Editing Your Draft – Crutch Words

I am currently hard at work editing my 90K+ collection of short stories that will be published soon. As I go through this work and apply some of the things that I’ve learned editing other authors’ works, I found that I have some crutch words.

In public speaking, crutch words are things like ‘um’ or using the word ‘so’ to start sentences when there is a pause needed to collect your thoughts.

It’s a bit different in writing. In writing, crutch words can pop out at you during the editing process. This is partly true because enhancements to Microsoft Word’s grammar check actually point them out with nasty brown underlines (appropriate color).

The important thing to remember is, if you overuse a particular word or phrase, your reader will notice it and will start to get annoyed by the frequent repetition.

My Crutch Words

My worst crutch words that I…