27 Weak Words and Phrases to Avoid in Your Writing

 27 Weak Words and Phrases to Avoid in Your Writing

I had some time to go through my draft the other day and pick out where my writing was vague and just plain crappy. When you put words to the page in draft one you will find yourself using crutch words just so you can get the idea down. 

I used way too many and did not realize it until I search for those words and phrases specifically. 

I was doing it subconsciously. 

I did not remember writing "almost" so many damn times. When I looked back, I felt stupid, because almost is almost always unnecessary. 

Other words and word strings have a tendency to invade writing and detract from your prose. I did a search for some of the most common culprits and put together a small list, which is by no mean comprehensive. 

Go through it and use the find function in your word processing program. You will be surprised how many times you use some of these words. Even published authors and experienced writers might surprise themselves by checking back on the fundamentals.

Your writing will improve, and you will find creative ways to eliminate the weak crutch words from your writing.

Solemn promise. Scouts honor.

Note, some of these words cannot be eliminated entirely and some serve a purpose is specific situations. The suggestion is to limit their use.

This is your writing when you use weak and vague words. It is broken.

WEAK WORDS, VAGUE CRUTCHES

The following are just a few weak words that any writer should avoid (if they remember).

• Seem
• About
• Approximately
• Look as if
• Appear
• More or less
• Almost (F#ck this word)
• Nearly
• Give or take
• Roughly
• Really
• Actually
• But
• Was
• Very
• Just
• So
• Finally
• Then
• Feel
• Suddenly
• As 
• alot (I want to use this one...alot...)
• sort of/ kind of
• in order to
• one of (this one was a punch in the junk for me)
• some