Makin' a List & Checkin' it Twice

Monday, April 27, 2009
Not much has been going on with me these days. I've mostly been waiting, waiting, waiting to hear back from editors. The story I sold, The Stillburrow Crush, is on its way to getting Galley No. 2 made. So, I'm waiting on that as well. Like Nancy J. Parra said in her April 10th blog, Wait is a definitely a four letter word.

I haven't been creating much new material, but mostly been revising old stories. And in the revision process, I'm starting a list of words. Actually, there's about two lists developing. One is for unnecessary words that I'm doing a word find on my word document to look at every instance that word is used in the story. If I really don't need it, or if I can find another phrase there to make it sound tighter or just all around better, I'm changing it. This list of words is being called "The Deleters."

The second list consists of a two words per line. I'm doing a word find on terms that are similar to other words and making sure I've used the right word. This is my "Correctors" list.

Yeah, it's time consuming to do a word find for each word, but it's also amazing how many times I've ended up deleting or changing something.

Anyway, here's what I have so far. Please let me know if any of you know more good words to add to the lists.

THE DELETERS
-began
-even
-feel (felt)
-got
-it
-just
-look
-out
-started
-suddenly
-that
-then
-up
-was
CORRECTORS
-affect / effect
-adverse / averse
-compliment / complement
-its / it's
-taunt / taut
-use / used
-wander / wonder
-where / wear
-which / that
-your / you're

2 comments:

  1. I always typo then/than - :)

    Good lists-very handy and yes, time consuming but worth it for polishing stories. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Then / Than. That's a good one. Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete