Or maybe since I've been on such a wonderfully fruitful editing streak lately I should say, "Editing out the pulls." I finally rewrote all the feels/felts from my manuscript and tackled the coulds. That was actually quite fun. But neither of those edits was as satisfying as rewording the pulls. As I edited them I made of list of words that I used to replace pull, pulled, pulling, and pulls. Here 'tis:
withdrew (form school - this is a YA book, please!)
gathered
dragging
handle
drew
carry
turned
entered
took
leading
snapped
held
slid
lowered
twirled
shrugged
tugged
drove
rumbled
snuggled
came
led
tore
set
turned
opened
influence
Now out of context one would think that none of those words could be interchanged with the pull words, but amazingly I found a way to make it work. Some of the edits required that I rethink the entire sentence or phrase whereas others were simple substitutions. I hadn't realized until I started this major revision how much we rely on the same set of words over and over. How I can have such a limited word base when I love words and have a fantastic library of books about words is beyond me. At least I love to edit and find no great insult in someone suggesting changes to wording and phrasing.
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