I was listening to a writing podcast yesterday and the host was cautioning against using phrases or unusual words more than once in a book. This will means fiction, I’m guessing.
Anyway, I remember a book I started reading years ago that used the word “cacophony” three times in the first chapter - I didn’t read past that. Now, even hearing that words bothers me.
On the other hand, I just finished re-reading Catcher In The Rye and JD re-uses a lot of weird words and phrases in that book but somehow it works for me. ("damn”, “lousy”, “goddamn”, “crumby”, “hell” and “madman”)
Is it just me or does stuff like that bother anyone else?
It doesn’t really bother me, if the words are used correctly.
I do remember that Ann Rule sure liked the words “pellucid” and “ebullient,” and a true-crime book her daughter wrote a few years ago did copy her writing style quite a bit, but did not include either word.
The Catcher in the Rye is narrated by Holden and he’s a moron, so it rings true that his narration would have a limited vocabulary. Repeated use of words in the author’s voice is annoying though.
Stephen King bugs me sometimes when he does this, especially with made-up words. In Lisey’s Story, if I saw the word “smucking” one more time I was ready to toss the book across the room.
If the book is any good to begin with, I’ll notice odd or repeated words and grumble a bit. Then I just keep going. Takes more than those to knock me out of a good book. A boring book will get put down and not picked up again no matter the vocabulary.
Books take a long time to write. I’ve had the experience of surprising myself when doing a final edit of the whole of seeing a word or phrase pop up in several places. Then I have to decide whether to strike all but one out. But why exactly? If they were right for the sentence, how are they suddenly less right when used in many sentences? The writer then has to read the imaginary mind of some average unknown person who picks up the book. The answer is always yes, no, and maybe.
For some reason unbeknownst to me, many fantasy writers overuse smirk to the point that I get stabby. They often misuse it, too; many seem to think it’s a synonym for smile.
I was just coming in to say this. One otherwise good book smirked over and over and over. I read a story just today where the narrating character somehow reacted against smirking. Happy to see it.
One of my favourite YA authors, the now late Diana Wynne Jones, used to use the word “attend” a lot instead of what in my mind is more commonly said as “pay attention”. It wouldn’t bother me so much except it drew focus to the feeling that every character spoke the same way, similar cadence, similar vocabulary, which is usually not a good way to individualise them.