70 Deadly Wattpad Sins (The Book Of Evil Advice!)

Sin #29: Stuff And Things (Big no-no words!)

I really wanted to go to the thing, but there was too much stuff to do. So, I did a thing to the thing, made sure the stuff was under the thing and stuffed the rest of the stuff into the thing. All things considered, I'm doing the right thing!

Boy, that sure is something!

It is almost definitely a thing, yeah. One thing that it isn't, is something worth reading. We're back with a relatively-easy sin to avoid, but one that is very blink-and-you'll-miss-it. So, what exactly is a no-no word?

Woah, you can't mention those in here! This is a PG-friendly zone!

Honestly, I've seen stories of pure unadulterated filth pass through the 'mature' censors solely through careful keyword choice... but we're not talking about cussing out your audience. Believe it or not, there's a certain group of words that are considered much more taboo in the writer's world.

We say them all the time in real life. 'Hand me that thing over there', 'I have a lot of stuff to do', 'oh God something is trying to kill me'. It's easy enough to understand in daily conversation, so why does it become such a big deal in fiction?

It's really not a big deal. You're just saying that for drama and page reads.

W-Well kind reader, I'll tell you why it's a big deal! Lazy writing is never a decent habit to develop, especially when it impacts the entire subject of the sentence. First, you're using it to describe an item you can't find the right words for — before you know it, your book is full of somethings, maybes and kinda-sortas.

As I've said countless times over the course of this book, you will have a certain image in your mind whenever you write a scene down. Can your reader see that same picture? Of course not!

All they know is what you've given them, so why on earth would you waste their time by using a word that is specifically earmarked as a placeholder for the lack of a better descriptor?

Maybe the thingy really is a thingy! Not all characters know what they're looking at, either!

Has that ever been an issue for you, though? Even if you see 'something' out the corner of your eye, you must have the slightest clue of what it could be. Saying 'Danny spotted a dark object' is still legions better saying 'Danny spotted an, umm... a thingamajig'.

Objects have shapes and textures, whereas a thing is simply nothing — a black void in the middle of your story, a gaping hole that readers are expected to dance around without any knowledge of what they are missing.

No one means to do this, I'm sure. When the creative flow is happening, you can't expect yourself to pause every few seconds and pop open a thesaurus to find the right descriptions. While you can't always eliminate these no-no words on the first draft, they should absolutely never make it through to the second.

I'm not kidding around on this one. Go to your story, press CTRL + F and find all instances of thing and stuff. Try to come up with better terms for the mental image you're painting. It will blossom into a much more interesting sentence, I promise!

These no-no words are good for informal situations, though! You're too strict, old man!

I will give an exception, which is for dialogue only. Just like we are lazy creatures, our characters are no different and will occasionally speak aloud about stuff or things. This does not mean that it's good for story-telling, but for less-wooden dialogue, it gets a pass.

As for 'something' being informal, I would avoid it as a turn of phrase altogether. Sure, it means you'll have to restructure some sentences here and there, but the lasting effect boosts your word count and makes it seem like you know what you're talking about — a quality that's getting rarer by the day, it seems.

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Take all of this with a grain of salt, of course. No one can tell you what words should exist in your story. If they could, we'd have a lot more problems on our hands than how to make ourselves sound interesting.

The 'somethings' will always be there, letting themselves slip through the most inconvenient of places. I even found myself saying it a few times while writing this chapter about 'somethings'! That would've been hypocritical and awkward...

Even if you decide not to take this advice, it's always good to be aware of how often you use certain words — and believe me, these no-no words crop up more frequently than most of us would care to admit.

So, are we just NOT going to talk about how you left for 7 straight months?

Nope.