Editing Rant: Filtered

Photo by Grace Ho on Unsplash

I don’t have the bandwidth today to do a deep dive into this. I had been thinking about saving Filtering for a writing exercise, but I’m just done at the moment. No brain left, so here goes words to rip out of the manuscript.

First draft (or zero draft, however you count), you will write a lot of “he saw”, “I felt”, “she heard,” letting a reader know what the point of view (POV) character witnessed. You might even see a lot of this in my fiction writing here on the blog, since I post mostly flashes – which means first draft stuff.

Anyway, during the second draft these need to come out.

Don’t put a barrier between the reader and what is happening.

“I heard the engine coming down the track, the long whistle blowing.”

Well, the reader knows if something is happening, the POV is witnessing it, less needs to be said about the process of witnessing.

“Clicky-clack, the engine is coming down the track. The long whistle blowing it’s mournful cry.”

With which sentence do you hear the engine and whistle more clearly?

Get rid of the filter words.

And don’t just take my word for it – here is a vlog from Alyssa Matesic (Cut these words now) – start at 1:10:

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Okay, had a night’s sleep, now back to this editing rant. I’ve said a LOT about filtering words here on this blog over the years. Editing rants based on book reviews, slush reads, and so, so many edits, but part of this one was directed at me. Yes, all the editing and I still need to yell at myself about filtering words.

Recently, I wrote a four thousand plus word Flash to fill in a 2000-word flash hole in my 2024 line up called “Water Finds a Way” (9/29/2024). (I’ve been doing really good this year in cleaning up my backlog.)

The story was based on a dream I had that previous night. Very vivid – the water over the tiled pool room with a keystone design, the crawling up and down the missing stairs, seeing the approaching pirates through the magic window, the light house, the betrayal, the lightning flashing in the pool after I threw the clerical charm in there and seeing the silhouette of the monster in the waters. The challenge was to make that dream a reality on paper.

Problems with the story – time to developmentally edit myself:

(One) I chose to do it as first-person because that was how I dreamed it. Sometimes I dream in third person, but most of them are first person. Only the additions I did to make it into a full story instead of an action sequence from the middle of the story (there wasn’t a beginning or end, nothing to set it up and nothing to tie it up, I had been dropped into the story in media res), the backstory for the person operating the lighthouse, made them a less than interesting point-of-view from inside their head. They didn’t know where they had come from, nor did they have strong goals. And they didn’t have anyone to talk to so all the thinking was internal. Boring.

I need a different POV choice for the story. I think third person, where the lighthouse keeper talks to themselves could work, especially if I have one or two of the pirate crew be a second POV. Maybe the apprentice cleric; it would be interesting to compare two people caught up in situations where they are not allowed to leave. Situations which offer safety but at the cost of agency.

(Two) I just pounded out that 4,300 word story over a six-hour day with just one meal break. The ending got cut short by the need to sleep. Everything got tied up quickly, where the impact of the rope goal was just set up. The final two paragraphs would be better as two more pages.

(Three) With the quick write-up without a break, so many filter words were used. What I saw in the story needed to be written out – saw, felt, heard, believed, thought. The whole things need a rewrite to remove the filter words. I need to change description into immersion. Rip the barriers away!

(Four) The magic window, which was WAY COOL in the dream, does not work in the created story. It is a Darling and needs to be killed. Unless I can find a way to keep it. (My precious!)

(Five) I would like this to be a saleable length, so 10k. I had rushed things just to finish the blog in one day and fill a slot, but it is over 4k words already. That is some serious wordage. With a rewrite filling in the rushed descriptions, even with removing filter words, it should easily hit 6k and adding the second POV (Cleo) and a scene or two setting up stuff before the pirates arrived at the lighthouse – let’s see, them on boat where the pirate asks for payment as they race the storm to the mainland and another with them walking up from the pier (instead of the action just being watched from the window), and maybe a third of them loading onto the lifeboats should add another 2k easy. Fixing the ending would add at least another 1k, so doable at 9k without a problem. The final one thousand words can be adding a flash or two at the end, a couple good ones. Have to make it worth 99 cents.

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Now the question is do I want to do this. Part of me wants to do a WRITING EXERCISE of fixing the filter words. The story can be so much better. But the publisher-selling part of me knows this isn’t in my normal wheelhouse and won’t sell well if at all and that is a lot of words and commitment for a mediocre product. Third part of me, the one part of a new writer’s group is going your goal was to outline a book for sale before the next meeting, this will do it. So here we are. What will happen tomorrow?

If I do rewrite it, I would put PART of the second draft into a Sunday post – equal to the Amazon first 10% rule. After which I would need to continue with the third and fourth draft cleanups for publication. It will be a whole week process. Hmm.