Fun survey

For me, it's "just" in dialog.

"I was just trying to help you."

"If I could only just get him to understand."

As with any word, it has its place but I overuse it without thinking.

Chris P said:

For me, it's "just" in dialog.

"I was just trying to help you."

"If I could only just get him to understand."

As with any word, it has its place but I overuse it without thinking.

Click to expand...

I'm not bothered by any "over-used" words in dialogue at all. If that is how the character speaks, that's just how he speaks. Narrative is another thing altogether.

I probably use "that" more than I should, and am constantly doing a search for it. Sometimes I'll delete it or re-write the sentence when I find it, but sometimes it fits the flow enough that I'll hang on to it.

Chris P said:

For me, it's "just" in dialog.

"I was just trying to help you."

"If I could only just get him to understand."

As with any word, it has its place but I overuse it without thinking.

Click to expand...

My characters also are very fond of saying "just." I chop it sometimes and leave it sometimes. "Just" also shows up a lot in my narration. Most of the time I'll chop it there.

That, just, only, seems, and at least three or four others. I rewrite each sentence as I go, sometimes up to twenty or more times, so overuse of a word isn't really a problem, but it's still a bother.

paddismac said:

I'm not bothered by any "over-used" words in dialogue at all. If that is how the character speaks, that's just how he speaks. Narrative is another thing altogether.

.

Click to expand...

I understand your point, but I believe really good dialogue is crucial to selling fiction. Depending on how you look at it, my characters speak the way I tell them to speak, or I don't use characters who speak poor dialogue. Take your pick.

Good dialogue captures the flavor of real speech, but unless the character naturally speaks well, you have to remove the clutter, and overused words.

I do a lot of "that" and "as", the latter to connect 2 simultaneous actions. As in, "As Nadir tried to fumble his way out of the cuffs, Ameer was oiling the chainsaw." or "Ameer finished oiling the chainsaw as Nadir scrambled for the hammer to bash Ameer's head the f*ck in".

I also do the "present" form with the comma, "-ing" form a lot. I don't know how they're calle grammatically. Neither do I care Like so: "Ameer pounced at Nadir, swinging the chainsaw all over the place(,) OR (but) never hitting home".

Also, lot's of had. I write in "Did, went, saw", so when I write about something that happened BEFORE that, I try to only open it with a "had" and then let it rest, but it sounds weird.

I'm starting to get pissy at this repetitive sentence structure, but with English being only my 3rd language, I feel a bit lost.

paddismac said:

I'm not bothered by any "over-used" words in dialogue at all. If that is how the character speaks, that's just how he speaks. Narrative is another thing altogether.

I probably use "that" more than I should, and am constantly doing a search for it. Sometimes I'll delete it or re-write the sentence when I find it, but sometimes it fits the flow enough that I'll hang on to it.

Click to expand...

A character's verbal quirks are one thing, but they can be overused and too often ALL of my characters have the same verbal quirks.

I'm a somewhat-er. I catch all my 'somewhats' later and fix them. I think it's more of thought process in its initial stage.

"Realize"

My characters realize a lot of things, usually something they had "never noticed before."

UGH!

Myrealana said:

"Realize"

My characters realize a lot of things, usually something they had "never noticed before."

UGH!

Click to expand...

Yeah, but did it ever dawn on them that the realization had already occurred to the other guy?

I never realized how often my characters glance at things until I changed a character's name from Lance to Brice without selecting "whole words only" in the find and replace function. All my characters were gBriceing over their shoulders and shooting each other suggestive gBrices.