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My latest rewritten manuscript incorporates
the word ‘very’ 181 times, the word ‘just’ 257 times, and the word ‘that’ 1055
times. ONE THOUSAND AND FIFTY FIVE TIMES! I couldn’t believe the search count.
I don’t even like the word ‘that’ all ‘that’ much.
It seems like each new manuscript I write
(or in this case, rewrite) has one or two extremely overused words.
Unfortunately, these overused words are getting duller the more I write.
In my first story, Back to Resolution, I
overused the word ‘mesmerizing’. Now this is a fabulous word, but when you have
every character in a perpetual state of mesmerization, you basically have a
zombie apocalypse book. I still giggle at those mental pictures.
I won’t go into the long list of other
embarrassingly overused words flowing freely in my other manuscripts. Let’s
just say none of them as interesting as ‘mesmerizing’.
The purpose of my sharing this mesmerizing
story is this: Before you submit your manuscript to an editor, run a search on
some of the commonly overused words. Some are listed below. You will be
surprised how many you can delete without changing the sentence, and how much
getting rid of them improves the flow of your story.
And I’d love to know some of your overused
words. Come on—get honest and make me feel better about those mesmerized
zombies.
Common overused words:
Just
Only
Quite
Really
Smile
Sudden
That
Very
And most -ly adverbs
Rose,
who holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree, was born in North Queensland, Australia.
Her childhood experiences growing up in a small beach community would later
provide inspiration for her first novel, Back to Resolution. Beyond Resolution
and A New Resolution are the second and third books in the Resolution series.
Back
to Resolution won the Bookseller’s Choice award at the 2012 CALEB Awards, while
A New Resolution won the 2013 CALEB Prize for Fiction. She has also released
The Greenfield Legacy, a collaborative novel, written in conjunction with three
other outstanding Australian authors, and has recently released the standalone
novel, Ehvah After.
Her
novels are inspired by the love of her coastal home and desire to produce
exciting and contemporary stories of faith for women. Rose resides in Mackay,
North Queensland with her husband and son.
Visit Rose at: http://rosedee.com/
