This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 276th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast. So what are your writing goals for the new year?

For the most part, 2015 seems to be shaping up to be the year of the novel for me.

My two major projects will be finishing up edits on my historical Dieselpunk story, Storming, and getting it ready for publication in late fall or early winter

and writing the first draft of my historical superhero story Wayfarer. After a very hectic 2014 that mostly focused on non- novel stuff

I am dancing all over on the inside with the chance to immerse myself in

fictional worlds once again.

However, I'm also hoping to work on a handful of writing how-to projects for you all as well.

My big goal is to get out a couple of big courses, one on outlining your novel and one on structuring your novel.

I also have a most common writing mistakes book waiting in the wings, so it's going to be a fine year.

And now I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast entitled Most Common Writing Mistakes Part 37 Unnecessary

Filler.

Brevity is the soul of wit. However, creating that quality of brevity isn't so much

about writing short as it is about making every word count.

As we continue to discuss the most common writing mistakes,

we'd be remiss to leave out the all too prevalent faux-paw of unnecessary filler or padding.

Unnecessary filler is almost always the result of one of four problems.

One, the writer is still trying to discover what he wants to say. Two, the writer is still trying to discover what he wants to say.

Two, the writer is too in love with his own words.

Three, the writer isn't confident in and or is avoiding what he really needs to be writing about.

And four, the writer doesn't trust the reader to understand the subtext.

So how can you spot unnecessary filler when it shows up in your story?

The first symptom is always that it's boring. If there's no life in the scene, if its

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