Why filler words survive the draft
Filler words persist because they feel purposeful when you write them. "Just" feels like a softening touch. "Very" feels like emphasis. "Began to" feels like it's capturing the start of a process. In the moment of composition, they're doing something — they're bridging the gap between the intention in your head and the sentence forming on the page.
The problem is that readers don't have access to the intention. They only have the sentence. And in the sentence, "just" is noise, "very" is a signal that the word it modifies wasn't strong enough, and "began to run" is slower than "ran" without being more true. The words that felt purposeful in the draft become invisible to the reader — not in the useful way "said" is invisible, but in the way that makes them wonder why the scene feels sluggish when nothing obviously wrong.
The filler word pass is one of the highest-return edits you can make. It takes less than an hour on a full novel manuscript and the prose that comes out the other side is measurably tighter — not because you rewrote anything, but because you removed the static between the reader and the story.
The cut list — four groups
These aren't words to blacklist. They're words to interrogate. For each one: does it add meaning that wouldn't exist without it? If not, cut it. You'll find that "no" is the right answer more than 80% of the time.
Intensifiers that weaken
Words that try to amplify an adjective or verb — and end up revealing it wasn't strong enough to begin with.
Hedging words
Qualifiers that soften meaning — useful in dialogue for character voice, problematic in narration where precision matters.
False action starters
Constructions that delay the action by one step — describing the start of a process instead of the process itself.
Redundant time and pace words
Speed and timing adverbs that add nothing when the action already implies them — and undermine tension when they're deployed as shortcuts.
Rewrite 1 of 3 — Intensifier stack
It was very cold in the room, and she felt quite certain that something was deeply wrong. The silence was incredibly oppressive.
Four intensifiers in two sentences. Each one is doing less work than the word it's modifying.
The room was freezing. She was certain something was wrong. The silence pressed in.
"Freezing" replaces "very cold." The certainty is absolute now — no qualifier. The silence becomes active.
Rewrite 2 of 3 — False action starters
He began to run. Behind him, she started to shout. He tried to block out the sound and managed to reach the door before she caught him.
Four false starters turn a chase into a series of tentative attempts. The pace dies in the construction.
He ran. Behind him, she shouted. He kept his eyes on the door, blocked everything else out, and hit it at full speed.
Direct verbs. The chase reads like a chase. "Managed to reach" becomes physical detail instead.
Rewrite 3 of 3 — Hedging in emotional scene
"I just wanted to say I'm sort of sorry," he said. She seemed to consider it. She was a little surprised, somewhat relieved.
Six hedges in three sentences. Every emotion is qualified into near-nonexistence.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," he said. She looked at him for a long moment. Surprised. And — against her better judgment — relieved.
The apology is real now. Her reaction becomes specific action plus two sharp emotional beats.
"Filler words don't make prose feel longer — they make it feel thinner. The reader moves faster and feels less."
— On why tightening prose improves both pace and impact
The "just" problem
"Just" is the most common filler word in first-draft fiction by a significant margin. A typical 80,000-word manuscript contains between 50 and 120 instances. Most of them are invisible to the writer — because "just" is the word English speakers reach for when softening a request, an action, or a statement that feels too blunt or too committed.
In dialogue, "just" can be character voice — a way of showing someone who undersells themselves, minimises their needs, or apologises for existing. That's deliberate. In narration, it's almost always filler: a habit of hedging that crept in from spoken language and never left.
Cutting the three "justs" here doesn't just tighten the sentences — it reveals that "It was just a small thing" was actually the character lying to herself. That's more interesting than filler. The rewrite converts a hedge into interiority.
The test for "just": remove it and read the sentence aloud. If it sounds harsher than you intended, that harshness was doing work — put it back. In 80% of cases, the sentence without "just" is simply cleaner.
"Suddenly" — why it kills tension instead of creating it
"Suddenly" is the writer's way of saying: something unexpected is about to happen. The problem is that this announcement destroys the unexpectedness. The reader reads "suddenly" and braces. By the time the event arrives, the reader has anticipated it — because "suddenly" just told them to.
Surprise in fiction is constructed, not announced. It comes from a scene that doesn't signal what's coming — from specific, grounded detail in the lines before the reversal, from a rhythm that lulls before it breaks. "Suddenly" short-circuits all of that in exchange for a word that costs one syllable and delivers nothing.
The second version is faster and more disorienting — which is what "suddenly" was trying to achieve. The paragraph break (or the full stop before a new sentence) creates the abruptness. The word itself never could.
The rule: if something happens suddenly, show it happening with no warning. The construction of the scene creates the surprise. "Suddenly" is a note to yourself that you haven't done that yet.
How to do a filler word pass
The filler word pass is a targeted editing session — usually one to two hours on a full novel — focused exclusively on removing filler. Don't try to do it while you're working on other edits; do it as its own dedicated read.
Start with the highest-frequency words
Open Find & Replace (Ctrl+H / ⌘+H) and search for "just." Work through every instance: cut it, leave it, or rewrite the sentence around it. Then repeat for "very," "really," and "began to." These four alone will account for the majority of your filler.
Do the intensifiers as a group
Search for "very," then "really," then "so" (in narration only — dialogue "so" is often intentional). For each hit: is there a stronger single word? "Very tired" → "exhausted." "Really angry" → "furious." If you find yourself unable to upgrade the word, it was the right word — put the intensifier back and move on.
Hunt false action starters in action scenes specifically
Search "began to" and "started to" — these cluster in action sequences, chase scenes, and moments of physical confrontation, exactly where pace matters most. Convert each to the simple past of the main verb. Read the surrounding sentences again to confirm the rhythm improved.
Read the flagged sections aloud after cutting
After each find-and-replace pass, read the surrounding paragraph aloud. A cut that looks clean on screen sometimes breaks a rhythm that was working. Your ear catches what your eye misses. If the sentence sounds wrong without the filler word, find the deeper problem — the filler was masking it.
Use Inkcheck to catch what you missed
Paste your manuscript into Inkcheck after your manual pass. It flags filler words across your full text, highlights them inline, and lets you approve or dismiss each one — catching the instances your eye passed over during your own read.
Let Inkcheck find your filler words
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