Revision Time: Over-Used Words

A popular post from January 2011

We all do it. It's nothing to be ashamed of . . . unless you don't fix it in the revision stage.

What is it? The dreaded repeated word curse. It's dead wood that sucks the life out of your sentences. Pulling out the dead wood of repetition isn't hard, but it does take time.

Doing a search of your document for these is worth the effort. Some of the most common culprits include:

The empty verb/action:

Was

90% of the time, find a stronger verb. And don't resort to passive and other awkward constructions to avoid it.

Another: would

I see this one a lot: Every day, she would make her children their lunches.

Try: Every day she made her children their lunches.

Much cleaner. Also avoid gerunds (was -ing).

Finding fresh ways of showing emotion and small actions and gestures can be hard, so those and other verbs tend to multiply like rabbits if you aren't careful, such as:

look

glanced

thought

realized

began

smile

started

Empty words:

You may find a time where one of these is needed and adds to the work. But those times are rare.

Often, these words are meaningless modifiers. If I say something is "really big," what does that mean? Big compared to what? A boot? A watermelon? A truck?

As a general rule, avoid meaningless modifiers, including:

Just

Only

Actually

Suddenly

Very

Really

Little

A bit

Directionals

Sometimes we go overboard explaining the how and where. When in doubt, cut it. Especially when you have two directionals next to each other (such as "she looked over at her mother").

from

over

at

toward

up

under

around

Other words

The most common extra word I see is that. Sometimes it's needed, such as to clarify which of something. But often, it's just a filler word, such as:

Paula saw that the class was staring at her.

Talk about a weak sentence altogether:

1) Since we're in Paula's head, don't tell us she saw anything; we'll figure out she's the one with the eyeballs.

2) We've got a weak gerund verb with was staring.

3) And then that is shoved in with no purpose.

A stronger sentence: The class stared at Paula.

(Then show her reaction.)

Every writer has their own pet words or phrases, and sometimes they vary from project to project. I've been known to catch myself repeating one word, and then in an attempt to avoid it, I inadvertently find a new favorite word and repeat it realizing what I'm doing.

Several years ago, an editor pointed out the overuse of heart in one of my manuscripts. Puzzled, I almost challenged her. How could I overuse such a specific word and not realize it? I searched the document, and lo and behold, oodles of emotions mentioned the heart in some way.

If my heroine saw the hero, her heart rate sped up. If someone was in pain, their heart thumped against their ribcage. Fear? Heart raced. Heart, heart, heart. I think I took out a good 10 instances in that book.

The Takeaway

Search your work for the most common repetitions. Several writers I know have lists they keep of words to search their manuscripts for. That's a great idea. Cut most of them.

Then have someone else read it for you. I wouldn't have known about heart without someone else catching the repetition. Your readers may find a repeated word you never imagined.

As always, don't even worry about this stuff until the revision stage. Don't paralyze your creative drafting mind by stressing out over repetition. This is for when you put on the editor hat and clean things up.

Just be sure the hat does come out at some point.

For other sneaky self-editing issues see Stephanie Black's great post.