Old and Recycled
Looking through my writings the striking familiarity of expressions stick out like a sore thumb. I used to mentally rap other writers for using the same words and phrases. In Sue Townsend's Confessions of a Middle-aged Woman she kept at using 'virgin' to describe pristineness. The sheets were virgin white, the writing pad she was about to write on was virgin white, the bathroom tiles were virgin white. Though I read it two years ago I remember very clearly how sickened I felt, though no fault of hers. Another novel I read was ornery. Yet another was ivory. Between both books, anything that wasn't ornery was ivory. The blasted words kept showing up every five pages or so.
Innocently we all do it. It's as unique a flaw to writers as fingerprints and tongue patterns are diverse among people. Funny though, I hardly see such repetitiveness among more erudite authors. Toni Morrison, Woke Soyinka and Chinua Achebe (all my favorites if you haven't guessed) for instance, their vocabulary is so variegated that repetitiveness are seldom. Or maybe I enjoy it too much to notice.
So how does one not get gored by the bull of repetiveness?
Firstly, widen your vocabulary. Be a gregarious bibliophile. Read and vary the subject matters. Look up new words and USE them in your own writing. Even if it's in experimental works the word will become a part of you eventually.
Secondly, fight your instincts. I personally tend to begin describing scenes with the sky. Even if the characters reside in an underground cave I'll inevitably talk about what they'll see if one of them decided to make the five mile hike to the surface of the earth and look up to the skies. Try something new!
Thirdly, new angles. Describe scenes and characters differently than the last time you did. If you read three romance novels back to back you'll notice the similarities in descriptions so much so you could accurately guess what will be written next. But if you ocsillate between several genres you'll start to see fresher angles.
Lastly, WRITE.
