Case in point, the "very" above is putting a little more emphasis on awful, but mostly it is reducing the formality of the phrase, which has its own impact.
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The "very" changes the voice, and whether we're talking dialogue or narration, it's carrying a lot more weight than mere emphasis on doing so.
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And now I'm going all in on this example, so I'll point out that Hardison on Leverage says "very awful," which makes him a different character from Sofie, who'd say "terrible," or Eliot, who'd probably just make a face and not say anything.
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a sentence doesn't 'need' a word if it doesn't do what the author needs, and that's it. be that tone, aesthetic, feel, plot or comprehension
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One of my former crit partners had a personal vendetta against the word "had." So if I wrote "He had argued but to no avail" he'd want me to change it to "He argued" which in past-tense narrative makes it sound like the argument is happening now in the story vs some past argument
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Much sympathy. Correct tense nesting is enough work without then having to argue for it!
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My email apps have taken to criticizing me for vague language like "possibly" "mostly" and "likely" because it weakens the impact of my statements. Without them I would be lying.
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i use the search function to go through and cut words like this as a second last step in editing. the last step is reading it out loud, where i add a bunch of those words back because it sounds better.
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