by Ane Mulligan  @AneMulligan

There are words that are wonderful and words that are—well, not so wonderful. I keep telling myself that, yet I forget when I write and thus inflict a great burden upon my inner editor.

Like Alice, I give myself good advice, but I seldom follow it. I write like my characters talk with qualifiers liberally sprinkled. I’d like to use age as an excuse, but I can’t.

But recently, I deleted a few qualifying words and was surprised when that didn’t change the way I wanted the character’s words or voice to sound. Color me surprised.

So what are qualifiers?

Qualifiers and intensifiers are words or phrases that are added to another word to modify its meaning, either by limiting it or enhancing it.

Though qualifiers may seem like throw-away words (like just and kind of) they can have a significant impact on the tone and substance of your character’s message. By analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly uses of qualifiers, you can wield them more effectively in your writing.

Good use of qualifiers:

Maybe we need to change our crop rotation.

This one is gentle and suggestive.

We need to change our crop rotation.

This is blunt and assertive.

Bad use of qualifiers:

I just wanted to help him.

This sounds like the character is whining, making an excuse.

Just where do you think you’re going?

This what a parent might say to their teenager, but the “just” isn’t needed.

Ugly use of qualifiers:

Forgive me for asking, but my brother asked if you might possibly be interested in going to the prom with him.

Besides the obvious, this makes the brother sound like a loser the girl wouldn’t be interested in at all.

I’m of the opinion that starting a club of just us girls could potentially be a lot of fun.

I wouldn’t want to be in a club with her, would you?

As with all things in writing, we can make good, bad, or ugly use of all the tools in our toolbox, making sure if we use qualifiers, we do it in a good way.

Here is a list of qualifiers that can fall in the bad/ugly column:

almost

at least

a bit

a good deal

a great deal

a little

a (whole) lot

basically

enough

essentially

even

fairly

generally

indeed

just

kind of

least

less

more

most

mostly

pretty

quite

rather

really

slightly

so

somewhat

sort of

still

too

various

virtually

very

Do you have any less-than-stellar qualifier words not on this list? If so, please share in the comments.

Ane Mulligan lives life from a director’s chair, both in theatre and at her desk, creating novels. Entranced with story by age three, at five, she saw PETER PAN onstage and was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. One day, her passions collided, and an award-winning, bestselling novelist emerged. She believes chocolate and coffee are two of the four major food groups and lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, The Write Conversation, and Blue Ridge Conference Blog.