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What the Heck is Filtering?

If you're like me you've probably never heard of filtering. I've known college English students who've never heard this word. However, filtering is a thing, and if you talk to enough people who are hardcore into English, you may find yourself exposed to this debate. The concept of filtering, and it's use/ lack of use is still hotly debated among many stuffy English writers as they sit there in their posh academic tenor positions... sitting in their ivory towers... drinking their Bergamot tea...  laughing at you... always laughing... sorry, where was I? Ah, yes, filtering. 

You see, there is no right answer here. Some people will tell you to minimize the use of the filtering. Others will argue that it will enhance a writing. To me, filtering sits around the same place as adverbs. That is to say, as long as you have a reason for doing it, you're fine. If your reason is that it is the first thing to pop into your head, and  you've never given it a single thought since... I'd argue your reasoning is flawed.

For me, before I get into what filtering is, I want to remind you to glance at the chapter "What you can do and what you should do" as well as the chapter "You can do anything you want." Then, you can decide on your own whether you "should" be worrying about filtering or not. But seriously, always have a reason for doing things.

If you look at the definition, a filter is something that you put in the way of something flowing (like water) to block a piece of something or prevent things from flowing through. If I was looking for gold, I might take water and send it through a filter that catches all the small little flecks. If I was trying to clean an aquarium, I might send water through a filter to catch all the algae and waste.

Except when we talk about writing filtering, we're not talking about liquid, we're talking about the filter of information. And while we tend to treat filtering like a good thing in life, filtering in literature has been given a bad rap. So, what is filtering?

Filtering is the act of forcing a reader to focus on a character observing an action, rather than focusing on the action itself. In essence, you're forcing the reader's experience through a filter, and that filter is the character who is making an observation. In other words, filtering is a type of word that gets put into the story which ends up separating the reader from the actions occurring in the story through the use of a character.

I think an example is in order.

Joe wondered if the girl sitting next to him really liked him.

"Wondered" is a filter word. The sentence, as written, forces the reader to experience things through Joe. Let's presume Joe is the PoV character of a third person limited story. How would you write this so that it doesn't "filter" your experience through Joe? How about:

Does she really like him?

In this example, the narrator is asking the question, but it's implied that this is Joe's thought. Do you need another example?

She seemed to blush every time he looked at her.

Where is the filter here? It's in the word "seemed", which forces you to experience things through her. How could you rewrite this one?

When her eyes met his, she blushed.

This focuses on the action, rather than on a person making the action. The goal of removing filtering is so that it brings the reader more into the story by making the actions seem closer to home.

Are you starting to catch on? Now, I'm not saying filtering is bad. But, many authors will claim that it separates the reader from the experience, causing a sense of detachment. In some scenes, a sense of detachment can help. For example, an omniscient PoV may want you to feel detached from the characters. It wants you to watch them, not for you to imagine yourself being them.

However, that's another thing you ought to think about as an author. Do you want to bring your reader in, front row, right in the splash zone, ready to have your diction splashed all over their faces? Or do you want to keep them back at a safe distance and keep them critical of the events of your story as an impartial observer?

In other words, the act of filtering is a balancing act between bringing you closer to the narrator or bringing you closer to a character. If you're writing a third person limited, it might make sense to not filter your PoV character (since your narrator and PoV character might be one and the same), while filtering other characters. By filtering, characters will pop more. By not filtering, the narration will pop more.

The difference can oftentimes be subtle, it's one of those things that you'll do naturally without thinking about it, but also might be one of those "issues" with your writing you can't figure out, the difference between a good writing and a great writing might be who thought about things such as filtering when picking their words. But that's the power of choosing to use filter words or not. 

And I can't give you an answer here. You'll have to decide on your own when it is appropriate. There are writers out there that have sworn a holy war against the use of filtering just as others have sworn against the use of adverbs. Both exist for similar reasons... most of which coming from using "weak" verbs, which forces writers to depend on filtering and adverbs to fill in the description that could just as easily be shown and implied with strong verb use.

So, filtering is up to you, but before I let you go, I want to give you the tools necessary both to identify filtering and remove it if you so choose.

To do that, here is a list of the filter words you should be watching out for.

See / Saw

Seem

Hear/ Heard

Listened / Listen

Think / Thought

Touch / Touched

Taste /Tasted

Wonder / Wondered

Experience / Experienced

Note / Noted

Be able to

Could have been

Noticed / Notice

Sound / Sounded

Sounds like

Can / Could

Feel / Felt

Felt like/ Feel like

Watch / Watched

Wondered / Wonder

Know / Knew

Looked / Look

Smell / Smelled

Whiffed / Whiff

Detected / Detect

Relished / Relish

There are more words, to be sure, but these will get you started. Did you notice anything else about them? Yes... these are the same words often accused of being "weak" verbs. If someone has ever told you that you need stronger verbs, that may not just manifest as a problem with adverbs, that can also be a problem with filtering.

Still struggling on wrapping your head around filtering and how to change it? Let's end with an example.

Joe felt like he was in love. He wondered every day if she was in love with him too. She certainly seemed to blush every time he looked at her. He could hear talk in the hallways about how she had a crush with a certain boy in this class. He noted every time their eyes met. He decided that this was meant to be.

Now, let's defilter this monstrosity.

Joe fell in love. Did she love him? Every time he glanced her way, she'd blush. Talk in the hallways suggested that she liked someone in this class. Every time their eyes met, Joe added a mark to the tally in his head. This must be destiny calling.

Some of you may like one, some the other, some a mixture... but if you're looking to better understand and control the written word, here is one more layer of that onion cake for you to peel off. Tears are on the house.