When one writes, and one is into the flow of writing, it’s not only easy to repeat the same word, it is a common practice. I’m not referring to big, key words, but the small words that are actually more ordinary in conversational English, rather than literary writing. These are words like just, only, really, meanwhile. They could be phrases like it seemed to me, I stood there, the next moment. I’m sure you can think of many more. Their very repetitions blunt the edge of your prose, and make their use, when vital, very less meaningful. One can, and one does. go through a manuscript and pluck out these weak straws, but it’s so very easy to miss them, more so when you’ve gone over your book a few thousand times. It is here that the computer really makes a difference. Your computer can do what I believe is called a global search and bring these words and phrases right to your eyes and you can do something about them.
2 thoughts on “The exact wrong word”
“But” is my repeater, my mantra. But, I love it!
I usually use the word ‘then’ over and over and then I have to go through and fix all of it!