Kneecapping Language

By Megan Mossgrove

Good morning, everyone!

Today’s newsletter is very quick and sort of interesting! What some might group with crutch or filler words I like to call kneecapping language. Much more evocative, right? These are words or phrases that weaken the impact of a sentence by making it vague rather than giving a concrete or specific image.

The words nearly, slightly, maybe, sort of, almost, some, really, and very come to mind.

There were some very pretty flowers in the garden bed. They were sort of yellow and nearly six feet tall.

Now, ignoring the “to be” of it all, we can improve this by removing “some,” and picking better descriptors than “very pretty” and “sort of yellow.” We can take or leave “nearly,” I’ll leave that up to you!

There were a handful of gorgeous flowers in the garden bed. They were pale-yellow and nearly six feet tall.

Then if we take the last newsletter to heart and poke at the “to be” verbs we might get—

A handful of gorgeous, pale-yellow flowers stood proud in the garden bed, each a head taller than my editor.

As always, this is not a blanket rule or advice. Certain character voices may benefit from a little kneecapping (you know what I mean lol). It’s more important that we don’t make a habit of leaning on these phrases in a draft and then never go back to strengthen them.

Happy writing!

Megan G. Mossgrove