by Elton Gahr

Created on: March 22, 2009

Just like the idea of forbidden curse words in the English language the idea of forbidden words in writing puts many people on edge. Those of us who spend our lives writing know that there is a time and a place for nearly everything and the word forbidden is often seen more as a challenge than a warning, but even though we may sometimes dislike the censorship placed on us by the customs of polite society we usually follow these bits of decorum and because we do those words hold their power to be released when the timing is perfect.

The same is in some ways true for the forbidden words in writing. Just like any writing rule the real power of a master of the craft is to know the rules so well that he understands when to break them. Saying that you should never use a word may be good advice in the beginning but the truth is that what anyone means when they say this is that you should search for a better word, and there are certainly words which can be replaced almost universally with something better and in an art as difficult as writing with so few firm boundaries the idea of having a solid rule is useful and so it is useful advice for every writer to not only know the most common of the "forbidden words" but to make a list of their own overused and misused words.

The king of these words, at least in my own experience is "very". Using search you can usually find very a couple times in a story I have written. Things like "very big" which can be replaced with something such as massive, or "very ugly" which can be replaced with hideous or one of a dozen other words. There are many more examples of this but they are best to find in your own writing. And with any general rule, this isn't always true. Sometimes very just sounds right and in that case use it, just be aware of it when you do.

Next on my list are the words "up" and "down". This is a case of how people speak coming head to head with how you should write. Everyone says that someone "sat down" but writing where every word matters it is better to just say he sat, the word down is redundant. Any redundant word is forbidden in writing. Look for them and strike them down.

"Must" is another word which it is usually good to avoid. This word implies a singular choice when most often people mean "ideally", rather than "must".

Finding and destroying these words is very difficult and it is not something you must do every time but the next time you sit down and begin to think up a new story try looking over it once more and deciding if you can improve the prose just a little by adjusting a few very simple to find words.

And finally you are at the edge of the great swath of words which are best to avoid. Gerunds and words ending with ing. These words are often technically correct but they almost always show a sign of weakness in your prose and using them as a sort of canary in the mine shaft you can search them and find where your writing needs the most work.

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