Redundancies – Saying It Twice!
When
I’m drafting stories, I tend to write fairly quickly. I’m a big fan of NaNo and
usually have no serious troubles completely the 50k in one month.
However...
One
of the down sides of drafting quickly is I’m thinking ahead, not looking back.
I tend to say the same thing more than once. Often right in a row. Obviously I
don’t use the same words, but I repeat the information in a new way. Sometimes
I imply it or state it several times within the same scene. (I blame one of my
history teachers who never gave us high marks unless we could say the same
thing at least three different ways. *sigh*)
I’m
learning to trust my audience more. (You have no idea how hard it was for me to
NOT add another sentence here explaining what that first sentence meant... It’s
an addiction!)
Now,
when I’m revising, I’ve trained myself to look for places where I can ‘slash
and burn.’ This is by far my favourite stage of revising and editing now. It’s
become a bit of a game for me to find those redundant phrases. Imagining Aragorn
and Legolas standing by my side with their swords ready to slash helps as well.
How about
you? Do you have troubles with redundancies? Do you get annoyed when the author
keeps repeating the same information?
