Do You Overuse Certain Words?

 

What are your bad habits as a writer?  Do you have your own set of overused words?  I do: ‘all’, ‘suddenly, ‘eventually’, ‘then’’, ‘now’ and ‘lots’.  I’ve known this for a long time. 

‘All’ seems to creep in ALL by itself.  We have close friends in Texas who include ‘Y’all’ in almost every sentence they utter but I’m not Texan and in my writing, ‘all’ has no real purpose.  I probably use this word frequently when I speak and I may be setting down on the computer the words I would say.  (But who knows?  We cannot play back our speech.)

‘Suddenly’ and ‘then’, I find myself using as link words, often to join two paragraphs, even when an event isn’t in the least sudden, as in ‘Then, suddenly, over a period of months, she realised she was falling in love with him.’  Aargh!  ‘Eventually’ also.  ‘Eventually, the bus arrived and …’ into the next scene at home.  I find myself asking why ‘eventually’?  Why was it necessary to the story for the character to wait for the bus, except to lead the reader into the next scene?  And now… don’t get me started on ‘now’.  The Bible makes good use of ‘now’, as a word to move between paragraphs (see Matthew Chapter 1 verse 18 and Luke Chapter 8 verse 40) in the New Revised Standard Version.  And I find myself starting sentences with ‘And’, ‘But’ and ‘Then’ – as did those who translated the Scriptures into modern English.

I find it is helpful – sometimes - to cut these overused words as I go along.  However, if I am writing to a tight word count – flash, for instance – it’s a good idea deliberately to leave them ALL… here we go again… in the first draft, knowing that, when I edit it down to fit what is required in the submission or competition, there are some words which are just ripe for the pruning.  Afterwards, rarely, do I feel that their absence.

My father’s overused phrase was ‘Funnily enough’, something which was picked up by his co-author whose own favourite was ‘And so we find…’  They wrote geography textbooks designed to get schoolchildren through O and A level - not humorous at all.

There are electronic ways to rid oneself of one’s overused words.  In Word (on a Windows device), use the keyboard command Control F and enter each overused word: 

You can see how often you have used it and in what context, then edit as necessary. 

 For a bolt and braces approach, if you definitely want to get rid of your particular bugbears, use the keyboard command Control H.  Type the overused word in the Find what box and leave the Replace with box empty.  Then click on Replace All, to get rid of all instances every instance of that word or phrase.

(For Apple machines and others, the concept will be the same but the tools and commands slightly different.)

Which are your overused words?  How do you cope with them?

Rosemary Johnson has had many short stories published, in print and online, amongst other places, Cafe Lit, Scribble, Friday Flash Fiction, The Copperfield Review, Fiction on the Web and Paragraph Planet.  She has also contributed to Together magazine and Christian Writer.  Her historical novel, Wodka or Tea with Milk, which is set during the Solidarity years in Poland, is… deep breath… due to be published soon.  In real life, she is a retired IT lecturer, living in Suffolk with her husband.