Authors: Do you challenge yourself? (Read 467 times)

[Kpatch]

Wondering if my author friends challenge themselves to work on something/change something/improve something as they write.

For example, I have been known to use the word "said" too much in dialogue. "I'll be there," he said. That kind of thing. So I have been challenging myself to limit how often I use the word "said," and to use alternative words to convey the same thing.

[heroicmuse]

Yes! I have a bad habit of using the same action tags with my dialogue all the time. I'm especially trying to get rid of character sighing.

[booksoapwriter81]

I do this. I once had a person who listened to me do a reading tell me that I used the word "as" too much. I have been trying to find other ways to say things ever since, but it's hard. There aren't a lot of replacements for "as".

When I write, I have a tendency to get stuck on certain words and keep using them over and over again in the same book for some reason. I usually become aware of it as I'm editing and realize that I keep seeing those same words. When I know I've seen them multiple times, I'll do a find and replace to see how many times I've actually used them. Then I'll try to replace as many of the duplicates as I can with other words that have similar meanings.

I can help you guys out with dialogue though. Instead of using "said", I'll use words like "muttered", "declared", "stated", "grumbled", "urged", "ordered", and so on. Recently, I even used "thundered" because a character pretty much exploded with anger. For situations when a character is infuriated, I have also used "roared" and "boomed". It's basically about finding a word that helps conveys the feelings behind what the character is saying. I reserve "said" for conversations that are really just used to convey basic information such as what time characters are planning to meet up somewhere.

[billiereed]

My overused word is 'that'. I don't know why, but THAT is it lol I really struggle with it. It's such a clunky one too.