Hi! So I recently discovered removing the word 'that' from 90% of my writing actually made it more fluid and hardly impacted the readability. Tiny achievement but very proud of myself as a novice writer ^.^ I was wondering if (other than the up/down one) t

Great question! Honestly, there are hundreds, but here are a few to get you started.

Words You Can (Usually) Safely Cut from Your WritingThatThen
StartBeginSuddenlyDownUpKind ofReally
Just
Basically

In general, look out for adverbs (actually, really), “hedging” words (kind of, sometimes), and ambiguous words (nothing, everything, someone). Some can be cut; others will need to be revised or swapped out. “That” is a classic offender. “Then” can usually be changed to “and.” It’s only necessary to qua...