One of my wonderful proof readers sent back changes for the suspense novel I’m frantically finishing up. She mentioned in a certain passage using a word other than “bit.”
The thought suddenly lodged in my head that the novel I was currently writing may have had more than its share of that word written into it.
A search revealed that I had used the word “bit” approximately 87 more times than I should have.
Good grief!
It was a bit of a challenge to study the text bit by bit and find alternate words or phrases. By the time I was done I was just a bit on the weary side, but glad I had taken a bit of time to go through the process.
I think the story will read just a bit better now.
Seriously, though, I had definitely overused the word and my online thesaurus once again came to the rescue.
One thing that helped me was to really study the sentence or phrase, take it down to the bare bones and then build it back up using alternate words, but retaining the meaning.
What do you do when you find yourself using the same word repeatedly?
