Ferreting Out Weasel Words

Ferreting out weasel words is a key editing technique. What are weasel words? The authors of Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel describe them as the unnecessary words that creep into your manuscript. They’re also called weed words. Every writer has pet ones that scurry through their stories until it’s time to edit.

Don’t worry about weasel words in the first draft. My first drafts are littered with “just” and “almost”. If I stopped to analyze whether each one is needed, I switch from the artist mindset to the editor one and break my creative flow. When I settle down to a thorough edit, that’s when I tackle the weasel words.

In my first novel, A Shadow on the Snow, I had characters thanking each other so much that a little ingratitude would have been welcome while I was editing. I only needed my characters to extended a few “thank you’s” to get across that they were polite, nice people.

While working on my third novel, I had a scene where three characters kept asking each other if they were “all right”. Good grief, I hadn’t remembered that “good” and “okay” work too, and those are the boring alternatives.

I also think you can have weasel settings. These are settings that a writer uses too much. A Shadow on the Snow had too many scenes set in places where characters were eating or in cars while characters were driving. I had to broaden my scope of settings.

If you’re a writer, what weasel words do you have to ferret out? Do you have settings that are your go-to? What are they?

March 17, 2025 1

Book Review of Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel

I am reposting this book review of Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel to go with this month’s theme of editing. This book is packed with so much good advice that’s it’s worth posting again to give you a second look.

Don’t let the title put you off if you’re an adult. The editing advice in this book is appropriate for any beginning writer. Or even a seasoned writer because it’s always helpful to review or relearn the basics of good writing. The book cover both both macro- and micro-editing. Don’t know what those words mean? Get the book because it will explain that macro- editing is revising the big issues, such as character development and theme. Micro-editing is all the tiny things that need taken care of, like knowing when to insert or remove commas.

One of the most helpful sections under micro-editing is the chapter on punctuation. Author Jill Williamson sets out the rules from how to punctuate dialogue to how to correctly type and use en-dashes and em-dashes. I would have loved to have had this handy guide earlier in my career.

The other half of the book provides all kinds of advice on how to get published with chapters on how traditional publishing works, how to write a synopsis and a query, find a literary agent, and deal with rejection.

The extra chapters at the end are the kind of bonus material I love. There’s self-editing checklist, brainstorming ideas, and the authors’s list of weasel words and phrases, which are words and phrases each author falls into the habit of using over and over again in their first draft. “Just” is a particular weasel word of mine. When I edit, I have to find them and retain only the ones that actually serve a purpose.

But what if you’re still writing your novel? These lovely authors have you covered with Go Teen Writers: Write Your Novel.

For another recommendation of writing book, click here.

What books on editing do you recommend?

March 13, 2025 1

How to Handle Big Picture and Detail Editing

As I mentioned in my post last week, I’m addressing different kinds of editing in this post and how to handle big picture and detail editing. Under big picture editing, I put developmental and substantive editing. Detail editing covers line and copy editing. For more explanation of those terms, visit this post on the Write Conversation.

Start with Big Picture Editing

This kind of editing looks at the whole book or at least big chunks of it. If your main character follows an arc–and in genre fiction, that’s not always the case–has your MC changed in the way you wanted? Have you blazed a trail that makes his change believable? You should ask those questions of all your major characters who change over the course of the story. If a scene is boring, I need to figure out why. If a character isn’t behaving the way I want, I need to diagnose the problem. Any aspect of storytelling, whether it’s character, plot, or setting, that is integral to the overall structure of the story needs to be tackled here.

Since I write mysteries, this is when I check to see if I’ve laid my clues out fairly, if they make sense for my amateur detective to solve the mystery from them. In my first draft, I often don’t describe the setting much, so this is when I can beef up my descriptions.

To get a handle on this editing, I adopted author Stephanie Morrill’s approach, which she explains in Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel . She writes that when she has big picture issues, she keeps a yellow pad handy to write down what needs fixed. This way, you don’t read, fix, read a bit more, fix, etc. You read through, get the whole picture, and then make your corrections later.

Detail Editing

This is my favorite part of editing, digging into the words and making sure each one is doing the job you need it to do. This is where I condense dialogue–because I always write too much in my first draft–and make sure each characters is speaking in a way that makes him or her a unique individual. I check to see if I’ve picked the strongest verbs and make sure to use synonyms if I’m using certain words too often. For example, not all my characters should walk. Some can trudge, amble, or march.

I also look for unnecessary words, what the authors of Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel call “weasel” words. Those are the words I throw in without thinking and they very rarely add anything to a story. Most writers have their own pet weasel words. Mine are “even”, “just”, “always”, “only”, and “almost”.

You should take your time when engaging in detail editing. I find it takes an enormous amount of concentration. Learn if you can focus attentively for 10 pages or 20 and then take a break. I know I need to step away when I find problems and either can’t think of a way to correct them or try to skate past them. Author Shelly Arnold advises changing your position so you can keep editing, like walking as you edit. Or you can print some pages and edit those. Some authors swear by having the computer read the text so you can hear problems. Or you can read the text out loud, which slows you down, making it more likely you’ll catch things you want to correct.

For more post on editing, click here. How do you handle big picture and detail editing?

January 11, 2024 3

Five Editing Tips That Work for Me

Trudging through the revisions for my YA mystery, I’ve used five editing tips that work for me and hopefully will help you through this exasperating and rewarding process.

Edit in small chunks of time.

When I sit down to micro-edit, which is the analysis of each word to make sure it’s pulling its full weight, I have to set a time limit. I find the micro-edit so brain draining that I can’t keep it up for long. If I work for longer than an hour, I’m not nearly as focused or imaginative. I’ll gloss over sections just to say I’ve reviewed them. I take a half hour break before I do another round of micro-editing.

Keep a thesaurus or Google handy.

I have a tendency to use certain words over and over when I’m writing my first draft. In chapter six, my characters may have “looked” four times. I need to find synonyms. Or determine if all of the characters really need to “look” all those times. Maybe they should use a different action.

When editing becomes a chore, change it up.

Because my novel is 90,000 words, I’ve been editing on my computer and was beginning to dread the process. My usual practice is to print a copy, make edits on the paper, and put the corrections into the computer. My eyes have been suffering from a lot of strain because of all the screen time. So recently, I printed sections of my novel. Editing from paper rejuvenated my creativity, making me want to renew my editing efforts.

Check the first word of every paragraph on a page.

This is a trick I learned from agent Cyle Young. He said that, ideally, the first word of every paragraph on a page should be different. Often, that’s impossible for me, since I write in first person. But the technique slows me down as I edit and forces me to analyze the structures of my sentences, helping me create a vary their length and style.

Too many of my paragraphs start like this:

I sighed, running my hand through my hair.

If it makes sense and doesn’t hurt the flow of my narrative, I reverse it:

Running my hand through my hair, I sighed.

Sighing, I ran my hand through my hair.

Check dialogue tags.

I have a lot of dialogue as my teen detective investigates who is leaving threatening notes at her apartment. I check to make sure every “said” is needed. Does “said” work in a particular situation or is an action tag better?

“I don’t know,” he said.

Might be better if it was:

“I don’t know.” He flung our his arms.

“I don’t know.” He fingered his mustache.

Action tags are often better than “said” but not always. Too much action, and readers can’t imagine all the movements the characters are performing.

Action tags also detract from certain conversations. When my teen detective has a serious discussion with her father, I let the dialogue carry the scene as much as I could, dropping in action tags only so readers are grounded in the scene and can keep straight who’s speaking.

What editing tips have worked for you?

January 28, 2021 2

Three Styles of Editing

Sorry this is so late. I thought I’d scheduled it to post when I hadn’t.

Editing a novel is tough work. So many elements have to mesh together to make a coherent, entertaining, and meaningful story. As I edit my YA novel, I’ve considered three styles of editing.

Read through novel like a reader.

This style helps you check for big picture problems, like narrative flow and sense. Author Stephanie Morrill in Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel writes that she uses this method while keeping a pad handy to note big changes she wants to make once she’s read the entire manuscript.

This sounded good to me, but when I tried it, I found it very difficult not to stop and make changes as I came across them because a change in chapter four would affect the way I evaluated the rest of the manuscript. I thought it was more efficient to make changes as I discovered them.

Treat each chapter as a short story.

I like this approach because I love reading and writing short stories. To start this method, I decide what the purpose of a chapter is and determine if it meets its goal by analyzing each component. Is the setting described enough or too much? How about the characters? If I have character charts that list their appearances, personalities, and mannerisms, I should pull them out. Does the dialogue sound realistic and appropriate to each character? Are my characters running off at the mouth or are their exchanges so brief as to confuse readers? Then I analyze the plot. Is it moving forward, stalling, or grinding to a halt?

The problem with this editing style is that each chapter may sparkle but might not flow into the next one, giving the novel a choppy or disconnected feel. Once I’ve edited each chapter, I need to read big chunks, like five to ten chapters in a sitting, to determine if the chapters are woking together.

Edit each element.

In this style, I focus on one element, such as setting, and read through the entire manuscript, only fixing problems about that component. Then I read it again with characters in mind. And again for plot, theme, and whatever other writing techniques I want to polish.

The drawback I see with this approach is that going through the novel so many times might make me blur over sections because I’m too familiar with them.

Next week, I’ll write more about what I’ve found to work for me. Writers, what’s your style of editing?

January 21, 2021 5

Tag: Tips for editing novels