What is the first word that comes to mind when you see or hear the word spinach? Does it stir childhood memories and revive your mother’s words, “Eat your spinach. It’s good for you?” 

Or does it remind you of Popeye, the sailor man, whose spinach consumption produced superhuman powers? Popeye may not have been the most refined fellow, but his strength supersedes perceived shortfalls.

By now, you are most likely wondering what spinach has to do with writing. Spinach is associated with strength, and writers need strong writing. Strong writing helps writers pass the agent test.

When a writer has “weak” writing, agents move on to the next submission. 

At first, I had no idea what “strong writing” meant. When I first heard agents throw this term around, it struck me as skill with grammar, spelling, punctuation, and noun-verb agreement, avoiding dangling particles and splitting infinitives, etc. Not quite.

Upon further investigation, eliminating unnecessary words, using active verbs and avoiding “being” verbs, aligning phrases in correct sequences to describe the proper recipient, axing unnecessary adverbs, cutting repetitive thoughts, and staying away from sinful passive phrases account for a portion of strong writing, but a checklist takes it a step further.

Eliminating unnecessary words in your manuscript promotes strong writing and requires power editing. You build a healthier, leaner sentence when you obliterate the following:  

A little, almost, anyway, at the present time, began to, by means of, certainly, considering the fact that, definitely, even, exactly, fairly, in order to, in spite of the fact that, in the event that, is/was/were, just, perfect, perhaps, probably, proceeded to, owing to the fact, quite, rather, real, really, seem, slightly, so, some, somewhat, sort of, start/started to, such, that, the, usually, very, which. 

This short list includes many useless words, but you will learn others. These redundant words also require attention:

Two-wheeled bicycle, 6 a.m. in the morning, absolutely perfect, blistering hot, climbed up the stairs, crept slowly, drop down, eased slowly, exact same, fall down, long-necked giraffe, long-lasting durability, nodded his head, ran quickly, red in color, rise up, rose to her feet, sat down, shrugged his shoulders, small leprechaun, stomped heavily, stood to his full height, stood up, terribly bad, the reason why, tiptoed quietly.

In studying these lists, you may dispute the commodity of a word. “The” struck me as necessary. How do you cut “the?” Then, with practice and diligence, you understand that (another overused word) plural words rarely need the article the thrown in front of them.

To illustrate two ways to achieve stronger writing:

Example:      The balls fell from the bags hanging from the hallway hooks.

Edited:        Balls fell from bags hanging from hallway hooks. Balls fell from bags hanging from the hallway hooks. 

        When you start shaving your sentences, you will see a vast improvement in the overall function of your storytelling, and the reader will never miss them.

Example:    With patience and diligence, you understand that plural words rarely need the article the thrown in front of them.

Edited:        With patience and diligence, you understand plural words rarely need the article the thrown in front of them.

        That is the most overused conjunction in the universe and works best as an adjective, although an occasional sprinkling is necessary. That doesn’t mean you can avoid using that one hundred percent of the time, but try a word-processing search-and-find function to identify them. You’ll be amazed at how often it shows up in your manuscript and how many words in your overall word count you can eliminate.

These illustrate beginning stages in creating strong writing. As you apply these strategies, you will find it becoming second nature.

(An endnote: I could have written: These illustrate the beginning stages in creating strong writing, but I bet you didn’t even miss the word the in my original sentence.)