What exactly is a filter word?
Words that force the character to act as a “filter” before the reader gets the information.
She thought.
He heard.
They saw.
She realized.
I watched
Whether we are writing in first person or third person, if we know who the protagonist is, we automatically understand they are the one experiencing these things without having to be told. Removing filter words tightens point of view and can help us cut subject-verb sentence starts, which I personally struggle with!
Filter words create distance between the reader and the story by placing the character in between. This sounds confusing so I’ll give an example…consider what you imagine when you read
“Blood arced through the air.”
What did you see? A curved line of blood flying through the air with little crimson droplets breaking away? That’s what I imagined.
How about this one?
“She watched blood arc through the air.”
What did you see that time?
A woman watching the blood arc through the air, right?
Sometimes this kind of distance is intentional, and fits a scene, but when it dominates our prose, it prevents the reader from immersing themselves as fully into our story.
Another example:
She looked at the apple’s vermillion skin. She bit into it and tasted its sweet crunch. She felt relief after a hungry morning.
Vs
The vermillion apple, sweet and crunchy, brought welcome relief after a hungry morning.
See how many words we eliminated? Ten! Unnecessary words bog down our story, fatigue the reader, and can be especially detrimental to over-writers.
Other filter words to watch out for:
(An edit pass using the “find and replace” function is invaluable. Do what you have to in a rough draft, get the words on the page first, then go back and find these later.”
I know
He assumed
They believed
He experienced
She decided
I wondered
They noticed
She smelled
There’s like a bajillion, but when we use them we tend to hang onto a few. Find which you lean on and zero in on those during your search.
When can we use filter words to our advantage?
We might intentionally use filter words when we want to slow the pace suddenly or show our character feeling outside of their body, as if something is happening in slow motion or they aren’t processing it well.
“Fael ran, the growing distance proving futile as the horseman lifted a bow. Leo watched as the arrow flew at her friend’s back, heard the solid thwack of impact as it met its mark. Fael didn’t cry out as he went down.”
There are no absolutes in writing. There are no wrong or right ways to write. In the end, the story itself is what matters most. Mossgrovewrites hopes to scrutinize traditional craft wisdom and ponder its pros and cons, alongside offering one writer’s opinions and the experiences that shaped them.
Happy writing!
Megan G. Mossgorve
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