What do you repeat, repeat?

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Susan Coffin

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I have been reading about finding repetitive words in writing. A lot of people present great ideas and software for finding the words and phrases we repeat the most. However, this is not about the ways of finding the repetitive words, but about the words we repeat which surprise us.

As I was doing my last hard edit, I found I must have used the word "wondered" at least a million times. I figured out quickly that, in some instances, I was using "wondered" as a passive filter word. In my editing process, I was able to change the sentence structure and replace that word with action words that made my sentences stronger.

Other than the obvious that, or, and, look, what phrases and/or words have you found repeated way too many times n your manuscript?

Please share. :D
 

Puma

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Just - one of my bugs, as in - I just mean to say, I just need to know, I just have to have, etc. Bad word.

Another one I'm starting to watch is seems - it seems to be, etc. I've noticed myself using it recently in cases where there's no seems about it - it is. Puma
 

Carlene

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Me,too. I have justitist - that and little! I JUST don't know why I use that LITTLE word! Those are the two words I look for first when editing.

Carlene
 

Phaeal

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Just has to be one of the most over-used words ever. But just because it's overused doesn't mean it's never just the right touch. ;)

I watch out for unusual words repeated more than once in a short, twice in a longer work. Say, scintillating. On the other hand, if your story is set in a shed built to house hawks and falcons, you can use the unusual word mews as often as necessary.

Common words, unless really overworked, will slip under the reader's radar. Some people take the antirepetition cant so seriously they start shying away from poor little to be in all its forms. Or I in a first person narrative. It's like an immune reaction worse than the disease.
 

Susan Coffin

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Overused phrases are just as bad. My friend, who is a best selling author, said when she edits she has a pen and paper handy to write down phrases she has overused, then she can just go to the pages and decide which belong and which do not.

Thank goodness, I'm not too bad on the adverbs.

Variations of "Look" is another word I keep my eyes open for (hey, that's a pun!)- I learned at this board that it's a filtering word and that things can usually be described, because we already know we're looking the character's eyes.
 

KyraDune

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As far as a single word goes for me its just/had. I see these words popping up all over my WIPs. Also, in a story I'm currently running through its last edit, I find my characters keep saying things softly. It's like, she said softly, he spoke softly, his words were spoken softly and I'm like, why is everyone speaking softly? I don't know, but they won't be by the time I'm done editing.
 

seun

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It's a definite in my first drafts that I'll overuse darkness and black or variations of them. No idea why. I'll also have a problem with distances - things are always so many feet from other things.

That's the fun part of edits, though.
 

Rebekkamaria

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Two weeks is my most used time period. I repeat words like just and then. And when I fall for a certain word (tangible, skull etc.) I tend to overuse it. Gah! I will also underline all my ands once the MS is finished. :)
 

thothguard51

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Current work in progress, I use italics to show a form of communication known as mind-linking, telepathy. So I can't use italics to show internal thoughts or highlight them. But instead of saying he/she thought, I got into a habit of saying surmised. Before I knew it, I was flooded by surmised tags. A few times is OK, but I had to go back and tweak it, a lot, to rid myself of those surmising.

I also had a habit of repeating certain phrases, like, as his mentor would remind him... when thinking on something his mentor would have said. That too got tiring. Show it once, maybe twice to enforce the notion and the readers get the point, but not every time...
 

whacko

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I just can't stop myself using two four letter words. And only one of them starts with a j.;)
 

Monkey

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The first novel I ever wrote for an adult audience had this really, really big guy in it. He was massive. And the readers would have known that, had there ever been readers, because I used that word to describe him over and over and over.
 

Gretad08

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I'm reading Gone With the Wind right now and I'm gonna go back and count the word 'impotent'. I swear it's in at least every other chapter, and that's kind of a word that stands out. "Her impotent rage..." "Her impotent hate..." "Her impotent love..." etc.

I love love love this book and can't put it down, but now I laugh every time I see that word.
 

whacko

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Impotent?

I've never read Gone With the Wind but I'm starting to hear:

Frankly my dear...

Don't worry Rhet, it happens to everybody!
 

Susan Coffin

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To be honest, I haven't really paid attention to that. When you just have to repeat a word like here, and there, and is...you just have to do it, so I don't worry much about that.

Magali, it would be unusual not to find overused words in a work in progress and/or when editing. I agree, if a word seems right in a sentence, then it's best to use it.
 

thothguard51

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One of my favorite authors from the 80"s, Stephen Donaldson, in his Thomas Convenant series, used, "as if," alot. I never noticed it all that much back then.

Last year, I reread all 6 of the first two trilogys and had to force myself to keep reading past the massive amounts of "as if." I don't mind a few times, but every book was loaded with them and I know his third set is out and I am not sure I can force myself to pick them up...

Of course, that was the style in the 80's so no one said anything back then...
 

amergina

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My characters are always turning, so much so that they could probably power a small city by the end of my first draft, if you but strapped magnets to them.
 

lvae

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I definitely have a lot of repeated words, 'but' 'just' 'then' 'and' (which is necessary, but I need to kill all the random ones). As for the words that aren't conjunctions? 'Realised' - it's like, every second page, my character makes a realisation. I'm also really bad when it comes to abusing 'soft' 'quiet' 'silent' and the like.
 
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