Kill Zombie Words And Stop Circling Vultures: Improve Your Writing In Two Steps
By Dawn Gernhardt
Writers, before submitting your fiction and nonfiction for feedback or publication, check your work for two common issues.
Zombie Words Must Die
While wonderful phrases exist in most writers’ prose, an infestation of dead words may be lurking as WHIT (Was, Had, It, and That).
Early drafts may include grammatically correct and acceptable WHITs in small doses, but most writing becomes burdened by dozens if not hundreds of vague words per chapter, essay, and entire manuscripts. The opportunity arises to amplify and develop tone, mood, plot, setting, and characters by replacing WHIT vague placeholders with concrete and visual verbs and nouns within active sentence structures.
Use the Find or Search function within your document to count and consider each WHIT word as a target for possible revision or omission.
(Overuse of pronouns, including “I” and “Me,” other redundant words, and passive sentence structures are also culprits.)
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The below are a two basic “before and after” examples.
Before: “It was at that second, Beatrice realized that she was in danger of it.”
A mind-numbing sentence. Why? There’s an it, was, and that zombie-word invasion, causing a passive, dull, and vague sentence. The below revision uses descriptive and concrete words to better help the reader visualize the scene and character.
After: “Beatrice’s tongue swelled within seconds of eating garlic.”
Before: “Ted has had trouble finding the opening to his secret passage ever since he had it built last month.”
Beware of a dead-word sandwich. Why? Weak hads are diminishing the sentence. A crisp rewrite flows better and deepens the scene and setting.
After: “Ted searched his library for an hour before remembering Beloved triggered the opening to his new secret passage.”
When you count the WHITs in your work, how many do you find?
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Stop Vultures From Circling
When we’re in the flow of writing, a topic can evolve as we’re inspired and exploring. Sometimes we don’t realize we’ve duplicated similar ideas in multiple places, without providing new information.
Writers may also think they are building suspense by withholding or dribbling details throughout a scene or chapter, but sometimes the reader experiences a tedious and confusing scavenger hunt to figure out what’s going on and why.
Since most prose aims to entertain or inform, and rising or building tension keeps the reader engaged, the flow of information needs to progress. After writing early drafts, a “reverse outline” may help locate and gather the confusing vultures, circling around the pages, without getting to the point. The basis is to scan and label each paragraph (and even high-level sections and chapters) by topic or idea.
After labeling, a writer may see there are five out of thirty paragraphs, spread throughout a work, each dedicated to similar thoughts. A writer can step back and group redundancies by joining similar sentences and paragraphs together, and then revise or rewrite to consolidate. Drafting for clarity, interest, and pace may take several attempts. Constructive reader responses, over multiple revisions, can indicate what to shift or omit for an improved flow of information at the right place and time.
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Below is a basic “before and after” example.
Before: Chapter 2 reverse outline grouping repetitive and confusing “goblet” topics and context by paragraph, below.
“Para. 5: The goblet is from Mount Olympus…
Para. 12: The goblet is gold…
Para. 13: The goblets were only for mages, sages, and seers…
Para. 20: One goblet was stolen and buried…
Para. 40: Five goblets were fabricated into the shape of eyes and said to bring about clear knowing and seeing for anyone who dares to drink…
Para. 41: The water inside the goblet must be blessed by the lick of a pregnant goat during a full moon to work…
Para. 49: Tobin and his unconventional mom live on a remote island, growing all they need in a greenhouse…”
Para. 50 Tobin only has access to his mom’s book of magic following her death…”
“Goblet” vultures circle around the above example Chapter 2 with confusing and unorganized details. A rewritten consolidated version shows a more logical and concise order below.
After: Chapter 2
“When the storm cleared, Tobin unearthed an eye-shaped golden goblet in his late mother’s greenhouse. He checked the meaning in the forbidden Book Of Magic Spells.
Five mages, sages, and seers were each given goblets, fabricated into the shape of eyes, forged from a vein of Mount Olympus gold. The wise men and women drank from the vessels to predict the future. A pregnant goat’s lick, during a full moon, blessed the magical spring water for the ceremonies. Powerful visions changed the course of history, angering the jealous gods, who destroyed all but one cup.
Tobin glanced at the sky, spied the rising harvest moon, hid the goblet in his backpack, and rushed to gather all the goats on the island.”
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Dead words and circling a topic or idea without clear focus are two common issues pointed out to me within my earlier works. (Thanks, JJ and Lynn). I now often catch these issues in my early drafts and when critiquing others’ writing. Hopefully, writers can check their prose using the two above methods—before hitting send. May your hunt for zombie words be smashing and your spinning vultures come to rest.
Dawn Gernhardt is a writer and editor living in southern California. She earned a master's in creative writing from New College of California and used her single-subject credential to teach English in high school. Her nonfiction is published in Random Sample Review and Pink Panther Magazine. Find Dawn’s satirical short fiction in Defenestration, Wry Times, Funny-ish, and The Haven. With a passion for interviewing, she also captured stories from everyday heroes, so they could then share their family histories with loved ones. She’s currently working on essays, querying a novel, and drafting the next one.