We all have our pet words. Words we either can't help using, or words we don't even notice we're using over...and over...and over again. My worst offenders are usually "just" and "somehow," to name a couple. To find my overused words, I pasted the first chapter of my MS into Wordle:
And voilà! This is a great visual way to find overused words in your writing. From this exercise, I figured out that I was using the word "like" way too often. Also, "just" (which I should have known!) I made some changes. After making some wording adjustments, my new word map looked like this:
I might make a couple more adjustments. Apparently, Mr. Shepherd is an important character in this scene, but I might be overusing his name a tad...
Want to try it? Visit Wordle!
This is such a great technique for catchy those pesky overused words. My sister did the same thing, and I always meant to follow suit (but for some reason never did). Guess I should give it a whirl. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of fun!
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