What's your personal philosophy on recycling certain phrases/sayings/expressions/metaphors?

[Voyeurkenneth]

What's your personal philosophy on recycling certain phrases/sayings/expressions/metaphors either across your stories, or within one story?

- Don't care?
- Personal limits on usage?
- No recycling!

For example, these can be things one might normally gravitate toward writing on impulse (e.g. "stared daggers," "rolled his eyes," "furrowed brows," etc.) that may come off as repetitive to a reader if used too many times.

 

[StillStunned]

I think it's alright, to a degree at least. I mean, if artists like Bruce Springsteen and Texas can reuse lyrics in songs that they release, and charge money for them, then why can't we do the same in our free stories?

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

I think it's alright, to a degree at least. I mean, if artists like Bruce Springsteen and Texas can reuse lyrics in songs that they release, and charge money for them, then why can't we do the same in our free stories?

I agree, but I’m curious where you and others might draw the line.

 

[TheLobster]

Simple expressions like “she rolled her eyes” are similar to speech tags. You will draw more attention to them if you try to be overly creative in rephrasing them.

Sometimes, repetition can also be a literary device. If you’re writing a petulant teenager, lampshading the fact she rolled her eyes for the fifth time is an easy way to emphasize her character traits.

 

[ElectricBlue]

What's your personal philosophy on recycling certain phrases/sayings/expressions/metaphors either across your stories, or within one story?

- Don't care?
- Personal limits on usage?
- No recycling!

For example, these can be things one might normally gravitate toward writing on impulse (e.g. "stared daggers," "rolled his eyes," "furrowed brows," etc.) that may come off as repetitive to a reader if used too many times.

Across stories, who cares? It's like a signature.

Within a story, in moderation, with repetition used deliberately, not accidentally. When I repeat something accidentally I hope no-one notices - but if they do, they've never commented, so I don't worry too much about it.

 

[Sammael Bard]

I recently read a story where the author was writing "Heh heh heh" at the beginning of almost every conversation. Words like chuckled, laughed etc were apparently not in the author's vocabulary.

It got annoying very quickly.

 

[StillStunned]

I agree, but I’m curious where you and others might draw the line.

Any expression that's commonly understood in English (including the examples you gave: "stared daggers," "rolled his eyes," "furrowed brows,") is fair game, although I'd limit it to once per several thousand words, or even once per story/chapter. Unless we're talking D&D, and "Staring Daggers" is a combat spell that the wizard uses.

Full clauses or sentences, or the writer's own similes and metaphors? Things that grab the readers attention so much that you normally wouldn't use more than once per story anyway? I guess you can reuse them in different stories, but very conservatively. I probably wouldn't do it more than once, and not in the same series. Preferably several years apart too.

If your readers see it happening too often and too easily, they'll think you're a lazy writer. If you can't be bothered to do your best to create a new story, why should they bother reading?

 

[Bazzle]

If you characters are doing the same thing over and over again...it will be very difficult to come up with imaginative different phrases, without someone commenting that you have eaten a Thesaurus before writing it.