There are these awful words that plague me. I call them crutch words.
‘Crutches’ are pesky critters that appear when I’ve lost myself ‘in the zone’ of writing a draft.
They creep like spindly monsters into my work…over and over and over again they fill my stories with irritants. They are a PLAGUE on my prose!
The most frustrating thing about crutches is that they are ‘go to’ words. By that, I mean, I don’t even realise I am using them, they’re just salient in my mind so they repeated throw themselves at my metaphorical stage like school girls at a Take That concert.
But how do you fix them?
Until recently I spent hours trawling through my work to ensure there weren’t dozens of repeats littered through my text.
I’ll be brave and confess my crutch words. Although, they do change depending on what I’m writing. But a recent piece included things like: Look, eyes, so and deep.
Do you have crutch words? Do you know what they are? If so, what are they? Tell me in the comments below.
I discovered my crutches when I was using a nifty little tool called wordle.
You paste any text you like into Wordle and it counts all the times you repeat particular words. It then creates a visual image depicting all of the most repeated words.
In the picture the words that are repeated most often are the most prominent. So, the larger the word, the more repetitions there are.
And in true Blue Peter style, here’s one I made earlier:
I used a character exploration exercise I did a few weeks ago for this wordle.
Why use this tool?
- It highlights your repetitive crutch words and therefore repetitive description
- It highlights NEW crutch words
- It shows you your text visually – which demonstrates whether you are getting your message across – it’s a visual of your texts meaning
- They look neat, and you can mess about with the colour schemes and layouts
- Once you have done a wordle and can see all the repetitions you can go back to your word processor and use the find and delete mechanism to remove those pesky words
Here’s a wordle of this post:
Try it out, let me know what you think.
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Hmm. Just passed the entire texts of the first drafts of The Orphans and Knight & Deigh through it. Time to analyse the results…
Oooooo screenshot and send me the wordle I am curious to know what they look like ?
On their way – I have deleted the names of people, places and companies, as they are unavoidable.
Ah maybe I should have done that – I left mine in… Hmm
I love Wordle. I’ve never thought to use it in this way, though. I’ll definitely have to try it out on one of my novels.
I love it too, such pretty pictures, that are meaningful too. I like Keith’s point about removing names otherwise you don’t get a true picture of the text.
Yeah, that’s true. My novel is written in first person I bet a lot of the crutch words would be “I,” “me/my,” etc. I think I may try both ways just to see the difference.
I reckon I is excusable given it’s first person. 🙂
True, lol.
What a great tool. Thanks for giving us the link to it. Going forward I’ll be using it all the time now. I dread to think what will come up when I add previous blog posts to it.
I am so glad you like it Hugh, thanks again for sharing on G+ 🙂 I know, I find it a little addictive, its such an addictive tool I do it to everything I write now!
I’m looking forward to using it on my very next post and everything else I write. I have a short story I’m publishing on my blog next week and I’ll be seeing what Wordie comes up with for that before I press the publish button. It’s such a wonderful, easy, friendly editing tool to use
It’s such a great share, Sacha. Thank you.
ooh, well tweet me when your stories out, I would love to read it 🙂 and you are more than welcome – I love sharing the golden nuggets I find – thats what’s so great about the writing community – the willingness to share and grow together 🙂
I will, thanks Sacha. It’s a very quick read. One of the shortest stories I have written.
I’ve also launched a blog hop party today which is taking place all weekend. I hope you will be able to join in and spread some blog loving’ with me and my blogging community. We are looking for introductions to other fun loving bloggers, so if you do know any then please come and let us know.
Let me know if you want me to send you over the link on here or Twitter, and I will.
Have a great weekend.
Yeah sure pop it here and I’ll do some tweets ?
Thank you so much.
http://hughsviewsandnews.com/2015/03/20/i-am-pleased-to-announce-that-the-walking-on-sunshine-blog-party-has-now-officially-began/
I’ve already had quite a few bloggers over at the party, but the more the merrier. 🙂
Ok I’ll do some tweeting later for you ? and G+ etc ??
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
AUTHORS – A useful tip and a link to Wordle, say thank you to Sacha on her blog 😀
Just thank you. I don’t think any of us can thank you enough really Chris 🙂
It’s people who write great articles, like you Sacha, that make me look good when I post or reblog them 😀
Oh stop, flattery will get you everywhere! :p Besides, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be so encouraged to keep going 😉
LOL Fact does not Flattery make Sacha 😀 😀 😀
This is a handy thing! I can see many hours this afternoon whittled away Wordle-ing…
I’m glad you like it, thanks so much for reading and commenting 🙂
My pleasure!
Love this idea… if just for the pretty word pics! Am definitely going to give it a try! Cheers!
I know!!!! I love the pictures – especially that you can change colours and layouts – although that can be a little procrastination inducing! 😛
True… but then even writers deserve a little R&R now and again! ?
Reblogged this on Silver Threading and commented:
What an excellent article!
I loved this article! Had to share! Thanks. ?
THANK YOU SO SO MUCH 🙂 🙂 🙂
This was amusing; just for fun, I pasted in the manuscript file from my first novel, Disciple of Grief the only word in big text that wasn’t a main character’s name was “just.” And the character names were significantly bigger. I think that means I must be doing okay. XD
And that I have to go hack out “just…” Now to see what my other manuscripts say… hmmm. Thanks for sharing!
hehe!! you are definitely doing well if that is your only crutch word. I wonder if it would show the same thing if you cut all the names out? It’s such a fascinating tool. Thank you so much for reading and commenting, and good luck with the next novel.
When I get a chance I’m going to poke it some more, since I think you can tell it to ignore certain terms; if not, I’ll do a search/replace for the main names and make them all “Rodentia” or something, see what that does to it. XD
I have a long list of crutch words. Top of the list is ‘just’. My characters do an awful lot of smiling, too. Thanks for sharing information about Wordle. Just can’t wait to start using it. 🙂
It’s funny but although I have a couple of core ones, mine do tend to change depending what type of thing I am writing, but you can be sure that I will definitely have plenty of them! Thank you for stopping by and reading and taking the time to comment. Let me know how it goes for you. 🙂
Love this. You’re talking about someone who removes 200 ‘justs’ in every 2nd draft 🙂
Haha glad I’m not alone!
What a great idea! Can’t wait to try it. I have a list of my crutch words that I work on during one of my editing passes. I think the list is going to get longer…uh oh.
lol oh dear… well at least there is always ‘find and replace?!’ or delete? Crutch words are the bane of my life! Out of interest, how did you discover your list? As I only found mine through wordle, so I am fascinated to hear your method? 🙂
I came across a great list of weak, crutch and wimpy words some years ago. Since then, I’ve deleted some words that don’t seem to be a problem and added others. I go though the entire manuscript, “find” each one! And look for an alternative (or just delete it). Takes forever. I tried the wordless. Very helpful.
ahhh, fantastic, I may have to do a google, thats a great thought to create a list, maybe I will just collect all the ones I seem to use and then keep the list with me when I write so I don’t put them in there in the first place. But then again, like you say I might just end up adding others! haha.
This is very very useful to me! LOL! I think my crutch words are basic ones in terms of narration. Probably a bunch of ones I shouldn’t use.
Well, I am glad you will find it useful. I can’t live without it now. Hope your having a great week Anthony 🙂
Keep trying to run it but it’s blocking the java plugin and I can’t even download it. I’m finding more and more Chrome is just bloated beyond usability, along with the new Office preview on the mac, and essentially all the Adobe suite programs. Which unfortunately is what I use on a daily basis. LOL! I’ll just see if I can find a similar service somewhere.
OHHHH NO. I have to say I did have issues when I switched to mac. But I managed to download the Java plug in and it was fine. Works fine on my mac now. I wonder if you can download the Java direct from them?
I’m going to have to check. I just know java brings other issues. But either way it’s bookmarked!!
do you use mac at work too? could try there if not
Yeah I do. Originally where I tried it.
I used the word “smirked ” way too often in my last book, especially considering I never say it in real life. I did a purge during editing and now I’m hyper aware of this crutch.
Wordle sounds interesting and I like the graphics it produces. Thanks.
ahhhh ‘smirked’ yep, that’s come up for me once in a short story I wrote. Damn crutch words. I wish I was consistent with mine, but they change depending on what I write! Although I do have some regulars! thanks for stopping by, reading and taking the time to comment.
Bugger. Why oh why did you do this to me? Look, Like, Just and Thought. In my latest book. I’m scarred. Now I’ve a parasitic Wordle sitting on my bloody shoulder every time I write chirruping ‘Can’t use that, can’t use that…’
Can you stop being so funny! I now regularly look like a right weirdo looking at my phone laughing out loud to myself! and my laugh is not quiet! sorrrrrrrrrrry!! lol, but maybe you will forgive me when a quick Ctrl + F followed by a hasty replace or delete cuts your editing time down :p. ‘parasitic??? hahahahahaha
Ok, you’re forgiven
What a fun tool! Helpful too of course. I’m off to use it. Thank you! 😀
Thank you 🙂 I hope it proves useful. Thanks for stopping by.
Very cool. Thanks
You are more than welcome – thank you for stopping by 🙂
My pleasure
Had to laugh. It is like a plague I have to watch…and worse, crutch words are like season flu. Just when you think you’ve fixed it, the darn thing comes back in a different form.
Seasonal flu!!! Hahaha brilliant way to describe it – wish I’d thought of that! thank you for stopping by 🙂
Never heard of Wordle. Thanks! 🙂
Your welcome I hope it’s of use ?
I LOVE this wordle thing – am going to explore, thanks – and will cringe at all the ‘just’ ‘always’ ‘oh’ ‘really’ ‘seriously’ etc etc!
Ha! You and me both! glad you like it thanks for stopping by ?
Sacha. Silver Threading reposted this and it’s fabulous. I did a wordle on my first chapter and spent two hours taking “like” out of a memoir ms. Whew! Great tool! I’m reposting on my site too. Thanks so much.
Oh thank you so much. I am thrilled it helped ? it’s one of my favourite tools ? so I’m really glad it’s worked for you too ?
Reblogged this on Janet Sunderland and commented:
For those of you who didn’t see this somewhere else, I’ve reblogged. It’s a most amazing tool. After the Wordle constructed itself, I used “find” to search out the culprits and rewrite sentences.
Really interesting concept. Wordle is a delightful word.Thanks.
No problems, thanks for stopping by, glad you like the post 😀
You’re not alone, sacha. Think every writer has their own crutch words. I know I do. Wordle looks like a handy tool, tho. Must give it a try out 🙂
Thanks Wendy, and thanks for stopping in ? hope u find wordle useful
Sounds like a really useful tool. I know I have crutch words, but I also have a terrible habit of using the same word several times in a paragraph. I’ll have to see if Wordle can help with this.
I missed this! How did I miss this? I LOVE it. ? My word cloud will be hilarious. I can’t wait to see…
Lol I wana see your cloud. It’s an old post Sarah I decided to tweet some old ones again ?
I’m glad you did. I think my cloud will be: “like, awesome, whatever, totally, you know”
Great blogpost! I’ll be RTing and referring to it in one of my blog posts. 🙂 Excellent tool. I’m in the editing phase myself, so I’ll definitely be using this tool. 🙂
Thank you ? what I like doing too is a before and after – once u edited…because it’s visual u can see the difference you have made. Hope it works for you – I’m picking up my first novel and starting to edit tonight – any tips?
Good idea! I’ll give it a whirl. One tip for returning to your story to edit: Read it through just once — like a reader, not a writer. Give yourself a chance to enjoy it, and also to see where it flags, where your mind drifts (if it does…), and where it doesn’t. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was. 🙂
I started reading actually. But it’s bloody awful! Haha, wish I had been pleasantly surprised by its even worse than I feared! To be fair it was half done in NaNo and the second half is considerably better! But still it’s horrifying the amount of work there is to do. *cries into pillow* I’m hoping after a good first edit it will be much better and I’ll be much happier though ?
I have the half-half effect too. 🙂 Did you read it through completely, or is this your impression so far?
Well I am only about 15% through reading it, but I learnt an awful lot about how to write after I wrote the first 50% of the book so I know the quality of the second half is significantly better.
Yep. Same here. 🙂 It’s all good. Does this mean you also finished your first draft of Book 2??
God no! I’ve one completed 1st draft of my first novel and 30K of an unrelated second novel. An outline for book 2 in the series of that first book and about 8K of a non Fic book I’m writing – I’m all over the place! Haha how’s about u?
Ha. No, I can’t seem to work on related creative things. I am all over the place across varying categories ( fiction, non-fiction, crafts…)
Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
thank you for sharing <3
I’ve got to check out this program. I find a lot of my “clutch” words when I read my posts out loud to my husband, but even that doesn’t catch them all.
Oh my gosh, it’s AWESOME and super visual. I hope you find it helpful 😀