Today as I was editing my story with my mom, we discovered a few interesting things. There are a few types of sentences I like to use throughout the story, some of them are alright and acceptable, but others... well, they just aren't.
The Good Repetition:
I like to use the reoccurring theme of 'light and dark'. Not light against dark, but the two of them together. This plays a big part in the story which is nice because that sort of thing is easier to weave into descriptive language. Making a lot of descriptive language foreshadowing.
The Bad Repetition:
Now, I'm pretty sure I've got a lot more 'bad' repetition than 'good', but here I go anyway. First, I like to use certain words in every paragraph. This is extremely annoying because I'm finding a useless "that" every few minutes. Here's a list of words 'that' I found at least three times in a single paragraph today:
The Good Repetition:
I like to use the reoccurring theme of 'light and dark'. Not light against dark, but the two of them together. This plays a big part in the story which is nice because that sort of thing is easier to weave into descriptive language. Making a lot of descriptive language foreshadowing.
The Bad Repetition:
Now, I'm pretty sure I've got a lot more 'bad' repetition than 'good', but here I go anyway. First, I like to use certain words in every paragraph. This is extremely annoying because I'm finding a useless "that" every few minutes. Here's a list of words 'that' I found at least three times in a single paragraph today:
- "For a moment"
- "That"
- "Stunned"
- "Just"
- (and many more!)
I'm not sure if the two of us got overwhelmed this morning with my repetition, but when we hit a sentence including all four of those words we laughed for five minutes straight (I'm not even kidding). First because of how silly the writing sounded and second because the other person's laugh was too funny not to laugh at!
Are there certain words you find yourself using all the time?
And... it's Friday! So have a great weekend!
--Jess
