Filtering Out Filter Words

If we could only show you one thing, we’d love for it to be this: the importance of reducing filter words in your writing. 

In this episode, we break down what a filter word is and discuss why it’s worthwhile to cut them + how you can. 

Filter words add unnecessary distance between your POV character and your reader, effectively turning intense, emotional, and profound moments into reported, secondhand summaries. Unless you want to keep your reader at bay, these sneaky words have got to go. There are, of course, exceptions that we explore here too!

For the lessons from this episode + a list of filter words in one spot, check out and download this PDF:  (https://drive.google.com/file/d/165sWgtLmAvEGdCaa_xWxx-ZmZk1fWWgl/view?usp=sharing). No subscription or signup is necessary. 

Do you need support with your writing? Check out our coaching and editing services at https://veronicajorden.com/ and https://annaschechter.org/. 

Do you want to know what Anna's reading? Check out her instagram @annaotations (https://www.instagram.com/annaotations/).

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Veronica, a Gen Xer. And I'm Anna, a Gen Zer. And this is X Wright Z, a podcast fueled by our love of books and the craft of writing.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

We're writers and editors who read across the genre spectrum. And you know how in Sci-Fi characters are on an intergalactic mission to do whatever they need to do? Well, we're on an intergenerational mission to help writers write better stories.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

And as part of our mission, every episode comes with a handout, chock full of key takeaways and tips that you can use for your own writing. A simple Google Doc with no signups or subscriptions necessary. If we can spark your creativity and help support your writing habit, we'll consider this a job well done. Now let's dig into this week's discussion. Today we're going to talk about something that I think a lot of writers, and unless they've taken like some writing classes or they've worked with a coach, often have never heard of. So a lot of beginner writers have never heard of of our topic today. And uh it's called filter words.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

I'll admit that I had not heard of what a filter word is until I started working as an editor. So it's not something that they teach you in day one. Um, I sort of discovered it along the way, and filter words are something that holds writing back from being as strong as it could be.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

It's one of those things too, and I think maybe one of the reasons that a lot of folks haven't heard of it until they really get deep into their writing studies, because it goes hand in hand with point of view, which is, I think, at least in my experience, one of the tougher things for writers to really um master. Or at least I see folks like some people really get it, and some people are just like, I don't understand what point of view is or like how it works. And these filter words really do go hand in hand with point of view.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

We're going to get into what a filter word is and what they like, we're going to tell you what words they actually are. They are all words that you will have seen before, you will have read before in books, commonly, you will have written them before. So they are not some sort of like scary or strange thing. They're very everyday commonplace words. And once you start to spot them, it becomes a lot easier to kind of rework them. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

So I mean, let's just get into it. Anna, do you want to tell us what is a filter word?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yes, totally. So a filter word is a sensory or perceiving verb like see. And when they are used, they make it so that a writer is reporting what a character feels, perceives, sees, hears, and so forth. But that filter word or sensory verb acts as a barrier or a filter between the reader and the point of view character. Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

So I know a lot of people are listening to this and be like, what are you talking about? As a writer, I'm supposed to tell you what my character sees and hears and feels and tastes and touch, right? Well, yeah, but it's the methodology that you use to do that. And I I want to caveat kind of all of this conversation today with the idea, these filter words or the need to remove them as much as possible, really comes down to which point of view you're telling your story in. So if you are writing in first person or you are writing in kind of what I think is probably the most popular point of view right now, which is a close or a deep third person, that's when these filter words are really gonna come into play. Now, in the other points of view, if you happen to be writing something really unique in like second person or you're using a more omniscient point of view, these rules are not necessarily gonna apply, especially in omniscient, because that is that is you actually having to tell the reader what each character in your scene is thinking or doing or seeing or feeling or touching, right? But for most of, I would say probably, gosh, I don't know what 90, 90% of stories out there right now that are using either first person or a third person close perspective or a third person limited perspective. The ability to identify and then revise to remove filter words is going to make your writing stronger.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Right. It's a distance thing. Right. It's a closeness. And Veronica, I know you like to think about sort of the camera angle or the camera zoom in writing. That's really what point of view is is your camera. So is your camera the eyes of the character? Is your camera sitting upon the shoulder of the character, walking next to, walking three feet behind the character? The fewer the filter, the fewer filter words are used, the closer that camera comes to being right alongside the character as they go through an event, an emotion, an experience. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

And it's also a timing thing. So because of where that camera sits, right? And if and I think once we get into some examples, this will become really clear. But when we use filter words, it's almost like we're telling the reader ahead of time what's about to happen versus letting them see or experience whatever the sensory detail is in real time with the character. And you'll see what we're talking about here in a minute. So let's let's this this is not an extensive list, but I I want to kind of share some common filter words. And I and I guarantee you, if you are listening to this and you'll be like, I use those words all the time. I want to kind of reiterate here the idea here is not to remove all of them from your writing, but typically the more of them you can remove, if you can revise a sentence to remove these filter words, it forces you to use stronger verbs and it's going to bring you closer to your character's perspective, as Anna said. So I think we wrote out a list, didn't we, Anna? Do you want to read some of these for us? We did.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

So we'll put these in the handout that we share. So don't worry about catching all of them right now. But filter words include see, saw, look, watch, notice, stare, hear, listen, think, thought, realize, wonder, know, believe, decide, remember, feel, touch, sense, seem, and note. I know that that was a ton. We will put a copy of that in the handout. Those are the kinds of verbs that we are talking about when we talk about filter words.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah. And sometimes it can get a little sneaky because I've seen some that will come through, like again, see, look, watch. Those are all kind of the really obvious visual ones. But, you know, it's things like noticed, that's also a filter word. Observed is also a filter word. So sometimes, and I have worked with authors where I'm like, hey, we need to get rid of this filter word. And so they just put in like a$5 word that means saw or see. So be careful about that. Okay, so let's talk. We talked a little bit about POV and how these filter words kind of are connected. And you mem, you mentioned camera angle. And I think this is probably the easiest way to think about how these filter words create distance. If I say something like, I saw the man cross the street, what that sentence is actually doing is the camera is focused on me as I'm watching someone do something, right? So much more interesting if we turn the camera around and allow the reader, and the sentence simply becomes a man cross the street. That way, it's so small, it's such a subtle change. But now the camera is focused on what is happening out there and the reader is experiencing it at the same time as the character. I don't have to filter it through the character saying the character saw them. If you're in first or third person and you have a sentence, a man crossed the street, we understand intrinsically, like instinctively, because we know how humans perceive the world, that that person is being seen. The same thing if I were to say, like, I heard the birds singing. Okay, how else would you perceive that birds are singing? I guess you could visually see them, right? But I could change that sentence around. So again, the camera is not watching me hear them, but instead, we've now turned the microphone in this case upwards, and you could just say birds, birds were singing or birds sang like as the sun rose, right? Whatever your sentence is. But again, it's about turning the camera away from watching a character perceive something and allowing the reader to perceive it at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Does that make sense? I hope that made sense. That does make sense. That does make sense. You you mentioned the immediacy of events. And when we have those extra filters in place, the audience becomes the recipient of a report, the recipient of breaking news. Character watches man cross the street instead of man crosses the street. Right. So it's there's that gap of time that it takes to report using a filter word, and it makes it so that the event has sort of already come and gone by the time the reader is up to speed, hearing secondhand about the fact that a man crossed the street rather than being as close to bear as possible to witness the man crossing the street naturally.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Right. And it's one of those things we've talked about too, I think in previous um podcasts, is this idea that like the best stories, the ones that readers can't put down, is where you kind of create this collaborative space, right? So it's your job to set the scene and create these characters and build this world and then show us the action. And so a lot of times filter words is a very telling voice. You're telling the reader what is happening instead of showing them in real time, right? So, and it and it takes less effort for a reader to envision something. I mean, if I said to you, if you closed your eyes, for those of you out there listening, if you closed your eyes right now and I said to you, um, she watched the children play in the park, right? That has a very distinct image, I think. But again, it's there's a distance to it because the the emphasis there is on the fact that she's watching. And in those instances where that is what you're trying to emphasize, it's okay. But if the subject and what you really want the reader to see is what is happening in the park. If you close your eyes again, and now I say to you, children were playing in the park, running between, you know, the swings and the slide, that's a very different process. The image in your mind is probably much richer, it's much clearer. Why? Because I'm not requiring you, as the reader, think, well, what does she see? What is she perceiving? You just get to think about in your own mind what that looks like to you. And again, now we've created this more collaborative environment where the reader has to use their own knowledge and experience and things that they've seen and know to feel like they are immersed in a part of the story. So again, it's going to bring, it's that, like you said, Anna, it's that question of distance. It's now pulled me much, much closer into the action of the story because it's it's requiring me to use my knowledge as a reader to perceive in my mind the things that are being presented in the story. It's very deep. It is deep.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Well, it's interesting because it, you're right. The reader is invited to actually filter an event through their perception, their own sensory and perceiving verbs when the filter words are not present. If we're told she watched the children, that's all we get. If we are shown the children playing, we get to participate in the watching and in the emotions that might be about the nostalgia, whatever the mood of the scene is, we get to feel it much more naturally because we're not being told.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

I'm sure there are folks out there that are like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Like this, like it kind of makes sense, but it seems a little ambiguous. But here's the thing it's an easy fix. If you were to go through, you know, if you were writing in first person or third person close, and you go through a section of your manuscript and you're looking for the words that we gave you on that list, the most common of which are things like looked or saw or noticed or thought, um, even heard, heard, or smelled, right? Kind of felt is another one. Felt is a big one. Yeah. So um, and let's we can talk about an example in that of that in a minute. But like if you just went through and highlighted all of those words, you'll probably be surprised at how many of them you use. And again, I'm not saying that you should eliminate all of them, but if you set a goal, maybe 70%. So, like for every 10 you have, eliminate seven of them. When you revise those sentences and read it back, I can almost guarantee you the writing is gonna be stronger. It's gonna be so much more sensory because it's required you to turn that camera around. It's almost sometimes it's a cheat. You can tell me she's looking at it, but if you have to turn that camera around and now you actually have to describe what's being seen versus her just seeing it, it's always going to feel stronger. And it's probably gonna save you some real estate on the page. You're gonna save some word count because you don't have to have all of this filtering in place.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

I'm gonna be a grammar nerd for a second. Yeah. And what I see so frequently when we revise filter words is we get to switch the order of the sentence around in a way that works really nicely. So, in the examples that Veronica shared earlier, and in an example that I'm about to share, we're going to see the object of the original sentence become the subject of the sentence in the revision. So let's look at the sentence. She saw the turtle moving slowly. In that sentence, the she is the subject. She is doing the action of the sentence, which is seeing or saw. What did she see? She saw the turtle. How is the turtle moving slowly? We can make the sentence more concise and stronger if we let the turtle be the star of the show, if we let the turtle be the subject. Cut out she saw. What is a stronger verb that you could use that encapsulates moving slowly? I chose crept. Your sentence could become the turtle crept. I know that the turtle is creeping or moving along slowly. I know that I'm watching alongside my POV character, but her presence isn't interjecting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I mean, and that's and that's really it. You're right. It's about, but again, I mean, that that's like that's the technical and grammar um support for this idea of like, where is the camera? Who's in the camera shot as you're looking at, you know, if you're making a description, where's the camera focused? Is it focused on the person who is perceiving, or is it focused out so that we can all perceive it together? And that's, I mean, you've just given us the grammar support for that. Makes perfect sense. There's the there's like the science behind it and the feeling behind it. Like there's like both of those levels, totally. Right, right. Um, and let's go back because we talked about like felt is one of those things that often comes up and it's just natural. I mean, because that's how we communicate as humans. When we have an emotion, we want to say, like, I felt sad, or I felt angry, or even I was angry, although that's not a filter word. Let's let's stick with just the filter words. I I felt sad, I felt alone. Um, that's normal. It's natural we do those things, it's how we communicate. It's kind of we're taught, you know, if you meet someone on the street and they say, How are you? How are you feeling? Right. So I'm feeling this. It's just natural. But when we come to writing, again, if we want to remove that layer, that filter layer, if a if a reader has stayed with a character, if we're kind of inside their head, again, when we start to, when we start to write things, they're going to just naturally understand that when you say something like, rather than saying, I was feeling lonely, if we kind of flip that around and we have to revise to take out the felt, it becomes something like, you know, the weight of loneliness made her shoulders roll forward. That's a terrible sentence, but you get the idea here, right? It's a much, it's gonna force you to use stronger sensory details. It's going to force you to use stronger um verbs, but also rethink. It's it's a cheat almost to say, well, she felt sad. That's telling. I want you to show us how she's feeling by by cutting out that filter word and figuring out how you can convey the same idea without using it.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah. No, it's it's an exercise in getting into the body and mind of the character, into their perception, so that the reader feels alongside them and is not told what to feel. It's also a matter of getting deeper into the story's world and the setting. You know, we've talked about the camera looking outwards towards the turtle or towards the child, the children playing in the park. Any of those could be used to cultivate a feeling of loneliness, depending on how it is shown. If the turtle is shown as this solitary, tragic figure who has who can't help but keep creeping along totally alone and isolated in this world, we are gonna feel the POV character's loneliness through something that they noticed in their environment. Likewise, you're alone sitting. My mind went to a front porch. You're alone sitting on a front porch. You, the POV character is alone. They feel lonely. How can you use the front porch to cultivate loneliness without the word feel or lonely? You could have an empty rocking chair moving in the wind. There's a suggestion that probably a person once sat in that rocking chair. You could have, you know, no cars are driving by. It's an empty, desolate road. Maybe some kids walk by and they're chatting and laughing. And it hurts to hear the chatting and the laughing of these friends who have each other. Right. Don't use the word hurt, don't use the word hear, don't use the word feel or lonely, but you will have created that loneliness, that feeling.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Agreed. So I think the easiest way, like you're just gonna, if you're if this isn't quite sinking in, if it's not quite clicking for you yet, do the simple exercise. Take something you've written, look for these filter words. Oftentimes I'll go through and highlight, right? So you can see how many of them you're actually using, and then challenge yourself to revise to take them out and see and then read your work back and see if you don't feel like it's become much stronger, that it's much more the depth of the sensoriness of it is better. It's one of those things that you can add to your revision list, like once you finish something, just to go back and hey, have I have I put too many filter words in here? Can I go back and revise some of those things? Um, but let's talk about the instances where they are okay, where you don't have to worry about removing them.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Oh, we love an exception, don't we? Of course. Fiction, fiction is the business of exception. That's it is the business of exceptions. Truly. Well, Veronica, you I think you already touched on one of them. When we speak with other people, we tend to use filter words. Oh, I saw her yesterday. Oh, I feel kind of sad today. So I think an appropriate spot for using filter words could be dialogue between characters. It it adds a naturalness to the way that people talk. Yeah, agreed, 100%. Another one might be your character is writing a letter or a newspaper article. They're actually reporting something. That's a moment where your prose might be more telling because that is actually the act of what your character is doing. Um, I wrote down a little example of like writing a letter to Elizabeth Bennett after her wedding. Dear Mrs. Darcy, I heard the news of your marriage. That's how we would write a letter, and that's an appropriate use of heard. Right. Yes, agreed. Uh Veronica, other ones on your mind?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah. So, like, let's say, you know, we've talked about removing these filter words because they bring us in closer to a character. But there are times, for example, that you may have a character or a situation where you want to create distance, where you want it to feel less intimate with that character. Um, there are plenty of characters out there where you really want to kind of keep them at arm's length. So that's a situation where you may notice that you've used filter words, but you are intentionally choosing to leave them in because. you want to have that distance. Another example of when you might use them is uh if you have a character who maybe is kind of having, I don't know, like an out-of-body experience or they're kind of disassociating. So they're it's almost like they're talking to themselves and narrating things that they see, creating distance intentionally. It's not because we want the camera, you know, it's about where that camera is sitting. And sometimes if you have a character who again, you want to create distance or you want to create a sense of confusion, it's the combination of noticing things, but then also having to comment on the fact that you are observing them almost like you're having to convince yourself or that character is having to convince themselves that they do hear it and they do see it. Like so there are certain instances where you can leave them in, but it's done intentionally intentionally to create that distance. And I think it's it's one of those times where it's like we know kind of what the rule quote unquote is, but we're choosing to break it for a specific effect for the reader.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yes. Yes absolutely I I think that no that's really well said. There are moments or situations where a character cannot allow the reader to be close is not close to their own ability to perceive and might also be lost in kind of losing a grip on reality potentially. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah like I could think of it like for example if you I've read scenes where let's say someone's been in an accident and kind of like their soul has left their body and they're talking about the fact that like I watched you know the doctor like perform CPR, right? That's an instance where it could actually really work because you're wanting to create distance. You don't want the reader to to feel embodied in that character but actually separated. So in that instance again we're playing with distance but we're doing it intentionally.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yes. Well it's it's mirroring reality either we're with a character perceiving alongside them or we're pushed away from a character because a moment is too unbearable, too confusing, too completely alien for the character to even understand what's being perceived, what they are perceiving.

unknown 24:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

They have to filter it.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Right. And again one of the things too like as you're looking for all of the times that you've used filter words, there are times when that filter word is the action that you want to emphasize. So if you have someone whose job it is to I don't know like watch what's happening there are instances where it is the act of watching that you want to draw emphasis to and in that case leave your filter word. So it would be one of those things like maybe you try to revise it and if it doesn't sound right because now we've moved the camera from the wrong into the wrong place, if the camera is supposed to be about someone doing one of these filter words, then leave the camera there. So again always exceptions but I I would say based on kind of the work that I've done with a lot of different writers, I would say 70 maybe even 80% of filter words can be removed. That does require revision, but your writing is almost always going to be stronger because of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

And I would say when you're doing a first draft, when you're just getting words out on the page, try not to worry too much about catching filter words. Let them come out naturally as they will as you explore the story and its scenes and what needs to happen. And then go back and unf I guess filter out your filter words. You know get them on there so you know all right my character feels angry now. You get a little break from that you come back to that scene to revise it. What does anger feel like in that character? What do they see in the world when they're angry? You know, we we have that expression I saw red. Okay. Show us that feeling of seeing red rather than telling us she saw red, she was so angry.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Yeah, especially when it comes to emotion I find myself giving um feedback all the time it's like rather than tell me what it is they're feeling, talk to me about where it lives in their body. Talk to me about what their facial expression and their body language is saying that helps the reader to understand that emotion without telling them. Again, it's creating that it's like asking the reader to do a little bit of work. If I tell you a character is mad, okay, we know it I don't have to work very hard. If I tell you they slammed the door and punched a wall that's a much more visceral response and I understand I have to use my intellect to instinctively understand that this character is now angry and that's a much richer sensory experience for a reader than just being told he was mad.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Right. And think about the moments where you want to talk about a book or a film with your friends or with a book club. Do you want to rehash those moments where you were told exactly what was going on or do you want to dig into those moments that you got a very distinct feeling inside of you, but the author didn't tell you what that feeling was exactly that's got so much more space for analysis and lingering on and coming back to and rereading.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

You and I talked the other day if I could change one thing, if I could teach every writer this one lesson it would be to be able to quickly identify filter words and then challenge themselves to revise and to get rid of as many of them as they can because I guarantee your POV is going to be stronger. Your writing as a whole is going to be stronger. So like if there's nothing else that we accomplish if there's one thing that I could like teach every writer it's to identify and be very conscious of how they're using filter words. Totally filter words is my go-to if there's only one if there's only one thing we can change to strengthen a story let it be those filter words get stronger verbs in there bring us in closer let us actually experience the scene yes oh my gosh filter words so well like it mentioned earlier we're gonna put out a handout that has a lot of these common filter words but there are some really sneaky ones in there but they're usually substitutes for the five sensory you know saw heard touch taste um uh what's the other one? Feel felt that's oh you got that smell that was smell that was it yes um they are usually just substitutes for those five don't get your thesaurus out because you don't need a substitute for any of those words switch your sentence around okay yeah well that I think that's all we have for you this week if you have any questions on filter words or you're not sure um hit us up drop us a comment we'd love to talk to you about it if you're if you're stuck on a particular sentence we'd love to help you figure out how you could uh do that revision and show you that by eliminating filter words your writing actually becomes stronger