Jul 14 2008
Don’t Start Sentences with Empty Interjections
When an interjection like “well” starts a sentence, it’s usually wasted space. If you start sentences with any of these common offenders, double-check to make sure that they actually contribute something to the sentence. Otherwise, please remove them.
- Well
- You know
- Oh
- Like
- Umm
- OK
- I mean
- Seriously
- Basically
- Yeah
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.
On a note that’s sorta related to this, in that it refers to the overuse of certain words: I may be somewhat new to narrative writing, but I can tell you that using nouns as exclamations (i.e. “Dude!”) sounds absolutely atrocious in most circumstances. I know this because, if it sounds awful in real life (I’ve made a bad habit of it, so I really know), what would make it sound any better in writing? Just. Don’t. Do. It.