Jul 14 2008
Writing Tip of the Day: Don’t Start Sentences with Empty Interjections
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Empty interjections, like the word “well,” should rarely start a sentence. As a rule, if you can take out the first word of a sentence, it’s probably a good idea to do so. You should never waste words, but it’s particularly dangerous to do so at the beginning of sentences.
Here are some common offenders:
- Well
- You know
- Yeah
- Oh
- Like
- Umm
- OK
- I mean
- Seriously
Well, you’ve seriously hit the nail on the head. I mean, Ok, sometimes you can get away with using them. Umm, y’know what I mean? :)
These words have their uses. Consider this:
: “Well . . . yeah,” he said.
Many of your list are so-called “stall words,” and that’s precisely because we use them to stall conversation for a moment. Perhaps he wants to consider before answering, or he just doesn’t want to answer.
You could tap-dance around it.
: He hesitated. “Yeah.”
But why?
In real life, people use stall words left and right. I wouldn’t have a character use them pointlessly, but they’re a good way to show that a character is stalling, and dialogue entirely free of them would be unnatural.
“Like” is a topic in itself.
Ah, that’s a good point. These interjections can sometimes have a purpose (like affecting the pacing). But I think that these words are almost always used without any particular goal in mind. I’d recommend sparing use.