Sunday Writing Tip: A Trick for Finding Overused Words in Your Manuscript

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your manuscript to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week’s tip is a bit different, but one I find incredibly useful. It’s my favorite trick to easily spot specific words or phrases.

To find all occurrences of a single word in a manuscript, do a search for it and replace it with the same word in bold and red.

That makes whatever you’re searching for pop out. Not only will it be easier to find, you’ll be able to clearly see how many times you’ve used that word of phrase on a page. The bold red stands out even when you zoom out of the page and can’t read the exact words anymore.

For more editing tips for your novel, try these articles:

• A Quick Tip for Finding Repeated (and Weak) Words
• That Sounds Familiar: Eliminating Often-Used Words in Our Writing
• Get Over Overstating: Trimming Unnecessary Words in Your Manuscript
• We're Ready for Revision Pre-Flight: 10 Self-Editing Tips
• The Spit Shine: Things to Check Before You Submit
• Tightening Your Novel With a Preposition Patrol