What words are we overusing?

[barrett1987]

"She knew that he had gone away." vs. "She knew he had gone away." vs She knew he'd gone away

If i cut the that i'd got with the underlined option over the middle.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Looking at my "finished" works, there's not a lot I'm worried about. But I know I have a huge problem with weasel words (Just, slightly, "a bit", "a fraction", "almost") and ruthlessly edit them out (though not without whinging and soul searching).

One word of caution: "She knew that he had gone away." vs. "She knew he had gone away." It might seem that you can drop the "that" without consequence, but the first sentence is in iambic tetrameter, and the second isn't. Cadence and rhythm matter, and sometimes more than having an extraneous "that".

That's where I think reading out loud comes into it.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

Word Frequency Counter

Showed me this, from 60k words wip.

...
684 stranger
...

Was is an obvious problem

... interesting list - I'm particularly intrigued by 'stranger' being your Number 2
(assume "wyn" and "t" are names?)

 

[FibonacciEddie]

On an early draft (but not that early) ... I had 100k words and 1,210 'that' ... I went on a rampage and I am down to ~150 -- you really can chop 'em

 

[barrett1987]

t = anytime you use don't wasn't 't <--comes as t.
Stranger is my main character.
I've spent the day editing (more tomorrow) and dropped about 600 uneeded words.

 

[barrett1987]

92k MS - word count. Going to purge a few more words
612 was
598 him
545 from
476 that
448 back
426 but
423 out
407 into
402 down
399 what
389 had
336 they
335 up
328 eyes
320 this
315 me
314 one
314 man
302 have
290 face
267 not
261 over
251 through
237 now
226 hand
207 your
207 away
206 there
204 looked

 

[barrett1987]

writeword org has a phrase counter. Now that's interesting.

 

[barrett1987]

97k ms
680 was
646 with
616 him
573 from
567 wyn
524 as
507 be
501 that
474 for
459 but
454 back
441 out
435 down
424 into
419 what
416 had
355 d
351 they
348 up
332 this
332 eyes

 

[barrett1987]

Was obviously needs culling and that. They just seem to creep up so easy

 

[Venusian Broon]

Just did a Scivener trick on a WIP for some numbers.

Total word count: 10,322.
High frequency words, sorted by use:
the, 573 (5.5%)
a, 291 (2.8%)
to, 275
and, 245
Puck, 193
his, 185
you, 184
of, 166
Ashbury, 162
he, 160
I, 112
in, 108

The high use of 'the' and 'a' is probably due to my being American (*gasp*), as we don't go around dropping articles (zero-marking) as much as the Brits.

Apparently not this bit of Britain, my top 5 words were: the, a, of, to & and. And in approximately the same percentage of total as yours!



Here is another website that analyses your work for fun, although this can perhaps be a little more ego-inflating:

'I write like' at http://iwl.me/

Depending on what section of work I've put in I tend to get Arthur C. Clarke or James Joyce. Not sure what this says about my style or choice of words, as I've not read any ACC for decades and I've not read any Joyce at all.

 

[Ursa major]

I'm surprised that 'he' and 'she' don't come up more.

 

[barrett1987]

Yeah i cut the most used words like to, he, she , etc etc because its more about the words we overuse that we shouldn't be overusing.

 

[Ursa major]

How do you describe characters' actions and the like, then?

(I'm assuming you don't tend to use their names (or titles or jobs), as they don't appear in the list either.)

 

[barrett1987]

I meant i cut the common words like that from the list.. not the ms w

 

[Mr Orange]

before culling every instance of common, useful words, has anyone looked into what is too many? maybe a good, flowing story has a high percentage of "was" and "that"?

or maybe it doesn't...

 

[barrett1987]

I find when im using a lot of was or that its because my sentences are a little boring. Was and That are useful but sometimes there is a more descriptive word that does the job.