That ………
I guess we all develop various habits when we do something
regularly. Some are good habits, some bad. This applies equally to writing as
it does to everything else in life and I am one of the world’s worse when it
comes to bad writing habits.
I do have some good habits such as writing something every
day, always going back and reading over the previous day’s work before
proceeding etc.
Unfortunately I also have some bad habits. “That’ is
probably my worse habit. I put it in all the time, mostly where it is not
necessary. I don’t think I use it in speech very often so I have no idea why I
write it so much but I do.
I recently finished a first draft for a novel, eighty-five
thousand words of scintillating prose any writer would be proud of….apart from
the “that’s”. There were a lot of them. On my first read through I couldn’t
help but notice them so I did a little test. I got the computer to count the
number of times I’d used the word and then sat stunned as I looked at the
answer. It was over one percent of the total. More than one word in a hundred
was a “that” and that isn’t good enough.
There was only one thing to do. I highlighted every occurrence
of the word and then read each sentence in which it occurred. In many of them “that”
was just a redundant word; the sentence said the same with or without it so I deleted
it. Then I read through the whole manuscript, looked at each remaining occurrence
of “that” and tried to find a way of saying what I wanted in a different way
without using the word.
In this way I managed to eliminate more than two thirds of
the “that’s” in my story. I think the words flow easier and it reads much
better without them but it did highlight that I like to use “had “ too so I
repeated the process for that word also. It took several days to complete the
exercise but it was worth it. I was left with a much smoother piece of writing
and it taught me a valuable lesson. Henceforth I shall watch my “that’s” and “hads”
when I write.
For anyone looking for a good read at a ridiculously low price try my page on Amazon and see how many "thats" you can spot! The link is:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_13?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=derek%20coleman&sprefix=derek+coleman%2Cdigital-text%2C246&rh=i%3Adigital-text%2Ck%3Aderek%20coleman&oqid=1410711550
Guilty? (Dean & Steph Book 1) by Derek Coleman (Jul 20, 2014) - Kindle eBook
- $0.00
- Subscribers read for free. Learn more.
- $0.99 Kindle Purchase
- Auto-delivered wirelessly
- (5)
- Prime members read for free Join Amazon Prime
