word removal

Today, after finishing up what may be the final readthrough of Book Three pre-editor, I did my traditional search through the text for words I know I overused.  I got off easier on this book than usual, perhaps as a result of writing with focus rather than whenever I could squeeze a few hundred words in.  That said, in case you’re interested in writer process stuff, here’s today’s self-generated tasklist for ‘delete words I know I’m using too often.’

• Purpling (I used it twice in the book, and that’s once too many.)
• Intervening
• Retreat (which should only be used if someone’s actually retreating, or if the notion of retreat is metaphorically valuable.  Or if someone’s being given two desserts.)
• yawning (in the sense of distance—again, used it three times, which is two too many)
• dark (dark dark dark dark dark!)
• shadow (which I used much less in this book than usually)
• sweat
• world (you laugh, but when your characters start talking about metaphysics and global economics, this word gets worn out.)
• froze (as in, ‘in fear’)
• shook (especially in the context of shaking heads, but in the general oscillatory context as well)

I’m probably missing others, but that’s the immediate list.

Some more statistics for you: first draft of this book: 159,000 words give or take.  Third: 116,000.  Current (which is draft 7 or 8): 100,300.  Very pleased with what I’ve accomplished here.  And trust me, you won’t miss those extra words.  I don’t even know where they came from, and I wrote them all!