“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” — Samuel Johnson

First, consider these two cautions in using the find and replace feature of your word processor for editing:

1. Look at each occurrence from the search results to make sure a change works. Automatic replacing can cause problems. For example, consider the paragraph: “He sat next to her. In his grief, he was beside himself.” If you perform a find on next to and replace all with beside, you’ll have: “He sat beside her. In his grief, he was beside himself.”

2. Replace in moderation. If the change works, do it. Your aim is to reduce repetitions and weak words and phrases, not eradicate certain words.

3 Ways to Use FIND on Your Polished Manuscript

 

1. Peruse novels or keep an eye out for well-written phrases. When you find better or more concise phrases, search for a key word that’ll lead you to your ho-hum or wordy phrase and replace the ones that need a change.

Example:

If you mention a steering wheel often while characters drive, search on “steering wheel” and try a phrase like the following I found:

Before: He turned the steering wheel and left Main Street…

After: He turned off Main… 

2. Check counts. If you use an individual word (other than expected high-frequency words, such as the, he, a character’s name) in an 80,000-word novel over 200 times you should work on reducing them. Once, I used up 417 times. I cut the occurrences significantly. Check the words mentioned in 3. below. Using some of these over 25 times may be too often.

To obtain a count:

• PC = option + f and enter the word
• Mac = command + f and enter word
• Scrivener (get a count on every word in your manuscript) =
  • Select desired scenes
  • Click on Editor screen
  • Click on Project, Text Statistics, and Word Frequency
  • Click on desired column to sort

3. Search for these words or characters.

• Your favorite word. In one manuscript, mine was while.
• Exclamation marks. Use these for shouting in dialogue and thoughts. Your choice of words should show excitement.
• Ellipses (…)
• Filler words like uh or um.
• 

  by HebiFot

  Weasel words such as just, very, and some. Here’s an excellent post on words, phrases, and characters to search for: Editing Your Own Writing on Darcy Andries’s website. This is a must read. It covers:
  • Unnecessary and Redundant Words
  • Weak Words:
    • Dull Drab Diluters
    • Filtering
    • Colorless Verbs
    • Modifiers

Before sending your manuscript to a publisher, use FIND and search for these. Click to tweet.

What is the word, phrase, or character you have grossly overused in your manuscript?