I just finished reading a book (that I won't name) that used the term "my jaw dropped" and then a couple pages later "her jaw dropped" and then a chapter later "it made my jaw drop". It made me think seriously about my own tendency to repeat. It is probably the number one thing caught by my editor. If she stopped me from sounding like the book that will remain nameless, then I owe her big smooches! Seems if I think something fits in one particular scene I find a way to toss it out there again and again. Not on purpose, of course, but it concerns me because I usually don't catch it in 2nd or even 3rd scans.
I am in the process of writing a scene where my heroine is shocked...stunned...surprised and, yes, it was very tempting to state that her jaw dropped. But I was still too disconcerted by my recent read that I just couldn't use the term lol.
Back in the real world, my jaw did drop today when I brought our 2 guinea pigs to the vet for checkups and found out our boys were actually girls!
Anything cause your jaw to drop recently? :)
3 comments:
Too funny about your guinea pigs. Thank goodness they were both the same gender or you would've had litters of little cavies.
Nothing's dropped my jaw lately - at least nothing that wouldn't be immediately followed by 'WTF?'
Here's hoping I don't have any irritating repetitions, and that if I ever get an editor, they catch them before some reader does.
Hi Wendy. Love the jaw drop illustration. May I use it in a presentation I'm giving internally at my company?
This is a problem I have started noticing in my own writing lately and am trying to be really careful about! Too much repetition can make an otherwise beautiful story or description insufferably dull or even just plain irritating.
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