A Very Good Writing Lesson

Arrival of the Entries For the past couple of months, I've been enjoying reading all the novels that I was honoured to adjudicate for the Scottish Association of Writers' Pitlochry Award - for a Romance Novel this year. Entries had to be between 10,000 and 15,000 words plus a synopsis, so there have been lots of lovely words and an interesting mix of themes and ideas.

I won't say anything about the novels themselves as I have to deliver my thoughts and results at the conference in a couple of weeks time, as well as provide a written critique for every entry. That has been an absolute privilege - I've only done this for short stories and articles until now. It reminded me how much I appreciated the detailed written critiques from the RNA New Writers' Scheme some years ago, when I was starting out as a novelist, and I've tried to be honestly constructive as well as encouraging and helpful. It remains to be seen if I succeeded!

An added advantage of reading other writers' work so closely is the fact it reminds me of what makes a reader want to read on, the kind of repetitions we all are guilty of to some degree but tend not to see in our own work, and how to make the best use of our wonderful language. For me, it's also been a valuable reminder about writing for a particular genre, so hopefully the entrants will agree with most of my comments.

Talking about repetition in general (and not the competition) - one word that many of us use to distraction is very. I'm very guilty of this - see, I hadn't even registered I was using it just now! If this is one of your bugbears, you might find this article on '45 Ways to Avoid Using the Word 'Very' extremely useful! Think I need to print it out and keep it beside me at all times.

What's your most repetitive word?

Rosemary