"just" an irritating problem

[LaRascasse]

'as' is another royal pain.

 

[SamScribble]

'However', 'suddenly' and 'said' ( as used repeatedly in dialogue) have plagued me in the past; now I'm on the lookout for them yet they still slip by on occasion.

'Said' - as in he said, she said - is often very useful for introducing a pause in a passage of dialogue.

'Your, umm, proposition,' I said, 'how would it work? Would you decide on who would be an appropriate third member? Or would we reach some sort of mutual agreement?'

Personally, I think some writers trim the saids to the detriment of their dialogue.

 

[steve44uk]

'as' is another royal pain.

RIght?

 

[Saxon_Hart]

I often have to edit out slang from non dialog portions. And I usually take a lot of "fucks" out of dialog. What can I say? I like to say fuck. lOL

 

[steve44uk]

I often have to edit out slang from non dialog portions. And I usually take a lot of "fucks" out of dialog. What can I say? I like to say fuck. lOL

Really? I hadn't noticed...

 

[MayorReynolds]

Yeah, and every story it's a different thing. Anybody know of a good tool for detecting this stuff automatically?

SmartEdit.
http://www.smart-edit.com/

It's an amazing program. The price for a full license is $ 49.95, but the free trial is fully featured and lasts 10 days - or longer, depending on how often you use it. If you're heavily into writing it's well-worth the investment.

It detects overused adverbs, words, phrases, cliches, sentence starts and more. It generates a graph that shows the average length of sentences.

This has definitely helped me clean my prose. I was amazed at how cluttered and redundant my writing was when I start running SmartEdit checks.

 

[MayorReynolds]

And when it comes to repeated words, you'll generally find that adverbs are the enemy. Those tend to clutter up prose more than anything else.

 

[PennLady]

Oh and in my earlier stories I tended to switch POV within a scene quite a bit. I blame Nora Roberts. It was only in scenes between two people, and I was pretty clear about the switching and no one complained, but I try hard not to do that now. Or, if I decide I need it, I don't do fast or frequent switches. I might go halfway through a scene, then change POV, then stay with that until the scene ends.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

"That," "then," and "really" are my problem words. The "reallys" are easy to eliminate. The "thats" and "thens" are more difficult; they tend to be imbedded deeper and require more vigorous efforts to dig them out.

 

[PennLady]

"That," "then," and "really" are my problem words. The "reallys" are easy to eliminate. The "thats" and "thens" are more difficult; they tend to be imbedded deeper and require more vigorous efforts to dig them out.

When I first started, I used words like slowly, quickly, finally, really and actually a lot. I saw how repetitive they were and so I would do a search and replace and replace each word with a letter. Then I'd read through and they were relatively easy to find, just the one letter like "r" or whatever, and then I could decide if I needed them. Along with that, I got in the habit of not using them unless it was dialogue, and at this point I rarely use them at all, except in dialogue.

"Then" is a tough one, I agree. When I feel I'm overusing it, I try to go with "and," or re-work the sentence, even to the point of breaking it up.

 

[DeYaKen]

When I first started, I used words like slowly, quickly, finally, really and actually a lot. I saw how repetitive they were and so I would do a search and replace and replace each word with a letter. Then I'd read through and they were relatively easy to find, just the one letter like "r" or whatever, and then I could decide if I needed them. Along with that, I got in the habit of not using them unless it was dialogue, and at this point I rarely use them at all, except in dialogue.

"Then" is a tough one, I agree. When I feel I'm overusing it, I try to go with "and," or re-work the sentence, even to the point of breaking it up.

I believe Mark twain said something like "is there ever really a need to write really?

I use prowitingaid.com a lot. It helps me find over used words and it's free to use.

 

[SecondCircle]

This usually happens to me when I'm in "the zone". I'm immersed in the story that I'm writing and the words just seem to flow naturally. I know exactly what to say and what's happening. We all do this. It feels good, building a good rhythm and weaving a web of excitement or drama that you are really into.

Then I read back over it and I spot words that I used and used a thousand fucking times, or repetitive sentence structure that annoys the hell outta me. I usually gotta "sober up" and look back over it in the editing process to catch this. Or just read it like a reader would read it, for pure enjoyment. Sometimes when you're just reading it for entertainment and not "trying" to edit the piss out of it, you find things that don't read right, sound right, or feel right.

Horror story I posted here a while back had this issue. I read through and edited it and everything seemed to be fine. The audiences seemed to love it as well. But when I came back to it not too long ago, I saw the word "pale" like a hundred damn times throughout one section.

At which point I hired a big Samoan guy to stand behind me with his arms crossed when I write. He's very educated and well read. When he spots a problem, he puts me in a headlock and squeezes my nose really hard.

Since then, its been gravy train.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

My latest story that I am writing has 91 occurrences in around 19,000 words (43 pages). I saw some egregious multiple uses in the same paragraph, but for the most part it was dialogue, and I can forgive that because a lot of people use the word when talking, not caring how repetitive they are.

I'm not even halfway finished with the story either...

 

[damppanties]

At which point I hired a big Samoan guy to stand behind me with his arms crossed when I write. He's very educated and well read. When he spots a problem, he puts me in a headlock and squeezes my nose really hard.

I wouldn't mind a big Samoan guy myself. Though I wouldn't exactly be asking him to squeeze my nose.