Word repetitions

[Kojak01]

Hi all,

A while back I discovered an online tool to detect word repetitions (repetition-detector - easy to google).

By default, it only checks words with four or more letters. If words are closer than 100 characters, they are defined as "close repetition". 1500 characters make a distant repetion. The following words are excluded from the check: your, ours, they, their, them.

When I copied the story I'm currently working on into it, I was astounded by the sheer number of repetitions. A lot of the remaining repetitions are caused by than, with, from, didn't, were, weren't, that, have, and similar.

Now to my questions:

How badly are you trying to avoid repetitions? Some are, of couse unavoidable (face to face, side by side, etc). But what about "that", "were", or "have"?
What about nouns?

The following is one paragraph in the story.
"I sat downstairs fiddling on my phone while I waited for the two of them to get ready when I heard a noise and looked towards the stairs. Two stunning beauties, dressed to kill, climbed down the stairs, side by side. They had both dressed in medium length dresses, my girlfriend in black and Debbie in green, each wonderfully complimenting their hair colour. They both wore moderate heels which brought them to roughly my height."

I've marked the repetitions which are identified by the website. What is your opinion on these? "Side by side" is an expression which I not regard as problematic. But what about the repeated use of "stairs" or "dressed" (for the time being, please ignore the "dressed in dresses" which btw is not detected by the program)?

I'm not asking for help with finding different ways to express it. Replacing the second "dressed" with "chosen" and that problem is solved. I wonder whether you would want to avoid these repetions or not.

PS: I'm not English native.
PPS: Yes, I tend to use too long sentences...

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Personally, as a reader (and currently editor) I usually take note of repeated phrases/idioms and such things, especially reading through the portfolio of writers you will certainly find some repeated favorite phrases again. So, "side by side" is nothing to worry about, as long as you don't stress that phrase over and over again. From my personal point of view, it's should be more about excessive use compared to the word's rarity. I mean, this tool should check if occurrences of a certain word are above the statistical appearance in texts, in general. As it is a google tool it should have access to what? Trillions of texts? If 'flabbergasted' has an average use of once per 100k words, and you used it five times in a 5k story...

I must say, I do like rarely used words. A word I haven't read before within a story adds to the rating I will leave, but its overly usage would do the opposite.

So, repetition of words isn't something that, in my opinion, can be check so easily as this tool does.

 

[SimonDoom]

Excellent question! Unconscious repetition of this sort often is a mark of amateur writing. I try to avoid it as I write and to edit it away when I do my edit of the first draft.

In the passage you provided I definitely would try to avoid the repeated terms.

Repetition is not always bad. It can be used for poetic or dramatic effect.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I probably would replace them. Especially as they're words that could be easily rephrased - staircase or entrance; chosen outfits, clad in stunning dresses, slinky in gorgeous dresses...

For reference I was proof-reading a story of mine yesterday (10k words, 22 pages), noticed unusual words used twice and changed most of them, but there was one on page 8 and page 19 which I left (gnarled, I think). But more common works like stairs, dressed, I'd only notice if within about 500-1000 words, possibly not even then.

What I tend to find more off-putting is authors who use the same sentence structure all the time.
I did this and that
He went to do something and something
We then did something else.

Move your verbs and objects around occasionally, have a mixture of sentence lengths. Your sentences aren't that long and make sense, but I'm now expecting a short sentence to provide contrast, probably moving the story in with something happening.

 

[lovecraft68]

deleted.

 

[GroverLang]

Unnecessary words. I know that it’s essential that I make my point clearly. I didn’t know that I was able to do it before it was pointed out to me but I hope that I have now done so. What is the point of the word “that” in those sentences? It never occurred to me until it was pointed out but now I notice it in every story I read, and it occurs umpteen times, even in comments in this forum.

I try to pick up on repetition as I write and, hopefully, pick up on any I’ve missed on the final check before submission. I agree with the “he said” and “she said” used at the beginning of a sentence, as against using it after dialogue, and it seems to occur when short sentences are used consecutively. Sometimes by inserting “and” makes a better sentence and flows better. Colons and semi-colons are only rarely used and when they are it’s usually incorrect.

A way of avoiding repetition, if you can’t think of anything, is to google for synonyms.

Any word the average reader would have the need to consult a dictionary for the meaning should be avoided as should abbreviations where the writer assumes the reader knows what they mean.

 

[OneAuthor]

Personally, I hate to use the same descriptive or actions words repeatedly. It often can't be done effectively with common/short words - and I don't normally see this as a problem. But I do often reread my writings to check for this issue.

It also helps to have others proofread your story and ask them to let you know if they see this type of thing. One example was two people who did beta reading of my "Teacher's Pet" series caught a lot of instances of "then" and "that", which I know are shorter/common words. However, I clearly used those words WAY too often, and many could simply be deleted without affecting the narrative.

 

[oggbashan]

I try to avoid repetitions but they can be a feature of a particular character's dialogue and help to establish a personality.

If I find a repetition in a final edit I try to work my way around it.

Edited for PS: One of the local teenagers who frequently walks past my house, uses the word 'Fuck' almost as a comma when he is speaking.

It doesn't mean anything. It is just the way he talks.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sometimes repetition makes sense, and is better than non-repetition.

For instance:

James and I went to the party together. I wore black; he wore blue.

This, I think, is better than:

I wore black; he dressed in blue.

Repetition in this case enhances meaning and introduces a pleasing symmetry and parallelism in the second sentence. Changing the verb destroys that symmetry and rhythm.

Repetition is a tricky issue and it often takes a very careful eye and ear to get it just right. A sign of a really good writer is the ability to strike just the right balance.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The following is one paragraph in the story.
"I sat downstairs fiddling on my phone while I waited for the two of them to get ready when I heard a noise and looked towards the stairs. Two stunning beauties, dressed to kill, climbed down the stairs, side by side. They had both dressed in medium length dresses, my girlfriend in black and Debbie in green, each wonderfully complimenting their hair colour. They both wore moderate heels which brought them to roughly my height."

"Side by side" is a standard construction, I wouldn't worry about that as a matter of word repetition, below.

If it were my story, I'd think about avoiding the repetition of dressed-dressed-dresses, stairs-stairs, two-two (not flagged) and both-both (ditto).

Also, that should be "complementing" (not the same word as "complimenting"), and the first sentence should probably be "I was sitting downstairs..."

Kumquatqueen mentioned repetition of sentence structure. I'd take that a little further and think about repetition of ideas/imagery. In this paragraph, you keep mirroring the two women:

"the two of them"
"two stunning beauties"
"side by side"
"both in matching dresses"
"each complimenting their hair colour"
"both wore moderate heels" + both same height

One way and another, you are saying over and over that there's symmetry between the two. There's a difference in hair and dress colour, but even there you draw a parallel between them.

If this is intentional - e.g. if you have a thing for near-identical twins and you want to explore that - then you've certainly made the point.

But if it's not intentional, if they are meant to be two distinct people who aren't just complements to one another like a matched pair of bookends, then that repetition is a problem, and word choice is the least of the considerations.

What I tend to find more off-putting is authors who use the same sentence structure all the time.
I did this and that
He went to do something and something
We then did something else.

Move your verbs and objects around occasionally, have a mixture of sentence lengths. Your sentences aren't that long and make sense, but I'm now expecting a short sentence to provide contrast, probably moving the story in with something happening.

Agreed. Though deliberate repetition can sometimes be an effective device. I have a scene in one of mine:

I placed my hands on either side of her face and kissed her on the forehead.

I kissed her on the nose.

I kissed her on the lips.

I kissed her on the chin.

I kissed her in the hollow of her throat.

... [and the kissing continues downwards from there]

In that case I think the repetition works, because the sequence is an extended tease and the repetition plays into that. But YMMV.

Unnecessary words. I know that it’s essential that I make my point clearly. I didn’t know that I was able to do it before it was pointed out to me but I hope that I have now done so. What is the point of the word “that” in those sentences? It never occurred to me until it was pointed out but now I notice it in every story I read, and it occurs umpteen times, even in comments in this forum.

Words need not be necessary to be valuable. You can build a car with just the engine, chassis, wheels, and controls, but it's easier to drive when you also have headlights, a speedo, and perhaps a GPS.

For example, I've highlighted a couple of places where you use the word "but". Those "buts" don't change anything in the factual meaning of those sentences, but they help the reader navigate them: each "but" is a signal that you're now about to turn the sentence in a new direction. If you take them out the passage becomes disjoint, and it's harder to understand where you're trying to go.

Any word the average reader would have the need to consult a dictionary for the meaning should be avoided as should abbreviations where the writer assumes the reader knows what they mean.

This depends very much on the effect you're trying to achieve. Being comprehensible is usually good but it's not always the sole concern.

For instance, in one of my stories the narrator refers to "a heptatych by Alfonse Mucha, depicting a series of veiled women". That's an extremely obscure word, and you're not likely to find it in even a very good dictionary* - it's one of those words whose existence is implied by others. (A "diptych" is a two-part painting, and a "triptych" is one with three parts; since "hepta" is Greek for "seven", it then follows that a hepta(p)tych is a painting in seven parts.)

I chose it because obscurity is a big part of the atmosphere of that story. It's about a couple of highly-educated women who go delving into Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know, looking for secret patterns of meaning in the world that reveal hidden truths. It's like listening to soldiers or scientists talk in jargon - the specialisation of the language says a lot about who they are, and sometimes that's more important than spelling everything out.

*In hindsight, it should probably have been "heptaptych", but that spelling is not noticeably more common.

 

[HeyAll]

Sometimes I get the feeling I've used the same word too much, or too recently, and I use control+F (the search function) and it shows me where all those words are.

Then I go back and find different words to replace those.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sometimes I get the feeling I've used the same word too much, or too recently, and I use control+F (the search function) and it shows me where all those words are.

Then I go back and find different words to replace those.

I've done the very same thing. That's usually late in the editing/proofing process for me.

Avoiding repetition is something I do in waves.

I try to avoid it as I go, because I try to write a fairly clean first draft and I do a lot of editing and proofing along the way.

Then when I'm done I re-read everything and word choice and repetition are some of the things I focus on.

If I'm concerned about repetition of a specific word or words, as I sometimes am, I do a search just as you've described after that.

 

[vanmyers86]

I work hard to avoid repetition, thanks to a college English professor who had an obsession with it. Most times, diversity makes writing richer and more fun to read.
All bets are off in poetry or song writing, though! Repetition can be a writer's best friend there.

 

[KeithD]

Repetition is not always bad. It can be used for poetic or dramatic effect.

Keep this in mind. Good writing advice.

Also, using thirty-six different words for something in close proximity can be just as jarring as using too much repetition of the same word. It's all something in which the specific context needs to be considered. What maintains the flow and doesn't stick out?

 

[SimonDoom]

Here's a link to an interesting and helpful article about types of repetition that appear in literature and then some good examples of effective repetition in fiction. It's a good reminder that repetition should be avoided sometimes but can other times be used to great effect.

https://blog.reedsy.com/repetition-examples/

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sometimes repetition makes sense, and is better than non-repetition.

For instance:

James and I went to the party together. I wore black; he wore blue.

This, I think, is better than:

I wore black; he dressed in blue.

Repetition in this case enhances meaning and introduces a pleasing symmetry and parallelism in the second sentence. Changing the verb destroys that symmetry and rhythm.

Repetition is a tricky issue and it often takes a very careful eye and ear to get it just right. A sign of a really good writer is the ability to strike just the right balance.

I scrub my text as part of my rolling edit technique to avoid repetition except where I want to use it deliberately for cadence and cascade - Simon's "I wore black, he wore blue" and Bramble's kissing song are perfect examples where I'd use repetition for effect. I've had several readers comment that my style is poetic (which for prose is an unusual comment to get, I'd have thought), so I guess for me it's working.

During my final edit I use Worditout to draw a word cloud of the most frequently used words in a story (other than the usual constructors). It's a great visual aid, part of my "editor's tool box." Here are two examples (you can instantly see the theme of the stories):

https://worditout.com/word-cloud/4157731

Here's one written in a different style - the visual difference is obvious. This one was written by request from a couple who wanted me to combine two individually given fantasy role plays into the same story:

https://worditout.com/word-cloud/3682733/private/b4e0eeefd96749b5f3129b9306b9c9ce

It's not hard to spot which one is my more usual gentler style, which one is stroke.

 

[tomlitilia]

Hi all,

A while back I discovered an online tool to detect word repetitions (repetition-detector - easy to google).

By default, it only checks words with four or more letters. If words are closer than 100 characters, they are defined as "close repetition". 1500 characters make a distant repetion. The following words are excluded from the check: your, ours, they, their, them.

When I copied the story I'm currently working on into it, I was astounded by the sheer number of repetitions. A lot of the remaining repetitions are caused by than, with, from, didn't, were, weren't, that, have, and similar.

Now to my questions:

How badly are you trying to avoid repetitions? Some are, of couse unavoidable (face to face, side by side, etc). But what about "that", "were", or "have"?
What about nouns?

The following is one paragraph in the story.
"I sat downstairs fiddling on my phone while I waited for the two of them to get ready when I heard a noise and looked towards the stairs. Two stunning beauties, dressed to kill, climbed down the stairs, side by side. They had both dressed in medium length dresses, my girlfriend in black and Debbie in green, each wonderfully complimenting their hair colour. They both wore moderate heels which brought them to roughly my height."

I've marked the repetitions which are identified by the website. What is your opinion on these? "Side by side" is an expression which I not regard as problematic. But what about the repeated use of "stairs" or "dressed" (for the time being, please ignore the "dressed in dresses" which btw is not detected by the program)?

I'm not asking for help with finding different ways to express it. Replacing the second "dressed" with "chosen" and that problem is solved. I wonder whether you would want to avoid these repetions or not.

PS: I'm not English native.
PPS: Yes, I tend to use too long sentences...

Repeating words is often better than being unclear, but most of your examples reads a bit off. You've already established that the narrator's focus is on the stairs, so it's not necessary to repeat where the lovely ladies are climbing down from. "Dressed in" can easily be replaced with "wore". I would also delete "the two of" in the first sentence to avoid the repetition of how many ladies are involved.

More generally, getting rid of too many "that" is often a good idea. I've searched for them and attempted to reword or delete when possible.

 

[GroverLang]

Repeating words is often better than being unclear, but most of your examples reads a bit off. You've already established that the narrator's focus is on the stairs, so it's not necessary to repeat where the lovely ladies are climbing down from. "Dressed in" can easily be replaced with "wore". I would also delete "the two of" in the first sentence to avoid the repetition of how many ladies are involved.

More generally, getting rid of too many "that" is often a good idea. I've searched for them and attempted to reword or delete when possible.

I agree with what you say about stairs etc. As for my earlier comment about removing “that” when it isn’t necessary in the sentence and doesn’t add anything, which is always the case with text, there is an exception in dialogue.

Sometimes. If the character would normally speak that way then let it go.

 

[ElectricBlue]

More generally, getting rid of too many "that" is often a good idea. I've searched for them and attempted to reword or delete when possible.

Agree. I word search on "and that" for the same reason - that combination was an unconscious tic until I spotted it one day. I always edit it out now. One or the other, never both.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Keep this in mind. Good writing advice.

Also, using thirty-six different words for something in close proximity can be just as jarring as using too much repetition of the same word. It's all something in which the specific context needs to be considered. What maintains the flow and doesn't stick out?

Yep. I recall one story that rotated between "stygian", "ebony", and "charcoal" as stand-ins for "black". That sort of thing makes one feel like the writer is Using A Technique, and for me as a reader it's really distracting when I notice a technique.

If it feels like there are too many repetitions of the same word, rather than just leaping for the thesaurus, it may be worth questioning why we're talking about this one thing so much and whether it's necessary.

 

[KeithD]

I've always been fond of "He mounted and then entered, entered, entered . . ." as conveying a particular meaning.

 

[SamScribble]

I’m sure the people who devise and market these tools to analyse what a writer has written mean well. But I don’t trust them. I prefer to ‘listen’ to what I have written. If it sounds right, it probably is right.

The first thing that he saw were the stairs. A lot of stairs. And when you suffer from CHF, even a few stairs can be a challenge. ‘You go ahead,’ he told Osborn. ‘I’ll see if there’s a lift.’

 

[Bramblethorn]

I’m sure the people who devise and market these tools to analyse what a writer has written mean well. But I don’t trust them. I prefer to ‘listen’ to what I have written. If it sounds right, it probably is right.

The first thing that he saw were the stairs. A lot of stairs. And when you suffer from CHF, even a few stairs can be a challenge. ‘You go ahead,’ he told Osborn. ‘I’ll see if there’s a lift.’

Yep, this and SR's example above use repetition well, to create emphasis.

Rule of thumb, if it helps put the reader in the head of the protagonist it's probably good.

 

[Kojak01]

Personally, as a reader (and currently editor) I usually take note of repeated phrases/idioms and such things, especially reading through the portfolio of writers you will certainly find some repeated favorite phrases again. So, "side by side" is nothing to worry about, as long as you don't stress that phrase over and over again. From my personal point of view, it's should be more about excessive use compared to the word's rarity. I mean, this tool should check if occurrences of a certain word are above the statistical appearance in texts, in general. As it is a google tool it should have access to what? Trillions of texts? If 'flabbergasted' has an average use of once per 100k words, and you used it five times in a 5k story...

I must say, I do like rarely used words. A word I haven't read before within a story adds to the rating I will leave, but its overly usage would do the opposite.

So, repetition of words isn't something that, in my opinion, can be check so easily as this tool does.

You make several interesting points here. This is a technical analysis and is by no means perfect (like "dressed in dresses" is not a repetition). It does not consider style or effect and does not absolve me for otherwise bad writing. But if I compare the version where I've eliminated the repetitions with the one before that, I feel it reads a lot better.

I never considered rarity vs. excessive use which is a very good point on which I fully agree. I had to think about a scene in Blackadder (Contrafibularities).

BTW: It is not a Google-tool. Sorry if I caused confusion. I just recommended to google "repetition detector" as I didn't want to post an external link.

"Side by side" is a standard construction, I wouldn't worry about that as a matter of word repetition, below.

If it were my story, I'd think about avoiding the repetition of dressed-dressed-dresses, stairs-stairs, two-two (not flagged) and both-both (ditto).

Also, that should be "complementing" (not the same word as "complimenting"), and the first sentence should probably be "I was sitting downstairs..."

Kumquatqueen mentioned repetition of sentence structure. I'd take that a little further and think about repetition of ideas/imagery. In this paragraph, you keep mirroring the two women:

"the two of them"
"two stunning beauties"
"side by side"
"both in matching dresses"
"each complimenting their hair colour"
"both wore moderate heels" + both same height

One way and another, you are saying over and over that there's symmetry between the two. There's a difference in hair and dress colour, but even there you draw a parallel between them.

If this is intentional - e.g. if you have a thing for near-identical twins and you want to explore that - then you've certainly made the point.

But if it's not intentional, if they are meant to be two distinct people who aren't just complements to one another like a matched pair of bookends, then that repetition is a problem, and word choice is the least of the considerations.



Agreed. Though deliberate repetition can sometimes be an effective device. I have a scene in one of mine:

I placed my hands on either side of her face and kissed her on the forehead.

I kissed her on the nose.

I kissed her on the lips.

I kissed her on the chin.

I kissed her in the hollow of her throat.

... [and the kissing continues downwards from there]

Wow! That's a very conclusive reply. Thanks a lot for taking your time with it!
First of all: Thanks for pointing out the complementing-error. Stupid mistake. I should know better than that...

I'm actually consciously presenting the two women as similar in this scene. They coordinated their appearances in order to (subconsciously) make the main character like Debbie better. It's one of the challanges when using the first person pov. The reader can not know what the two women discuss when alone but by appearing at the same time, in similar dresses, and behaving identically, the more attentive reader should get a hint of the future developments.

Of course, you, and many other who answered so far, are fully right that repetition is not a bad thing, per se. But, referring to SimonDoom, the unconscious repetition is different and as KeithD pointed out, you can also overdo it.

I'm astounded by the sheer number of close repetitions in my draft. On 13-14k words, there are more than 500 words marked as close repetition. 93 "that", 35 "with", 31 "Debbie", 14 "didn't", 11 "would", 11 "love" just to mention the most common ones and keep in mind it's only the repetitions. A few are a conscious choice but most are not, and more than I care to admit are just plain laziness.
So for me, the tool helps a lot by pointing out were I could invest a minute or two to try and find a different expression or phrasing.

 

[Emirus]

Irrelevant