Filter word

A filter word is a verb of perception or cognition that reports the viewpoint character's experience instead of rendering it: "he saw the door open" filters, "the door opened" immerses. Janice Hardy's list runs "saw, heard, felt, knew, watched, decided, noticed, realized, wondered, thought, looked," words that "all distance readers from the point of view character," one style looking through the POV character's eyes, the other looking at them. The deep-POV case, from Alex Van Tol on Jane Friedman's site: phrases like "she knew" or "she remembered" "pop the reader out of the immersive experience, reminding them that they're just reading a story."

Cutting filter words is the standard tightening move toward deep POV: perception becomes narration, which is show, don't tell at sentence scale. Hardy's exception is real: keep a filter when the act of perceiving is the event; habit, not distance, is the fault. The wider stance is point of view; the failure next door is head-hopping.