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The Basics
Say it Once, Say it
Right
Let's
face it. We're writers because we love words. We love the way they
sound and we love the way they roll off our tongues. We love to string
them together and give meaning to our existence through them. Words are
our babies. And one of the toughest things we must do as professional
writers is to weed through our creation and eliminate the words that
don't pull their own weight.
Redundancy
is one of the carnal sins of writers. We don't trust our words to do
their job, or we don't trust our reader to catch our meaning the first
time. So we repeat ourselves. Unfortunately, any word that doesn't add
to a story detracts from it.
This
doesn't mean you can't save your clever words for another use. As an
alternative to deleting your favorite groups of words, keep a file on
your hard drive titled "Babies." Whenever you write beautiful prose
that just doesn't fit your story, cut it from your manuscript and move
it to this file.
For
those little redundancies, the little repetitions (like in this
sentence), the best alternative is death. Let's take a look at an
example:
Shelly
sat cross-legged on the over-sized sofa. Her life was about to change.
She peeked inside the envelope. The letter in the envelope was neatly
folded. She took the letter out of the envelope and opened it. She was
afraid of what it would say. She was scared that Larry was giving her
the brush-off. Her trembling hands held the paper open. With great
trepidation, she read the words that would change her life forever. She
would never be the same again.
Okay,
redundancy irritates us. Did the writer think we were so bored we had
nothing better to do than read the same thought over again? Or did the
writer just think we were too stupid to catch on to what was happening?
My guess is that the writer was trying to slow down the pacing and
became lazy.
Regardless
of the reason, we, as writers, don't want to irritate our readers.
Therefore, we need to use care in choosing words that best say what we
need to say, and then say those words once.
As
a writer, you have to trust your words to do their job and trust your
reader to do his. So, let's revisit Shelly's letter and see what we can
do with it:
Shelly
sat cross-legged on the over-sized sofa and peeked inside the envelope.
She removed the neatly folded letter and opened it. Her hands trembled
as she read the words that would change her life forever.
Well—it's
better, but we can see the need to slow the pacing. To do that,
we can add one of the following to the paragraph:
- An action to show her concern: "She wiped her palms
on the shirt Larry had given her."
- Something to give the depth of her feelings: "She
wouldn't be able to bear life without Larry."
- Or the use of other senses: "The letter smelled of
Old Spice. Shelly took a deep whiff and imagined Larry sitting next to
her, holding her hand, rubbing her knuckles, bringing her fingers to
his lips for a soft kiss."
Redundancy
can also come in the form of a single word or phrase. For example,
"free gift" or "sum total." In the original example, it's the use of
the word envelope.
Some
writers repeat ideas in a list, such as, "She was tired, worn out, and
exhausted." Wouldn't just saying she was exhausted serve the purpose?
What works even better is saying it with creativity and action, like,
"Exhaustion hung to her like possums to their mama."
Be
aware of repetition in your writing. Crisp prose has no room for it.
Our text editors can help you identify repetition in your work with our
Editing and Critiquing
Services.
For
additional
tips, worksheets, and discussions, order your own copy of the
Inspiration for Writers Tips and Techniques Workbook.
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