Words to Avoid in Your Writing 

And this is why I self-pub. 😉 While I agree that knowing the "rules" is important, sometimes breaking those rules makes for a better story. There's a big difference between "good" and "correct".

ProWritingAid replaces one adverb with another and changes it again on the next pass. Grammarly takes out commas and puts them back in on the next pass. So much for “correctness.”

Excellent video, not just for fiction. Nonfiction writers will benefit from the same pointers. Thank you!

This is why I *love* linguistic focus on Scrivener 3! Cheers, Dave, for another helpful video. Though it would be boring if we all wrote like Hemingway.

Dave, good points. But (and you knew this was coming), I had an author who ran his fully edited manuscript through ProWritingAid after I had done a lovely two-pass edit. I am a nonfiction book editor. He changed everything flagged, introduced error because these apps are not always accurate, and accused me of missing all these points. Not true at all. So I caution authors to be careful. And if you are going to use these AI editing apps, do it early in your writing when you can identify your patterns and fix them then.

Thank you for this, Dave! Useful!!

Another gem, Dave. Thanks!

Thank you for the new videos. I love them.

Great video! Spoke to this old English teacher’s heart. I’m now a freelance editor and, oh dear, the -ly words and the being verbs are very alive and doing quite well in the Indie industry today I’m sorry to say.

That was really interesting. Really!

This was informative

Dave, this was a wonderful video-quick, concise, and helpful. It arrived in my email at the perfect time for me to start my personal edit in a couple of days.Thank you so much! You're appreciated.

Please, is it the reason Amazon kpd are blocking books?? Please can you make a video on it. I need a solution to this very problem. Thanks I will be grateful.

Tautology-returned back; responded back; collapsed down; etc

Thanks, Dave! I was searching this exact topic.

Fabulous video - thank you Dave.

As Steve King wrote (before he descended into TDS) `adverbs are not your friends`. I have to write speeches and this was a great video to make sure I am on point and convey the right pace and tone. Thank you.

Great video, Dave!

I use "understand" and "comprehend" instead of "realize," which I tend to overuse.

Great video, very informative. Definitely will use this as a key when writing! But YOU should remove "Irregardless" from your writing, Dave. It's what's called a "nonstandard" word. That means it's technically not a real word, but it's been in use for so long, its been accepted into the language. "Irregardless" has the same meaning as "Regardless," so you might as well use "Regardless."

great video - thanks!!!

wow....I went through that list of ten and the last one...I nearly fell off my chair!! Used 941 times!!! I may be gone a while...lol

“Thanks, Dave,” I said. “I felt that was a really, very good clip that just completely made my day. I smiled and nodded continuously with the occasional shrug as I watched your breathing, your breath, with every inhale and exhale as you continued to breathe while not saying any needless run-on-sentences or excessive tags,” I said again, then just reached for my thesaurus as I sat in wonder and additionally pondered about how to avoid tautology. Needless to say, I find that repeating repetitive and repetitious words can be samey, lack variety, constantly boring, uninteresting and in some cases verbose. “Irregardlessly I’ll try to make sure I don’t use words that don’t really exist,” I said before signing off with regards. 😉

I do the word search thing for every book and it's the longest part of rewriting. 😮‍💨☕️

It's also important to avoid the other extreme - if certain details are not that essential to the story, it's perfectly fine to just use an adverb. If you avoid adverbs at all costs, you risk of overwriting your scenes and detracting from the main message.

I literally felt like it was a really great video. (lol) Thanks!

Thank you, Dave! Even experienced writers benefit from being reminded of some basics.

DID HE SAY "IRREGARDLESS"? 😱

'And' joins things of the same time-frame. 'Then' indicates a later occurrence. For that reason, I don't think they're interchangeable.

I've noticed many writers don't use enough dialogue tags. If I have to re-read to know which character is talking I put the book down and never again purchase from that author.

Dave, you had me laughing at 6:42 when you said: The drawer was completely full of socks. You then rewrote the sentence: The drawer was full of socks. I laughed right here because you used the passive word: WAS. These words are hard to avoid as a writer, and even the most accomplished writers will use them. The words, WAS, JUST, and THAT are some of the hardest to avoid when writing. When I sit down to write, I struggle with these words, and not using them. What am I saying, I struggle with passive voice, and the show-not-tell in my writing. Thanks for the video word reminders.

Don't tie yourself into knots trying to avoid the use of 'the', was etc. Make the words flow like music and it'll sound right, that's what's important. 'And' should never be used to start a sentence. 🙂

All really great ideas and I wrote it all down, but , then you say "irregardless" at 8:35 which is/isn't a word. Yes, it's been used since the 1700's at least, but it's a double negative, so let's not use it just to make sure. But I really enjoyed this video regardless.

Near the end you say, "irregardless" - a word which doesn't exist. It's simply, "Regardless". And you're a writer?

"irregardless" is not a word. Don't worry; it happens to all of us.

"literally" needs to be removed from the dictionary and banned by Big Brother

I'm getting the feeling this applies a lot more to fiction than non-fction

i have to disagree on the complete, sounded better imo

You can "quickly scroll through" each occurrence IN THAT CHAPTER, but even though Atticus shows you all the occurrences in the book, the search/replace function doesn't move between chapters, making it time consuming and forcing me to use Word or Scrivener (the last also bad at S&R, to be fair).

u had a seven month break all fine bro?

Irregardless???

Irreguardless is NOT a word. Look it up. Or try to.

How to make every story exactly the same as every other story and make none of them worth reading. This advice is what has made books unreadable in recent years.

Dave Chesson! Did you say irregardless? Shame! Otherwise useful video, thanks.

Great tips for better writing. A good friend of mine in the industry also says you have to be on message for fiction books. Even if the writing is excellent, they will not publish anything outside of what's accepted under fourth-wave feminism. I find this very odd myself, but that's the reality. She's leaving the industry next year!

So, use more verbs. Activate sentences. Thanks

Speaking of tautologies ... "young child" is one that irritates me :)

Overused: "not gonna lie" completely unnecessary.