Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Editor Moment. . . . . Repetitive words

I have been working with an awesome nameless editor for months now as I work on my manuscript. My freind at 700blankpages suggested to me that I should tell all of you what I am learning as I edit my book.

So from now on as I have a spare moment or a profound lesson, I will post them here under the title Editor Moment.

So now for the first lesson I learned from my editor. Word repetition.

In my third chapter I sent my main characters to a wedding. While the image of this huge luxury home in my head was amazing and lavishly decorated, it was hard to describe. I saw pale wood floors and dark wood furniture and banisters. Every surface was covered with white flowers candles tuelle and pictures of the happy couple. The smell of the home was also something I wanted to describe, heady with flower smells.

Going back to the chapter in editing mode, I found that when I had an object or image on my mind, I tend to repeat it. For example, in one paragraph I had the word FLOWER over six times. So in editing I had to rewrite the entire description so I did not have as many repetitive words.

I have found as I have worked through the chapters that my tendency to see repeat words has increased, and my tendency to repeat words in rough draft drastically diminished.

4 comments:

Angie said...

One benefit I found in writing by hand is that when I type it up, I notice those word repetitions and then I can get rid of them. I think it's a common problem.

The verification word is wordeco. (Word echo? Isn't that what we're taliking about? Weird.)

Anonymous said...

Loved Angie's comment and verifier.

Thank you for sharing your collected wisdom! Thanks to your friend for encouraging you to.

Pendragon Inman said...

Agreed with LT... i think this was an AWESOME idea :D your friend was BRILLIANT. tehehhee I really do look forward to reading all of them to come.

the one i'll remember is "Love, Love, Love, Love, Love, Love, Love" :) are you sure he's not G..? J/K!!

Kimberly Job said...

My pet favorites are felt, heart, looked, tears, and more. I'm a romance writer after all. :)

I've noticed I'm getting better though. I wish there was a computer program for catching them all.