I thought this was funny...

[nwhiker]

So. Editing that monster that I've called my novel.

Got some advice from my friend cassandra7 about that really word, one that I really use much too much. In a nutshell: "delete 'em all".

Ummm... says I, then with a wail "but I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't! I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed them!"

Ahem.

I was working on the first 56000 words, written in a month for NaNoWriMo.

I searched on all those reallys and deleted. And deleted some more. And... deleted a few. And...

In the end I had used really seven times.

5 were in tween speech and deliberately left.

1 was a question "Is his name really..."

and 1 was for emphasis and at some point will probably go if I can find a way to rephrase the whole sentence.

7.

From an original count of 96.

And to be honest? If I'd done what she said and just deleted them all? There would have been on grammatical ickinesss to fix (on the last really, the one left for emphasis).

She'd said it would be a lot easier if I just deleted them and didn't go one by one and agonise over each deletion, which is of course what I did.

I shoulda listened. Heh.

And now that I'm working on part 2, the next 25% of this monster? I agonised again. But a lot less. They pretty much all went, except for the few in tween speech that I do need. Some of them will go on the next pass.

I'm learning. I really am.