The Throwaway and Overused Word List

Editors have a list of words they prefer not to see at all, prefer to see as little as possible, or prefer to be spelled or used only in certain ways. At White Rose, our current list is fluid, simply because sometimes, the wrong word can be used the right way.

A few of the throwaway phrases I tend to eye with suspicion, and then edit out (or not):

A lot of
To tell the truth
Going to go
Along with the fact
Of all people
Anything but
What on earth
In the first place
In order to
In particular
I’ve got to (and its buddies - We’ve got to, You’ve got to)

Overused words I tend to glare menacingly at and then edit out (or not):

Actually
Almost
Although
Because
Really
Still
Though
Usually
Like – often used in place of ‘as’

Spellings we agreed upon at WRP, despite American thesauruses (thesaurasii?):

OK

For the Christian Gothic Romance

Honour
Colour
Moustache
Neighbour
Rumour
Flavour

As with all things, writing and editing is subjective. Should the phrase or word be perfect for the sentence, or the character, I will leave it in. Such a phrase that often gets left in is “going to go.” When it is written as dialogue, it is natural in American speech. Used in a telling sentence, it’ll most likely be edited out. The ‘find’ function (under the edit tab) in MS Word can be quite useful in giving authors a chance to edit before turning in a submission.