wishy washy characters and revision

another of my "global" changes was the word perhaps, which I almost inariably type as perhpas. When i saw how many ‘perhpas’ needed changing, i realized I needed more than a spelling correction. I needed at least to vary it with might, maybe, could, and alternative constructions. As I went through, I realized many should simply be eliminated. A strong character cannot come across as strong if everything is caveated with perhaps and maybe. They must be confident even when they shouldn’t be in order for the reader to see the strength, the confidence. So I simply deleted many and in several cases made the sentences stonger still by rephrasing the statement with even greater certainty. If it wasn’t part of the dialog, I almost always eliminated or at least replaced it with a less wishy-washy phrase. This book isn’t one where I follow one character for long scenes, except Candice. The rest of the time it’s intended to be more omniscient, so conveying a character’s uncertainty into the narrative is rarely appropriate. The author must know the truth even if the characters don’t, unless a thought is clearly and specifically credited to a particular character. Then we're back to conveying the strength, or not, of the character.