I've been in a busy state of editing my WIP the past couple of days. I read through all the pages making note of all the ugly adverbs I've used or repeated phrases, and I've discovered that the amount of times I used "suddenly" and "slowly" was scary... so, I planned to get rid of those two words.
That got me thinking that there are some words or phrases that when I'm writing, or even when I'm reading, that does make me cringe, or at least bugs me. "And suddenly" being one of those at the top of my list.
Are there any words that you eliminate from your novel because you overuse it or really hate it or cringe when you're reading?
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8 comments:
Oh yes. I use "then" way too much. My critique partner pointed it out and now I need to do a find and replace! good luck with your revision.
I use the word "just" way too much. I think I eliminated it about 67 times from my wip. So sad.
"really" and "definitely." I think I use those words more than anything else! Somewhat like you described, I find myself going back and intentionally deleting those words whenever I find them...
LOL. I hate 'smile'. Not because it really is al that bad, but it's really hard not to use so often because all the alternatives mean something different! But it's still bugs me if someone smiled every secon line. Which yes, I HAVE come across before!
I have a loooong list of words I hate, but the only ones I can think of right now are "finally" and "that."
One that's been "suddenly" cropping up everywhere is "that" AAAHHH!
You don't need it hardly ever! And yet it still creeps in...
I hate a sentence starting with "There is" or "There are." So weak. Just nothing strong about it at all.
I have an elimination list that I search, such as 'that', 'over' and 'toward'
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