Words you use too often

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RemusShepherd

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I've defeated my tendencies toward 'was' and 'thing'. 'Just' and 'really' were easy once I realized they were both often used as adverbs.

Now I'm working on 'some'. Somehow, someway, something like the word some wants to pop up in almost every paragraph. I'm finding it somewhat difficult to avoid. But I'll defeat that evil word someday.
 

nocturneequuis

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Aside from the numerous f-bombs my character drops, I find myself using "soft" a lot or some variant thereof. I'm not sure what this says in a novel about teenaged boys except maybe they're soft around the edges? :D
 

djf881

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I pasted my manuscript into wordle to see which words I overused. The word "Stinkhole" was enormous. Bigger than my characters' names.
 

Tepelus

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Look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look...and even more, LOOK! And all its equivalents.
 

thothguard51

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Still and Perhaps, especially when using internal thoughts... I likes them...but sometimes I go overboard and have to weed a few out here and there so its not redundant...
 

thethinker42

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Oh, I have plenty of word crutches. Just, but, hesitate, shrug. A reviewer took me to task for abusing "smirk", so I have since cut back on the smirkage in my books.

One case of word abuse still makes me laugh, and I'm actually kind of proud of it: During first round edits for one of my books, my editor asked me if I would kindly go through and cull the use of a certain word that rhymes with "duck". In ~78,000 words, I used that word 500 times. Verb, adjective, expletive, noun, adverb, you name it...I effing used it.

I reduced it to about 225, but I still laugh at having the dubious honor of being told I used that word too many times in an erotica novel. :D
 

thothguard51

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Oh here is another one... SMILED. I have to go back and stop everyone from constantly smiling...its sickening. And changing to smirked does not help...
 

kurzon

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I'm a born qualifier. I go through on second draft and remove almost all instances of the following:

Really
Actually
Pretty (much) (certain) (sure)
Fairly
Half
A bit
Kind of
Mildly
Simply
Mostly
Slightly
 

thethinker42

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Oh here is another one... SMILED. I have to go back and stop everyone from constantly smiling...its sickening. And changing to smirked does not help...

Yep, me too. And I am under strict orders from a particular reviewer to never, ever use the word "smirk" again. Apparently I have already exceeded my lifetime quote of smirkitude, and am forbidden from using it again. :D
 

Cyia

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Look, just, and "more than a little..." are my usual crutches. I plug chapters into Wordle and get ready to cringe. :D
 

seun

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Looked is a crutch of mine as well. Seun, what do you do with all your Look(ed)s? Do you stare, glare, gaze, peer, glimpse, survey, admire, ogle, study, scour or just re-work the sentence?

I try to rework the sentence if possible. A few looks aren't a problem. It's when my characters are looking at each other all the time.
 

EclipsesMuse

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Besides the usuals (Look, was ect) I use several A LOT.
 

Sharii

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Actually, I use 'actually' a lot, in writing as well as in everyday conversations.
 

orion_mk3

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I'm addicted to "basically" and "essentially" both in print and in speech...worthless padding that seems to make me think I'm sounding more intelligent than I am. As far as constructions, "of course" is used far, far too often. It's my standby for making a passage seem casual and close to a particular character.

Both need a good expunging; of course, a lot of the use is basically subconscious (argh!).
 

Psybolt

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Absolutely.

Seemed is one of the worst for me. In fact, now every time I feel myself writing that... I stop and try to rewrite the section.
 
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