OVER-USED WORDS

Several years ago, I saved a blog article written by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen where she gave a list of over-used words in our writing. Below is her top-20 list of over-used adjectives. Do any of these look overly familiar? If so, you might give your latest WIP another look, use the “find” and “replace” section of your computer and replace dull, over-used words with a fresh new perspective.

1. Many
2. Pretty
3. Nice
4. Kind
5. Pleasant
6. Tall/short/fat/skinny
7. Big/little
8. Shimmering
9. Absolutely
10. Same exact
11. Truly unique
12. Quite
13. Funny
14. Incredible
15. A lot
16. Bad/good
17. Roaring
18. Interesting
19. Amazing
20. Any

Some of these, I admit that I’ve seen and used before. I think it’s quite funny and incredible that some writers regard a word as truly unique and others think it is absolutely used too many times. Well, that was a small effort to use them all, but I only got about six.