The Magic of Writing: Poof! Your Words Disappear (or Not)

You want to know how bad a writer I am? I used “by the time” twenty-one times in my current manuscript. I used it twice on the same page. That’s how bad a writer I am.

You may not find “by the time” on any list of crutch words, but it appears to be a crutch of mine.

I also used “just” two hundred and fifty-two times. “Then” two hundred times. “Turn,” “so,” “right,” and “looked” each more than a hundred and fifty times. I used some form of “had” three hundred and twenty-six times, even though I wrote a post about how you shouldn’t do that!

And don’t get me started on “try”/“tried.”

It may not seem like it, but I do work hard to keep crutch words to a minimum. They can make writing sound repetitive and amateurish.

But there is another category of words that you can’t avoid using over and over again.

Disappearing Words

For me, there are two types of words: words that disappear and words that refuse to disappear.

“And,” “said,” “but,” “he,” “she,” “they,” and similar words are ubiquitous, and so deliver their meanings without standing out and feeling repetitive.

So, you’re probably okay with, oh, I don’t know, maybe three thousand three hundred thirty-nine uses of “and,” like I have in my new book, or “said” five hundred eleven times, or “but” seven hundred fourteen times.

I hope so, anyway.

Non-disappearing Words

I’m more concerned with words that stand out, that deviate from the norm or describe something in a memorable way. Of course, such words are great. They add color and nuance. But it’s easy to overuse them, which will dilute their meaning and make your manuscript sound hackneyed.

Some of the non-disappearing words are substitutes for disappearing words. It’s fine to use something other than “said” occasionally, in a compelling circumstance.

But beware of gratuitous substitutions like “declared” or “asserted.” And don’t use such words more than once or twice. You don’t want to have a book where people are murmuring, mumbling, whispering, asserting, or opining all over the place.

Other non-disappearing words are any words that stand out because they’re not used all the time. For example, “stupendous.” It’s fine to use “stupendous,” but for me, twice in a book would be stretching it, and three or more times would be way too many.

There are countless ordinary non-disappearing words like that. Another example: You could write of your character, “It struck him that…” No problem, as long as things aren’t striking him too often. Ouch!

Like My Old Journalism Professor Used to Say…

…study accounting.

Just kidding.

What he really drilled into us was not to use the same word twice in a sentence. It’s good advice. When a person reads a sentence, their brain is looking for what’s new. A repeated word is confusing. It makes them stop, review the sentence, lose the flow.

I would expand that advice to cover any paragraph, or consecutive paragraphs.

You can’t always achieve that with disappearing words, but your manuscript will be better if you do as often as possible.

Another of my journalism teachers used to make us read each other’s copy silently, while the writer watched the reader’s eyes. As soon as the reader’s eyes moved back to reread something, we knew there was a problem.

There are all sorts of reasons for this. One of the most frequently cited was repeated words.

Try it with a friend. It works.

Like My Old Linguistics Professor Use to Say…

Okay, I never studied Linguistics. But I do have Google.

Therefore, I know that according to linguists, the average person has an active vocabulary of 20,000 words and a passive vocabulary of an additional 40,000 words. That is, 20,000 that you normally use and another 40,000 you would understand if someone else used them but wouldn’t normally use yourself.

So, if you’re writing a book of 80-100,000 words, you’re going to have to use some of your words numerous times. The key is to focus on which words, how often, and in what proximity. If you do that, your work will be stupendous!