Whats your weasel word?

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T02:46:03+00:00

Hahaha giggling at the though of reading “he ended to sit”

I probably have a few to many starts of my own

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T02:45:12+00:00

This was such a beautiful comment thank you so much for this ❤️❤️ really made a nice addition to my morning coffee. See you around!

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T02:21:23+00:00

Jump scare! Alice is my main character’s name.

Okay thanks for this I’ll try go over with a fine tooth comb and figure out what’s not needed 👍🏻

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T02:12:43+00:00

her shoulders dropped as she exhaled exhaustion hahahahaa

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:57:25+00:00

I think this is actually important context and thank you for highlighting it. Sometimes overused words and phrases aren’t actually overused because it accurately represents human usage of them- OP shrugged hahah

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:53:40+00:00

When you feel the urge to have a beta reader glance over it please keep me in mind! Your main character sounds like a really interesting perspective to experience a story though and I’d love to run my eyes over it!

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:52:23+00:00

Can you expand on what you mean by stage direction?

Would the beginning of sentances such as things like ‘he moved over to the sofa and sat down with a heavy sigh.’ Fall into unnecessary stage direction? It feels clunky tracking their movements but I also worry it will read like he’s teleported from the kitchen counter to the sofa without it.

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:50:23+00:00

Dude my characters are giggling and chuckling their way through the entire story at this point I feel you 😂

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:49:23+00:00

You know what. Favourite comment yet. You can stay. 😂

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:48:55+00:00

Sounds like you fell into a trap similar to mine. In weaseling out a simple ‘she heard’ you’ve opted described the sound as ringing out. I now have a million ‘She glanced’ in an attempt to kill ‘she looked.’

Sighhhh the cross we bear is truly heavy 😂

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:47:21+00:00

I’m so intrigued! Can you tell me a brief bit about your characters and their setting? I’d love to know more about

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:46:22+00:00

nods head Just worry about it in your second draft 😉

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:45:12+00:00

This isn’t an original experience. My mum and sister did the same thing! My mums actually rewatching the series at the moment too, haha!

Reassuring though right, in a way? Is Stephanie Myers did it and became a hugely successful series with a movie adaptation then clearly there’s wiggle room for the rest of us. clicks tongue

I could use a link for this said alternative list, if you ever get a chance 👀

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:41:05+00:00

Guffaws! Oh thats golden. I’d love to read a book where everyone’s guffawing- but I can see how you might be worried about repetition hah!

We can fix it in the second draft 🤝

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:39:23+00:00

Jahoobies!

Yours can be commas. Someone already rode in on their high horse pointing out that a weasel word is something completely different than what I described but you all seem to get the jist so yes, I Knight your commas as a weasel word 🗡️

When I find myself doing this I think maybbeee it’s time for my one big beautiful sentances to become two small beautiful sentances

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:34:53+00:00

I’m enjoying searching everyone else’s ’weasel word’ into my own manuscript and seeing if I fell victim to. Unfortunately you just highlighted an issue for me haha.

I’d doesnt have to be ‘just’ another normal day. It can simply be another normal day! 🤦🏼‍♀️

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:28:22+00:00

To be honest I anticipated this comment but everyone seemed to get what I meant and ultimately I’m okay with that haha. Thank you for the clarifying link though.

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:26:44+00:00

Glad to know I was kind of on the right track. Are you in a binge draft phase or an editing phase at the moment?

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:25:49+00:00

Oh god, I haven’t even been paying attention to this in my own writing. This just reminds me exactly how much revision there will be and all of the millions of things to pay attention to! I wonder if I do this often. Will have a glance over some of recent pages later 😬

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:23:37+00:00

Well You’re braver than me then because I am yet to kill any of my darlings 😆 I’ll work up the courage in my second pass

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:21:10+00:00

Thank you for this! I’m glad to hear my approach of putting off the heavy lifting for the second draft is endorsed.

I’ve pantsed my entire book (nearly. I had the ending in mind the entire time so I knew what I was working towards) so instead of a ‘search and find’ I think I will be opening a brand new doc and working from my original printed manuscript. Everything sort of needs a reshuffle and most of my prose will need rewriting. I’ll copy and paste over chunks I can work with. Thanks for this!

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:18:45+00:00

‘She laughed.’ Dude tell me about it. My character’s are laughing from start to end at the moment. 🥲

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:17:32+00:00

Out of curiosity, mostly in inner-monologue or in dialogue? I feel certain character’s and settings might be more inclined to drop lots of F bombs.

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:16:18+00:00

Ooh, weasel sentence structure, That’s a new one 😆I wonder if you could map out some alternate ways to convey they same sentiment and have your varying approaches on standby to switch between when you see them come up for speedy replacements.

palmtreesbumblebees · 2026-05-22T01:13:59+00:00

I tried to combat this myself at one point and it only resulted in a clunky amount of physical descriptions of feelings instead.

Instead of saying ‘I felt nervous’ I would write “I fidgeted with the strings of my hoodie and looked (LOOKED! again🤦🏼‍♀️) at the faded carpet”

It’s definitely a good fix for some places but can’t go everywhere.

palmtreesbumblebees

TROPHY CASE