessary.

Susan Dennard of Let The Words Flow writes that we should use filter words when they are critical to the meaning of the sentence.

If there’s no better way to phrase something than to use a filter word, then it’s probably okay to do so.

Want to know more?

Read these other helpful articles on filter words and more great writing tips:

Filter Words and Distancing Point of View

The Reasons Editors reject Manuscripts

Felassan, The Masked Empire

“After all of this you’re now giving me an ultimatum?”

It wasn’t a decision that came lightly. All that she worked to achieve or the man which she loved. Part of her felt anger that he would ask her to make such a choice.. but then she also understood why. She couldn’t have both with what she now knew. There were so many questions, so many answers and explanations which he owed her. She had no way of knowing what the future would hold if she turned her back on the Inquisition..

Theneras walked towards him, his back still turned to her. It was in those quick seconds it took to reach him that her heart settled on it’s answer. She didn’t give her mind a chance to think, she wouldn’t give it time to betray her or lead her astray from what she truly desired.

Slowly, her hand slipped its way into his own. 

He looks away. She can’t see the twist of his mouth or the darkening of his pupils, and he thinks, as he always manages to do, even as the seeds of pain sprout deep in his chest, that it is good she is beside him, not in front. But then he remembers she will know anyway, and it is a painful reminder he embraces.

“I did not expect that to be your choice,” he says, and by then he has already let go of her hand. “I will tell you everything, then.”

“It is no coincidence I joined the Inquisition. The ancient orb Corypheus possessed was mine, though I did not foresee his immortality when I led him too it. He should have died at the conclave.”

Solas + wolf pupy 2 (1)