70 Deadly Wattpad Sins (The Book Of Evil Advice!)

Sin #09: Repetition (Repetition, Repetition, Repetition)

Don't you hate repetition? I hate repetition. I hate repetition so much, I'm repeating how repetitive repetition is over and over and over and over and over and over...

So yeah, repetition blows. Why do people do it? Do they think that saying the same word over and over again will achieve different results? That, my friend, is Einstein's definition of insanity.

Who's insane? I don't even exist! You're the one talking to yourself, creep!

...Please don't become self-aware again, it's too early in the day. What it's not too early for, is a thorough and monotonous academic investigation into why repetitive word structure is generally disadvantageous to your piece of fictitious writing! Yaaay!

Booooo.

Okay, too pretentious? Well, it really just means that we're going to mix things up a little in your story. Let's kick things off with deciding what makes a stagnant vocabulary so unappealing to the reader.

To show this effect, we're going to pretend that one of Wattpad's many revered pop culture icons has sprung into (imaginary) life. Picture how the characters talk to each other, using the descriptive pointers below.

Example:

"It's me baby," playboy billionaire Zayn Malik mumbled as he stepped up to the plucky BBW's doorstep. Having left One Direction, he was now on the prowl for something else to fill the void in his turbulent, naughty heart.

"My goodness, I'm your number one fan!" The woman gasped, stepping back to let him inside of her humble 8-storey apartment that exists for reasons.

"I know baby," Zayn mumbled, as bad boys like him tend to do. Trivial things such as proper word pronunciation did not interest him one bit... but this sexy mama, she was the story of his life.

"You can't be outside," she gasped, "the full moon is almost here!" Gasping again, she pulled her hero into her inexplicably-wealthy dwelling and closed the diamond-studded door with a final gasp.

"I won't transform baby," he mumbled into her shoulder, shrugging her gasp off with a mumble. "Because you're going to break my curse with a little pillow talk."

Gasping at this, she fainted into the were-Zayn's hairy arms and let his soft mumbles carry her into the safety of her fangirl dreams. His mumbles made her gasp in her sleep, knowing that she would be the one to change his lone-wolf ways. With luck, hopefully she could even reunite her favourite band so that their combined mumbles might make her gasp in joy once again.

What is this thing you have with boy bands turning into vampires/werewolves?

It just... It bothers me, okay? I can get on board with fan-fiction, but do they ALL have to be slash-Twilight? Why not throw in a little 'Voldemort x Darth Vader', huh?

Anyway, aside from the unrealistic and completely-irrelevant amount of cash the BBW protagonist flashes around (oh boy, we'll get to that sin fairly soon), you can probably see where this is going. 

Most often, it's the conversational verbs like 'mumble' and 'gasp' that occur every single time a certain character speaks. In all fairness though, writers aren't going to notice how frequently they've repeated the exact same word choice until they proof-read it later... and I know just how much you guys loooove proof-reading your stuff, eh?

Y-Yeah! Uh, I mean... Who doesn't like reading over hours and hours of laborious work for little to no personal gain? Not me!

Sure, sure. My point is, if you consistently hammer on about how aloof your character is by having him mumble all the time, that's what the reader will always associate him with. Poor Zayn is going to look like a perma-bored werewolf with attention deficit disorder and a bad speech impediment... all because you couldn't throw in a couple of 'sighs' or even some commonly-overused 'said' descriptives.

It doesn't just make the character look bad, though. The author is also reflected through his/her vocabulary, and the mark of a great word-smith is a wide and diverse catalogue of resources to construct their sentences with. Knowing which words compliment a certain attitude or behaviour is ten times better than relying on the same one or two at every instance.

Are you effing stoned, Tyro31? You want us to learn every single word out there, and never repeat the ones we've already used?!

That's right! Good luck, buddy!

What?! You must be- Oh, right. You're yanking my chain, aren't you?

Well, don't make it so easy for me. Of course you can use words more than once, even in the same chapter! Other authors might have different rules, but personally I think it depends on the reader's attention span for catching duplicate words.

In my case, I try to avoid using the same verb twice within two-to-three paragraphs, unless my character is making a point through its excessive use, for comedic purposes or even highlighting a plot device. With that much delay between instances, it feels natural to repeat myself later if the situation absolutely demands it.

That seems fair, but what if I don't want to repeat myself at all? Can't I just use some other words instead?

Ta-daaah! www.thesaurus.com has got you covered... Hell, I'm using it as I'm typing this! If you're like me and have a bad case of Google-brain (thanks, stupidly-convenient internet), it's best to just look up the words that you don't want to use in order to find better ones!

Of course, such an awesome power comes at a price. You should always be careful of the connotations when stealing words, so that they compliment your intent; for example, a typical person can run. They can also sprint, flee, skip or depart. All of these are synonyms (identical words), with vastly-different meanings depending on the context you want to use them in.

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Sorry if this one was a little too on-the-nose... Sin #05 has taken over my life, and I am in dire need of some serious writing discipline. Hopefully someone out there found these tips even slightly useful though, which would make this chapter totally worth doing, which in turn makes me a happy Tyro31!

It's not so much that repetition is a bad thing; it's just another one of those minor flaws that piles up like scratches on top of an author's work. If anything, messy presentation just gives your readers more reason to put the book down and find something with more effort and care put into it.

People read our stories to be taken on a fantastical adventure, to learn facts and laugh and cry, to be swayed into certain moods and emotions. You know what's great at doing all of that? 

You guessed it, diverse word choice. Even the smallest swap, switching one overused word with another can evoke entirely different feelings and even change the tone of your story into something far deeper and meaningful.

Salutations, ancient chap! Acknowledgement for your congenial exemplar on the expressive non-participation of recapitulation! A noble consummation, I endeavour to postulate!

And then, there's those who can't stop themselves from using the thesaurus... Yeah, I'm not going to make a whole new sin for that. Just cut it out, man.

Oh, for fornicate's behalf!