Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Demon Words

There are lots, sometimes I am amazed how these little devils sneak into my text.
One that I was fond of using was "then" it was everywhere. I carefully pruned my MS but my editor came back with a query about my over-use of "then" Dang it the critter still had persisted, needed to get out the DDT this little word was indestructable.
However, having this pointed out made me take extra care. I am not too bad with "then" now.
I am sure other little devils have taken its place. I am not too bad on because but just is one that persists.

I steam ahead some day with my writing, when the muse is on overtime I am hard at it, and this is when the dastardly words sneak in. Hopefully, when I re-edited a previous book which is coming out again, I got rid of them...hopefully!

5 comments:

  1. 'Then' and 'just' are also my little demons, so please share the DDT spray with me, Margaret, I need to kill those critters too!

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  2. I thought we were going organic. Let's weed them out!

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  3. Hi,

    (((giggle)))

    That's it though, isn't it, getting the all important words planted, then we can hunt down demon interlopers whilst weeding out dead wood. :o

    best
    F

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  4. Ah...the dratted 'then'. I use sentence structures with that little bugger a lot...*sigh* I guess that's what editing is for, hey?

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  5. Weeding is back-breaking (and the weeds grow back). Zapping the critters kills 'em once and for all.
    Maybe it's equivalent to searching through your work for over-used words and phrases compared with using an online programme to do it for you. In the end, of course, the result is the same as you get rid of them. Or is it? Visit my blog tomorrow for the answer to that :-)

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