
The answer: Nothing is wrong with including them if your goal is to keep the power out of your writing. Each word that does not move your story ahead is a useless word, so why use them. Flooding your work with useless words are like Tansy Ragwort. They are toxic to the reader, and therefore, toxic to your story.
Here are just a few of the words I try to delete before I send a manuscript off to an editor.
- as
- before
- so
- basically
- eventually
- about
- mostly
- often
- kind of
- little
- felt
- slightly
- somewhat
- just
- but
- then
- usually
- seemingly