Avoid Filtering

How to keep readers close

 As writers, we want to immerse our readers as closely as possible in our scenes. We should therefore try to avoid any language which keeps them at one remove. An example of this is the language of thinking, seeing and feeling. If we use variants of these verbs in our prose we are guilty of filtering the experiences we are conveying, and holding the reader at arm’s length as it were.

Let me give you an example. I wrote the rough draft of a scene from my work in progress yesterday. This morning, when I came to re-read it, I realised I had filtered a lot of the impressions. Here is the description as it was originally:

 Alice loved being in the operating theatre at night. She liked the feeling of darkness outside the windows, a contrast to the bright lights within the room; it felt as if everyone else was in bed and she and the theatre staff the only ones awake, intent on their vital work. She loved the atmosphere of calm intensity, the focussed movements of the surgeon, and a sense of a quick smile behind the mask when she passed him the right equipment.

I have highlighted in bold the words and phrases that are filtering Alice’s experiences for the reader. Now here is the same passage with the filters removed:

Alice loved being in the operating theatre at night. She liked the darkness outside the windows, a contrast to the bright lights within the room; as if everyone else was in bed and she and the theatre staff the only ones awake, intent on their vital work. She loved the atmosphere of calm intensity, the focussed movements of the surgeon, the quick smile behind the mask when she passed him the right equipment.

In the example above, the effect is more immediate: we are connected with the character’s impressions more directly and hence more involved in Alice’s experience. The filtering words weren’t necessary.

 There are many things we need to look out for when editing a first or subsequent draft, (see blog posts on Weasel Words and Putting the I.T into EdI.IT.ing) but I would suggest that taking out filters is an often overlooked approach.