“Write like you talk” is common instruction to new writers, and it’s good advice—to a degree.

The axiom is intended to make the written word sound natural, which it should. But an issue arises when writers take the suggestion too literally.

For example, if we’re speaking about our travel experiences, we might say:

          “I’ve been able to travel to many places.”

But a similar phrase in fiction narrative or nonfiction would be overly wordy:

           He said he was able to travel to many places.

That’s not good writing.

The phrase “he was able to” is an example of filler words. They add unnecessary verbiage and confound comprehension without contributing information. Instead, let’s go for conciseness and write:

            He traveled to many places.

Writing concisely instead of writing like people talk saved five words without the slightest change in meaning.

Sometimes filler words are redundancies, such as:

          The fire completely destroyed the house.

Destroyed means just that. Adding completely doesn’t make the house any more destroyed.

Other times filler words are unnecessary prepositional phrases. In the context of this article, it’s not necessary for me to write:

            Remove filler words from your writing.

You know we’re discussing writing, so eliminating the prepositional phrase from your writing gets rid of three words without changing meaning.

There are too many other examples of filler words to mention them all. The key is to look at every phrase and ask, “Is this necessary for sentence clarity?”

How to eliminate filler words.

We’re so accustomed to using filler words as we speak that we may not even recognize them. So how do we find them? If we’re writing with Microsoft Word, the app sometimes underlines filler words. The same goes for the online app Grammarly. But these apps sometimes miss filler words, too. So computer software is useful, but there’s no substitute for a trained eye and ruthless editing.

Usually, all we have to do is remove filler words. Here’s an example where we can eliminate them without making any other changes:

          Because I’m a former reporter I tend to ask a lot of questions.

Merely killing tend to solves the problem.

          Because I’m a former reporter I ask a lot of questions.

But be careful that your sentence remains grammatically correct. Sometimes we can’t merely take out words; we must change the sentence, usually only slightly, to maintain proper English. Here’s an example:

          I was able to save 20 words by editing my story.

The phrase was able to is clearly filler, so we’ll remove it, but we must now change save to past tense.

          I saved 20 words by editing my story.

Here’s one more illustration to wrap this up. It’s a pretty easy example:

          I may or may not take you up on your offer.

What does or may not add? Nothing. It’s filler and we should remove it.

And I hope you caught the filler word in the sentence “It’s a pretty easy example”!

Filler words may be useful, especially in fictional dialogue. In that case we might want to use the informal, wordy version to show our character’s manner of speaking. The same goes for nonfiction. If we’re quoting a source, we must write what they said. But in narrative and nonfiction don’t waste your reader’s time by adding unnecessary words.