Tags
book revisions, First round book edits, repetitive words in your book, Soul Mate Publishing, The Nun and the Narc
photo from Public Domain Pictures
Anna Langova photographer
The first round of editing has begun on The Nun and the Narc, being released the spring of 2013 from Soul Mate Publishing. Over all, I’ve have been pleased with the editorial comments. Really, who wouldn’t like to hear an editor say, “Your dialogue and characters leap off the pages,” and “I can see this as a movie.”? I grinned ear-to-ear when I read that! In spite of the glowing remarks, there were some things that needed addressing. No big surprise there as this is my first published book, and you always learn something new whenever a fresh set of eyes looks at your work.
For me, the most annoying one was finding out I have a list of favorite words that I used over and over … and missed fixing.
And here I thought I’d taken care of that pesky problem of repetitive words.
Some of the repetitive words appear in close proximity, but most of the overused words discovered by the editor are pages apart. However, when I did a Word search to find them it became a bit daunting to think I’d missed this problem soooo many times in the manuscript.
Here are a few of the words I discovered I love the most:
Push
Pull
Lean
Look
Up
I’ll not embarrass myself by publicly listing every word I used over and over (notice the purposeful repetition here ☺). Let’s just say I was a bit shocked, considering the number of times I, and my critique partners, went over the manuscripts. I even read this entire book aloud Given the frequency with which I used these, and other words, I’m pinning the list to the front of my computer desk for quick reference.
I must admit, having discovered this problem and correcting it, I find my book reads much better. I guess the axiom is true: no matter how much you’ve revised your book, there is always room for improvement.
Armed with this new knowledge, you can guess what I’ll be doing before the “final” versions of my other manuscripts are submitted for publication.
Have you checked your manuscripts for your favorite words? What are they?
Catherine Castle 