Filter Words: What They Are and How to Cut Them
Filter words are verbs that put a perceiving character between the reader and the action — “she saw,” “he heard,” “I felt.” Cut them and the reader experiences the scene directly instead of being told that someone noticed it.
How it works
“She saw the door open” versus “The door opened.” The first filters the action through “she saw”; the second puts the reader in the room. The usual suspects: saw, heard, felt, noticed, realized, watched, could see, seemed, thought, wondered. They aren’t wrong — they’re distancing.
To cut one, find the filter, delete it, and let the thing it filtered stand on its own. “He heard footsteps behind him” becomes “Footsteps, behind him.” Removing the filter usually buys you rhythm and immediacy at the same time.
Keep a filter when the act of perceiving is the point — the surprise that a character noticed at all — or when you deliberately want distance. The goal is intention, not zero filters.
Before
Mara saw that the light was flickering. She could feel her heart beating faster, and she noticed that the door at the end of the hall seemed to be ajar.
After
The light flickered. Her heart kicked. At the end of the hall, the door stood ajar.
Three filters gone (saw / could feel / noticed … seemed) and the scene moves from reported to immediate — shorter, and closer.
Exercise
Search your draft for “saw, heard, felt, noticed, realized.” For each one, try deleting the filter and letting what follows stand alone. Keep only the ones where being told that someone perceived it actually matters.
TellerCraft’s coach flags where your prose reports instead of shows, names the lever — remove the filter — and has you make the cut on your own line. It never rewrites it for you.