That Sounds Familiar: Eliminating Often-Used Words in Our Writing

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

It takes a lot of work to write well, and sometimes we go for what's easiest instead of what's original. Here's a heavily revised look at word packages.

During the drafting stage of a manuscript, some phrases and combinations of words tend to roll off our fingers and into our stories. Theses phrases aren’t clichés, per se, but they’ve been used so often by enough writers that they carry the same feeling as a cliché when readers read them.

They also tend to sound “right” to us, and that's the problem. We automatically use them without thinking about it, and that robs us of the chance to write something unique to our voice and style.

For example, I don’t know where the term “sodium lights” came from, I just know that I’d never heard of them, and then "The orange glow from the sodium lights” was in about half the novel I read for a while (published and critiqued). Even to this day, that phrase jumps out at me when I see it.

Despite the familiar feeling, "The orange glow from the sodium lights” isn't a cliché, but a word package--words used together so often they sound "wrong" to use them alone. A good example here is abject poverty. When was the last time you saw abject anything that wasn't poverty? Here are a few more you've no doubt read or even written:

• Beamed a smile
• Hair flowed down her back
• Cacophony of sound
• Shrugged a shoulder
• Any kind of glow from any kind of light
• Releasing a breath you didn't realize you were holding

These phrases feel so natural we can’t help but put them together, but when enough of them sneak into a novel, it loses its sense of originality. And that's the problem, because they also sound like "good writing" since we've seen them in novels we admire. By trying to write well, we're actually hurting our writing.

You don’t have to cut a word package if it works and says what you want to say. But they are phrases you might be using as crutches, like adverbs, weakening your writing because you’re not finding the right word for the job, just the easiest.

(Here's more on Overcoming Adversity Through Adverbs)

Common Places to Find Word Packages

In the descriptions: This is particularly true if you're not sure what things look like or you flat out don't like writing descriptions. It's much easier to let the familiar word package do the work for you, and since it already conjures specific images in your mind, it feels as though it's doing its job.

Look for anything that feels “written” or overly familiar. Word packages often read like a canned sentence, even if it's a good sentence (there's a reason these words keep getting put together). Trust your instincts on this, since everyone reads different novels and what's common to your genre might be different fro another. Only you know what’s familiar to you.

(Here's more on Is Your Description Helping Your Story or Holding it Back?)

In the stage direction: This is the area that always gets me. How many times has one of your characters "crept cautiously across whatever" or "pressed an ear against something" or heard "a noise rang out?" What your character is doing might be different, but it’s phrased in a way readers have read a hundred times before.

Some of these are so natural and common there's not much we can do about it to change it, but maybe instead of creeping cautiously the protagonist might sneak, or slink, or dart to the far corner of the room and duck behind the credenza.

(Here's more on Finding the Right Balance With Your Stage Directions)

In the dialogue and internalization: Snappy comebacks, dry wit, wry observations--these are phrases we hear all the time, so it’s natural that they’d make their way into our writing. How often has one of your characters said or thought one of these gems:

• Yeah, right
• Great. Whatever
• Or so he thought
• That’s what you think
• Wouldn’t you like to know

People do use these phrases every day, so they do lend a sense of realism to the dialogue, but consider how much they're really adding to the story. In many cases, there are more original options that will work far better.

(Here's more on Something Worth Saying: Writing Effective Dialogue)

Fixing Word Packages in Your Writing 

While not every familiar phrase has to go, it’s worth looking at each one and deciding if there’s a better way to write it. Can it better reflect your protagonist’s voice? Can you write it in a way that’s more original? Can you shift some worlds around so it’s not exactly the same as what’s often used? Can it be cut entirely?

If a line or phrase feels familiar, or feels like those words just belong together, (and practically type themselves) there’s a good chance you’ve written a word package. Take a moment and consider other ways to convey the same idea, or if that phrase really is the best one for that sentence. It could be the difference between ho-hum prose that doesn’t surprise and prose that keeps a reader guessing.

Do you have any favorite (or despised) word packages? 

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Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of "Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read" from the Georgia Center for the Book.

She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.

When she's not writing novels, she's teaching other writers how to improve their craft. She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing.

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*Originally published in 2011