Say It Once

Perhaps it seems self-evident to warn “Don’t say the same thing over and over”—yet it needs to be said. Not because authors are a stupid lot (we aren’t), but because of the on-again-off-again nature of writing and other totally understandable things. Let me explain.

I’m currently reading a good novel. The characters are interesting. The scenes are described well. The action comes on fast. Yet in the 25 pages I’ve read, it has been said no less than five times that it’s inhabitually dry this fall and that the fens, which are usually flooded, are parched. The first time? OK. Useful scene-setting. The second time? Got it. The third time? This had better be a really important clue. After that? Where is the editor!?

Where was I…?

Now, I’m sympathetic. I’ve had editors point this out to me too. It often happens because we write a few pages one day and come back later, maybe the next day or after an even longer delay, to continue. It’s hard to remember exactly what we’ve already said. We find ourselves once more in the drought-stricken fen, and golly, we want to describe it, so… It’s easy to let it happen, but rereading our manuscript a thousand times before sending it out, as we do, should catch that sort of thing.

Have you heard?

Another way this kind of repetition can creep in is equally explicable: a new character comes along. We want to tell him the information that the reader already has. There’s a temptation to run through the whole situation again, but here’s where it might make better sense just to summarize, “And he told Jane everything he had discovered.” In the case of the dry fens, no need to repeat that particular information as every new personage rides through. Not that you may not drop a discreet reference—“The horse’s hooves clattered on the dry earth”—but it becomes very annoying when the same battery of phrases shows up again and again. Readers are pretty smart. They probably remember how you described it before.

And another thing…

One teeny-tiny excuse for circling back might be if you’re adding something new. Maybe the inhabitually dry fens make the character think, “The peasants are going to be in trouble if the drought continues.” And then, that becomes a plot point. But use this device with prudence.

A harder problem to fix comes if the writer doesn’t really believe it’s a problem. If she views each encounter with the fen as a little descriptive jewel in itself that requires no consideration in the larger context. Or honestly thinks that her descriptive powers are lacking if she doesn’t go full-bore at every opportunity. I get this. Only, it isn’t true. Trust this reader, whose hackles are still up after her fifth pass through the fens!