A couple of months ago, I was lucky (extremely lucky) to win a full manuscript evaluation from Angela Ackerman, the genius behind The Bookshelf Muse. Among a number of errors I was making, she pointed out something that weakened my writing, which she referred to as “echoes.”
What is an echo? Basically, it’s exactly what the name implies. A repetition. It can be as simple as a word that you overuse. For me, it was “race” (among others). My protagonist used to be a competitive swimmer. She had to give it up even though she didn’t want to. So when I wanted to imply that she went from point A to point B quickly, I tended to use “race.” I thought I was being *cough* clever. I did use run, sprint, bolt, and rush, too, but not as much as race.
Before Angela read the novel, a beta reader pointed out my abuse of the phrase, “Are you okay?” Having people ask my protagonist if she was okay was fine, but I needed to add a little variation to the question. With my rewrites, though, most of these were deleted since they were no longer necessary. There were other phrases, too, that I tended to overuse without realizing it (until Angela pointed them out).
The third type of echo I used was explaining why my main character gave up swimming and how she felt about it. I keep mentioning it again and again in her inner thoughts. I didn’t need to do that. The reader already got it the first time. I did vary what was said. I just didn’t clued in that it was all saying the same thing. Sad, huh?
To avoid the dreaded echoes, try to read through your manuscript in one sitting (or over a short time frame) and preferably out loud. You’ll notice them if you do that. If something seems like you’ve already repeated it a few times (especially a word or a phrase), jot it down and do a search later on with the FIND function. Your beta readers and crit partners will hopefully point them out, too. Do this, and your writing will be much stronger.