There are some words authors should try their hardest to avoid. Two of them are “very” and “that”.
“Very” is a word used for padding. Advice often given to authors is to use one word rather than two when describing something. What is meant by this oft repeated but little understood expression? On the most basic level one should not describe something as “very blue” but sea blue, ice blue, battleship grey, forest green, rather than use the throwaway “very”. If one word will suffice, use it instead. Rather than the green stuff growing on the rock, name it precisely…moss, lichen, whatever the green stuff really is.
How good is “very good”? Excellent, perfect, 99.9% accurate, barely above average? Very doesn’t tell the reader anything of importance. “Very” is an excellent word to eliminate in most circumstances.
The same can be said of the word “that”. Frequently, the word “that” serves no real purpose in a sentence and when deleted the fundamental meaning of the sentence hasn’t changed. There will be instances where you have to use “that”; you can’t get rid of all of them, but do try.
Entries (RSS)