Unnecessary use of "that"

[Montana Chick]

Lately, I've been dealing with my bad habit of using "that" in a lot of my sentences where it isn't necessary. Example:

He knew that she was going to be in a bad mood when she got home from work.
vs.
He knew she was going to be in a bad mood when she got home from work.

Apparently I'm not alone in this. I found a link to a great web page so I thought I'd share:
http://www.kriscramer.com/2009/the-unnecessary-that

[Lyle Ven]

You can just do a word search on your MS to highlight all the 'that.' I also keep a vigilant eye on like, before, have been, as, but, however, yet.

A cheat I subscribe to is having a Mcrosoft Word version of a popular book similar to your genre, and doing a word search seeing how often the author/editor uses such words. JK Rowling is notorious for using 'but' too often, not that it detracts from her story.

[John Oberon]

"That" is usually a good word to eliminate, but I think it is not nearly so harmful to good writing as weak or empty verbs. For example, your sentence:

He knew she was going to be in a bad mood when she got home from work.

Three empty verbs in a row and a weak one ("got"). How about we inject a little metaphor:

He knew she would roll in from work with her fuse hissing.

or maybe:

When she lumbered in from work, he knew the dinner menu would include him from the first growl.

Good verbs and metaphor are the life blood of good writing.

[John Oberon]

"Got" is an empty verb as well. Sheesh, you'd think I'd know my own list by now, lol. So...four empty verbs, not one good verb in that initial sentence.

[Sophie]

Great link, thanks. I have always had a problem with those!

Sophie

Lately, I've been dealing with my bad habit of using "that" in a lot of my sentences where it isn't necessary. Example:

He knew that she was going to be in a bad mood when she got home from work.
vs.
He knew she was going to be in a bad mood when she got home from work.

Apparently I'm not alone in this. I found a link to a great web page so I thought I'd share:
http://www.kriscramer.com/2009/the-unnecessary-that

[CAlexandria]

That is a very large problem for me as well. (Did you get that?)

That may not seem amusing to you, but that is certainly a puny one.

Anyway, enough with that humor. Thank you for the link, it appears that my thats are escaping me! :P