16. AVOIDING REPETITION

When writers are working through a story, they are concerned that readers should understand what is happening. However this often leads to repetition – and I don’t mean repetition of words here, because we’re not really down to tiddling with individual words yet in this series of articles. I’m talking about repetition of information given to the reader, scenes which overlap and offer the same information in a slightly different way, or which blatantly offer it again. This should be one of the key things to watch out for when editing scenes.

It’s amazing how often one can find some minor repetition of action or information when one goes hunting. Beginning writers tend to overload the story with information for fear of readers not understanding the point. I’ve kept my old manuscripts and I definitely used to do that myself. (Don’t we all when we start out?) Publishers' editors cut out the various types of major and minor repetition ruthlessly, shocking you at first, but after you’ve worked through a couple of books with professional editors, the penny starts to drop.

Repetition is not a good thing! Avoid it like the plague at all levels.

In fact, learning to avoid it is part of developing a professional attitude to one’s work. All writers repeat themselves in matters big and small, inevitably and involuntarily, during the first draft, when the purpose is to tell the basic story. The gross repetitions stand out clearly as you revise and you can learn to cut them out as you polish your work.

REASON FOR AVOIDING REPETITION Why is this so important? Because repetition of any sort slows down the pace and pace is a crucial component of a well-written novel. If the pace isn’t good, the reader gets bored. If it is good, the book is complimented by being called a ‘page turner’. I think getting the pace right is perhaps one of the later skills to develop, but you can consciously work towards it.

Repetition in real life is simply not as noticeable, because the time element is so much greater between occurrences. But how many pages/reading hours do you get to tell a story? Not many, considering what you pack in. And in this short space/time, repetition stands out like a sore thumb. It is the enemy of good, page-turning reading.

CHECK LIST So go back and read through your work with an eagle eye for repetition of any sort, but most especially at this stage look for repetition in the information the various scenes convey. Ask yourself questions like:

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