In lecture six, I'll be talking about unnecessary, overused and overly fancy words. Because these words can largely be erased from your manuscript. while improving its readability. It's quite surprising how many words are unnecessary and can simply be removed without having the slightest effect on sentence meaning. In fact, it often makes the prose much clearer. It makes it more direct and more easily understood.

Let's take a look at some of these word types, together with some examples. Down and up are two of the most common words we can delete. For example, if we sit down on a chair, normally we lower our body to sit anyway. So the words down is not needed. We can simply erase it. If someone stands up, like in the sentence shown, he stood up to greet them.

The same thing applies. When we stand, we generally move upwards. So the word up is not required. We can simply say, he stood to greet them. In this sentence, I've added four words separated by an oblique dash. I found it rather quite somewhat somehow, easy to understand.

Now you can see that the woods had absolutely nothing to the meaning or the style of the sentence. It seems to the reader that they're used just for the sake of using them, perhaps to increase the word count and sound literary. Let's erase those words. The words start Begin began and begun, can often be removed. But of course, it depends on the context. In the sentence, he began to fall asleep, we can simply write, he fell asleep.

It's direct, it's dynamic, and it's punchy. Another common group of words that are generally not used include words like completely, absolutely. And literally, in the sentence, he's completely insane. The writer wants to impress upon the reader, that he really is insane. He wants to accentuate the word insane. It may be better just to write.

He's insane. Or if we want to make sure that the reader understands that he's very, very insane. We could write he's barking mad. In general, the words completely, absolutely, literally and actually add nothing to the sentence, so we can delete them, the meaning will be the same. Take note though, an exception could be in dialog when someone speaking. If a character has a habit of saying a certain word as part of his normal speech and repeats it very often, then this would be called characterization.

With these words, definitely, certainly, probably, actually, basically, virtually. Take a careful look at your prose. Do your sentences make sense without these words? If they do, then remove them. The word then, is often used to show sequence of events. It is used too often and attracts attention as an overused word.

Particularly if use twice in one sentence, it can often be replaced with and in the sentence, he picked me up, then brushed me off. We could replace them with M, and the sentence still makes sense. It's quite obvious that he was picked up before being brushed off. So the use of them to show a sequence of events just isn't necessary. Check your sentences can then be replaced with another word like and the word that if a sentence still has the same meaning without it, then erase it. Often we include the word that in a sentence because it's part of our everyday speech.

This is the Chinese car that I've ever seen, could easily read. This is the Chinese car I've ever seen is exactly the same meaning. The word just is used very often in prose, and particularly in dialog is mostly not needed, but it depends on the context. The last two words vary and really are the biggest culprits in my opinion. You can mostly delete them wherever you find them. Be careful that the sentences still make sense.

The trick is to find a strong verb or adjective to convey the same meaning. We could say the child is very tired. Say the child is exhausted is a better verb. conveys the meaning exactly the same way. If we had a really boring movie, we could say it's a mind numbing movie. It's more dynamic, and it makes the point.

The word suddenly is meant to surprise the reader. But it does the opposite. It slows down the action. It warns the reader that something is about to happen. So there's no surprise at all. Right the event without adding the word suddenly the reader can feel the sadness as the explosion happens.

However, it can be used in other situations when expressing emotions. For example, suddenly, I find you interesting. The phrase in order Two is never necessary. I'm showing you this in order to explain how I acted the other day is exactly the same as saying, I'm showing you this to explain the way I acted the other day. In this list of words, we can see the each pair of words actually means much the same thing. past memories, for example, memories are in the past, so past can be erased.

True facts, facts are true. So the word true is not necessary. In fact, from this list, you can delete the first word in each case, and the meaning is exactly the same. It's always a good idea to keep your prose simple, so that it's to the point and it moves the reader through the story. In this way, we should choose simple words over fancy words. fancy words interfere with the understanding and slows a reader down.

They might even skip a complicated word, because they don't know what it means. Here's the list of fancy words and their simple replacement. In the next lecture, you'll learn how to avoid absolutes, sometimes known as over generalizations.