Retire "Tired" Words

During lunch, a group of writers began discussing overused words. Some words are repeated in society so often they should be banned by everyone. Other words are perfectly fine until you or I use them too many times and they need to be culled from our writing. You may disagree with my list of tired words and continue using your favorites, but overusing words is a sign of lazy writing.

Some words like "big" aren't descriptive enough and should be substituted with a more precise word. Often a word like "just" can be dropped or substituted with "only."

Sometimes the word doesn't need to retire, only the way it's used. You may say your glass "shattered," but don't say your heroine's emotions are "shattered" because that's been written too many times before.

My hero was "chagrined" in chapter two and again in chapter five. A published author said I'd overused "chagrined" because it was a word that draws too much attention to itself. Unique words should be handled like savory spices, sprinkled in small amounts.


Banned Words:
absolutely
amazing
angry
arguably
awesome
awfully
bad
beautiful
because
big
decimate
even
fine
fix
good
great
happy
hard
interesting
just
like
literally
look
nice
quite
random
really
ridiculous
sad
seemed
seriously
shattered
so
soft
sweet
utilize
very
well
whatever

(Feel free to add or delete your overused words.)

Don't worry much about using banned words in a first draft. Your goal is simply to get the scene written. When revising the manuscript, you can use the "find" feature to locate your overused words and substitute with more appropriate choices. Once you decide to retire certain words from your writing, you'll automatically begin substituting with better words. Don't stay in a rut. Take time to choose a fresh, unique word for the situation. You'll become a better writer. Isn't that our goal on the writing road?

~Roxanne Sherwood