: Re: Is it better to omit phrases like: after a moment, after a while, for a moment, etc? I also find myself writing stuff like this: (dialogue) They remained silent for a moment. A

@Heady158

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In my opinion, the passage of a moment is better expressed by filling it with some action. To illustrate, let's rewrite your last example: "After a moment, he decided to walk west."

How about this? "He looked to the east. In that direction lay nothing but the ruins of his former life. Turning away, he decided to walk west." Or: "Thinking about what she had said, he decided to walk west."

These are merely hypothetical, first-draft samples of random possibilities, but they demonstrate that creative writing works best when words (and opportunities) are not wasted. Merely stating that a moment of time passed wastes the opportunity to convey what actually happened in that moment.

On the other hand, there may be nothing valuable to convey about a particular moment; there may be no content worth communicating, in which case it's a good idea to try to eliminate the statement. In your sentence, "His stomach started to growl after a moment, and only then he realized he was hungry," the phrase "after a moment" is entirely unnecessary. Cut it out, and you'll see that the sentence works even better. If it is essential to the story that the stomach growling must be shown to have started at some point distinctly after some other point in time, then again I would suggest making something happen in that crucial moment, thus: "The window of a restaurant caught his eye, and he stopped to look inside. As if on cue, a waiter appeared, carrying a tray of plates laden with food. His stomach started to growl...."

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