The Book on FICTION WRITING | Advice for New Writers

Avoid Repetition

Ah, repetition. Repetition is the death knell of many a repetitive new writer, making their work more 'boring' or repetitive. Repetition is less inspiring for a reader to read, leading to less repeat reading from repetitive readers...

Ahem. Excuse me, I seem to have repeated myself a little bit there.

I've been doing this for years, and lemme tell you - repetition is exceedingly common, both in fiction and other types of writing (i.e. article writing). If you're not careful, you'll fall right down the rabbit hole.

So, let's look at the two types of repetition that I recommend watching out for, and learn why we you should care.

Repetition of words

Repetition of words can make for bland reading. It breaks the flow, taking the reader out of your world - creating a less-engrossing narrative image. Basically, by repeating yourself a lot, you're not painting as interesting a picture.

I remember once reading a 1,000-page fantasy novel from a relatively new writer and I kid you not the word 'incredulous' must have appeared at least once per page. Eventually it got so jarring I could barely focus on the story at all. Nowadays I remember this whole-ass novel not for its content, but for the incredulity of its characters. Needless to say, my face was incredulous.

Example:

Let's say we're writing a chapter and, in the pivotal beach volleyball scene where Starspangle has just snubbed Goompa the Wise again, we describe Goompa as "angry" in response. That's OK - "angry" is a perfectly acceptable adjective, even if it lacks a little bit of 'show don't tell'.

However, later in the same chapter, we check back in with Goompa and he's still pissed off. If we use "angry" again, it's a bit boring. It already lacked visual impact, and now we've repeated it twice. 

To avoid repetition, we have two choices:

1. The fast solution is to crack out a thesaurus and replace the adjective 'angry' with an alternative - perhaps indignant, or nettled. Maybe splenetic, if we're feeling naughty.

2. The more impactful solution is to try and show, not tell. How else could Goompa's anger be described? Remember again we must show, not tell: what is his face doing? Or his hands? What's his body language, where are his brows, what is his breathing, has he turned pink, is steam pouring from his ears, how is he moving around the space?

EXERCISE: Write a one-part short story or a new chapter on Wattpad, and don't use the same descriptive word or phrase twice in that chapter. Force yourself to come up with new ways to describe things. Check out my book The Book on Show Don't Tell for advice in this area.

Repetition of structures

Repetition of structures has the same negative impact on a story as repetition of words, but at a more subtle emotive level. Here we're talking about sentence lengths and paragraphs, not vocabulary.

To understand what I mean by repeating 'structure', let's think not about prose but about music:

Imagine counting out a beat - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve...just counting up endlessly. The same thing over and over. No varation. Chances are most people will tune out. Now what if we introduced variation to that music? Onetwo THREE FOUR, fivesix SEVENEIGHT, NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE ten el-e-ven tweeeeeeeeeelve. Hopefully you can hear a difference.

There's as much rhythm in prose as music, if you know how to wield a sentence.

Larger paragraphs and elongated sentences slow things down. They give you time to explain things, be accurate and descriptive, and really paint a picture. But, if you use them for action you may end up with quite a hard-to-follow sequence of events.

Short, laconic (using few words) paragraphs drive things forwards. They're fast, snappy, intense. They're incredible for action sequences, or suspense, or fast-talking call-and-response dialogue. But if they're used for important descriptions the reader might move on too fast without remembering what you're explaining.

Of course, the opposite can also sometimes apply. Laconic-only writing can sound a bit like:

"This happened, then this happened, then this happened, then that happened, then he did that, and he said this."

BORING. The rhythm is repetitive - it sounds like a gossipy child telling us what happened at school that day. What if it was blended a bit more?

"This happened. It was this. Then that. He said a few things and stalked a little. Then he waited. Waited. Then he did a thing that spurred the story a little further forwards, hoping like all hell that the narrative would progress. But wait, what was that? A noise. Subtle. Off to the right. He crouched." 

We haven't even introduced complex structure here, just switched up the sentence lengths.

You can also apply the same rules of reptition to line breaks and punctuation. Switching up punctuation allows for different types of paragraph, and line breaks can be introduced in all sorts of interesting ways. At their least, they break up big paragraphs that you know need to be snappier. But, you can also play with emotion using a well-placed Enter key.

Let's look again at that prior example, adding some line breaks and different punctuation.

"This happened. It was this. Then that. He said a few things and stalked a little. Then he waited ... waited ... Then he did a thing that spurred the story a little further forwards, hoping like all hell that the narrative would progress. But wait--

...what was that?

A noise.

Subtle.

Off to the right.

He crouched."

Use of elipses and physically breaking up the sequence added more impact to the 'waiting' - the reader literally waited with the character, like freezing in place. That helped build a little tension.

Mixing up structures in this very basic way will help you better match your writing with the reader's emotion, keeping them engaged and painting a clear picture in their mind.

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Here's something you're allowed to repeat - voting and commenting on this book. It can really help others find it! 

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