Reading my work aloud, as I did this week for the 100th episode of Artchat podcast, I cringe when I have to run my tongue over the same word twice in the same paragraph. There, I have done it again. Same, same. Often it is a word of little value; work, work, dead, dead (which could be seminal in a story) business, business.Yet, is any word in a text of no value? If so, what is it doing there? A long standing weakness, this unconscious word repetition. My latest experience concerned a passage I had reviewed dozens of times, and which was vetted by a copy editor. Yi! I wish I had stayed with poetry longer, to reinforce in myself the importance of concentrating on the words individually instead of the stories they build, which always seem to demand urgent telling.
But conscious word repetition. That can work for emphasis. So effective in theatre, the recurrence of an image or a line. A truism lauds the rule of three, but truisms exist to be challenged. If I say something three times, is it boring, emphatic, unforgettable? Ie., value x three, three times more valuable? Less if I restrict my use of that word in a limited amount of text, say a paragraph or a chapter, to two times? More effective if I consciously sprinkle the same word throughout?
I fear my weakness could become fatal with age. What will ever stop me from repeating words that seem - at least at the time they spring to my thoughts, and then to the keyboard - the right ones in the right place? It may be only stopping altogether that stops me.
But conscious word repetition. That can work for emphasis. So effective in theatre, the recurrence of an image or a line. A truism lauds the rule of three, but truisms exist to be challenged. If I say something three times, is it boring, emphatic, unforgettable? Ie., value x three, three times more valuable? Less if I restrict my use of that word in a limited amount of text, say a paragraph or a chapter, to two times? More effective if I consciously sprinkle the same word throughout?I fear my weakness could become fatal with age. What will ever stop me from repeating words that seem - at least at the time they spring to my thoughts, and then to the keyboard - the right ones in the right place? It may be only stopping altogether that stops me.