As a writer you may or may not have heard of an expletive; and no I’m not referring to dirty words.
An expletive in fiction is a word that has no meaning and has a tendency to act as filler.
People use expletives everyday: for instance, people say “uh” as they gather their thoughts. The word has no meaning but to act as a pause. Kids often say “like” in the same manner.
In fiction, a lot of writers use the word “seems” to give their sentence a touch of intellect. However, the word has little or no meaning. For instance: it seems the president has gone overboard. Why not just state it; the president has gone overboard—or the president has probably gone overboard.
Such a sentence is a perfect example of how expletives can screw interpretation of meaning. Seems could mean probably or seems could mean definitely; however it is interpreted, the word adds nothing certain to the sentence. Such uncertainty will instantly cause your reader to wonder the meaning, and the writer will be expected to clarify such an ambiguity.
Expletives have a tendency to fluff up your story with meaninglessness—and such renders your ideas difficult to interpret.
Your goal when editing your fiction should be to remove any word that doesn’t have meaning.
In college, I had a professor who simplified this idea by having students remove every instance of “the” “was” and “that.” She had come to realize that removing these words entirely made the writing better.
Removing expletives from prose can be taken further than simply selecting a handful of words that you don’t like. As you edit, look out for words that lack meaning or that can be interpreted in ways that you don’t intend them to be.
This is a pretty basic concept that editors recognize when considering your short fiction, and removing expletive your fiction will simply be better and you will be more likely to be published in literary ezines or magazines.
