Redundancies: Repeat them or delete them.

[Weird Harold]

I suppose this is just another Pet Peeve thread, but I just finished a story with a lot of redundancies and useless phrases in it.

The biggest offense was the main character did a lot of thinking "to himself" -- since the character wasn't telepathic, who else could he be "thinking to?"

There was also a profusion of "With that, he..." and "Then, he..." and similar phrases that do nothing for th story except increase the word count.


So, the discussion question is:

Do redundancies and useless phrases bother you and/or do you need to remove them from your writing?

I think the reason that redundancies and useless phrases bother me is bcause they're usually a symptom of the author trying to over-control the action. In one sense, they are an insult to my intelligence because they imply that I can't figure out what is going on without detailed step-by-step explication.

 

[OldnotDead]

Hey, WH,

One of my teachers long ago told me that these little phrases that seep into our writing come from our speech patterns where we are 'filling time' as we organize our thoughts. She felt very strongly that they need to be stripped out since they ad nothing to the understanding and detract from the readability of the story.

The other comment I remember her making was that many of these phrases have two or three words that could be replaced by one. The example you site, "With that, he . . " can correctly be rephrased, "He then . . " (without the comma) .

These types of repetitions that detract are most often noticed if you read your story out loud. That's when you will notice the vocabulary bridges that fit and the ones that do not.

 

[oggbashan]

This is the wrong time for this thread. We need all those redundant words to hit our target in NaNoWriMo.

We can strip them all out in December when we do the editing.

Og (who can write redundant verbiage until the cows come home)

 

[MathGirl]

Originally posted by oggbashan (who can write redundant verbiage until the cows come home)

Dear Venerable Og,
When, exactly, do the bovines go to roost? Do the sheep bed down at the same time? Please use Zulu time.
MG
Ps. Could you please return to the AV with the cake on your head?

 

[Icingsugar]

The example you site, "With that, he . . " can correctly be rephrased, "He then . . " (without the comma) .

"After doing that, he then eventually proceeded to..."

Redundancies rock.
No, really. I use them all the time, and I use them to make the text flow the right way. Somtimes I feel that the rhythm of a passage is totally jixed by a too abrupt and to the point way of writitng. Then I throw in a little extra syllables that doesn't add a damn thing, just for the style.

 

[oggbashan]

Dear Venerable Og,
When, exactly, do the bovines go to roost? Do the sheep bed down at the same time? Please use Zulu time.
MG
Ps. Could you please return to the AV with the cake on your head?

The cows should come home at dusk which is bedtime for ovines as well. That is about 17:00 Zulu or GMT at this time of year.

Since you asked so nicely, the cake on head is back.

Og

PS. Since I write 24 hours a day, the cows coming home just means that I start a new day. How else do you think I could write so much rubbish?

 

[gauchecritic]

I tend to go so far in the other direction that I confuse readers with un-labeled thoughts and un-attributed speech.

I often find myself deleting apparent redundancy on re-reading something. Changing 'he looked down the alley and then walked forward' to 'looking down the alley, he walked forward' and then realising that I've changed the intent of the sentence (tense-wise?) I have to re-write the previous or following sentence. More work but easier to read I think.

Having redundancy "he thought to himself' seems, to me at least, not exactly irritating but (comes across as) unpolished.

Gauche

 

[Guest]

I'm with Harold re. redundencies. I know they come from my speaking voice so I'm aware of them as I write. I work at not using them, saying things differently for the content. I will be deleting much from my NaNo novel, but I look forward to it, all the editing, which I love to do; it's where the real fun comes in for me.

Gauche is right, it's work to refine a text to make it read easily and still retain one's intentions and art of the thing.

I presume redundancy on Lit. is the norm as most authors are concerned with getting the sex across. Not me though.

Perdita, a not-popular author

 

[oggbashan]

Perdita, a not-popular author

Maybe not, because you are not writing your stories for popularity.

But Perdita is a very popular, loved and appreciated poster in the AH.

Og

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

Redundancies can be annoying. Some of them are needed
to get the flow right. The one which annoys me most often
is "started."
"He kissed her and then started to unbutton her blouse,"
could be "kissing her, he unbuttoned her blouse."
If he started and was stopped, we need to know that. If
he *DID* it, then we don't need to be told that he started
doing it.

 

[Guest]

for Ogg, personally venerable: