Word Favoritism

My line edit was demonstrative of my favoring of certain words. Every writer has encountered this. They have words they like to use more than others. I will always try to use arcane and obscure language in my work. To sprinkle it in to keep it alive. Yes, it’s true. I love words, and my significant influences from my childhood are authors who never even saw by the light of an incandescent bulb. So, as their word falls out of favor, I feel it’s essential to use them to keep them breathing. The problem is, you can’t use them in every other paragraph.

So going line by line through a manuscript, I began to see a pattern. I had words that kept cropping up again and again. The funny thing to me was that it would be used multiple times in a few paragraphs and disappear. So they got replaced. Two chapters later, the same word reappears, and I’m replacing it again.

It’s a process, but having read several novels that missed this and it can pull you out of the page, I’m extremely cognizant of this in my work. While I love my words, they need to be more varied. Overuse of phrases and words can be distracting to readers. It’s vital that we use of extensive vocabulary and not fall into word favoritism.