Don’t remember the last time i.posted here, but yeah I live in southern Florida and I may or may not be dead after this beast of a hurricane lol

I’ll update you in like a week (or whenever I have access to the internet) if I’m still alive

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I'm alive

Are These Filter Words Weakening Your Story?

After putting my writing on hold for several weeks, I decided to jump back in. I expected to find all sorts of problems with my story–inconsistencies in the plot, lack of transitions, poor characterization–the works. But what began to stick out to me was something to which I’d given little thought in writing.

Filter words.

What are Filter Words?

Actually, I didn’t even know these insidious creatures had a name until I started combing the internet for info.

Filter words are those that unnecessarily filter the reader’s experience through a character’s point of view. Dark Angel’s Blog says:

In terms of example, you should watch out for:

I’m being honest when I say my manuscript is filled with these words, and the majority of them need to be edited out.

What do Filter Words Look Like?

Let’s imagine a character in your novel is walking down a street during peak hour.

You might, for example, write:

Eliminating the bolded words removes the filters that distances us, the readers, from this character’s experience:

Are Filter Words Ever Acceptable?

Of course, there are usually exceptions to every rule.

Just because filter words tend to be weak doesn’t mean they never have a place in our writing. Sometimes they are helpful and even necessary.

Susan Dennard of Let The Words Flow writes that we should use filter words when they are critical to the meaning of the sentence.

If there’s no better way to phrase something than to use a filter word, then it’s probably okay to do so.

Want to know more?

Read these other helpful articles on filter words and more great writing tips:

Felassan, The Masked Empire

(via asomniari)

Fen'Harel 

continued from x

“After all of this you’re now giving me an ultimatum?”

It wasn’t a decision that came lightly. All that she worked to achieve or the man which she loved. Part of her felt anger that he would ask her to make such a choice.. but then she also understood why. She couldn’t have both with what she now knew. There were so many questions, so many answers and explanations which he owed her. She had no way of knowing what the future would hold if she turned her back on the Inquisition..

Theneras walked towards him, his back still turned to her. It was in those quick seconds it took to reach him that her heart settled on it’s answer. She didn’t give her mind a chance to think, she wouldn’t give it time to betray her or lead her astray from what she truly desired.

Slowly, her hand slipped its way into his own. 

“My work in the Inquisition is done.” 

His muscles tense, lithe body contouring to the shape of his clothes, shoulders high and stiff. Her hand is thin and soft in his. He grips it suddenly, all at once, and his breath trembles just the briefest moment, his jaw clenched and eyes burning.

He looks away. She can’t see the twist of his mouth or the darkening of his pupils, and he thinks, as he always manages to do, even as the seeds of pain sprout deep in his chest, that it is good she is beside him, not in front. But then he remembers she will know anyway, and it is a painful reminder he embraces.

“I did not expect that to be your choice,” he says, and by then he has already let go of her hand. “I will tell you everything, then.”

“It is no coincidence I joined the Inquisition. The ancient orb Corypheus possessed was mine, though I did not foresee his immortality when I led him too it. He should have died at the conclave.”

He considers, then, what he should say next. No words will justify it.

sooolas

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