Not long ago an author friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that the book he was reading had too much repetition. “Characters frequently curl their fingers into their palms,” he said. “And everything smells like cinnamon.” In the amount of time it took three people to comment, my friend noted that he’d read about the smell of cinnamon twice more. It was not a story about a bakery, I should add.

Um. One really expects these things to be caught in editorial.

Writers do tend to repeat things—often so close together I’m surprised they didn’t catch it themselves. And when it’s an “unusual” word, it becomes very noticeable. By unusual, I don’t mean a word with an uncommon spelling (although that could be a factor) or meaning. Just something that pops a little. Like cinnamon. In a manuscript I worked on last week, it was instantly and epic. Over and over.

The Chicago Tribune quotes Gillian Flynn on this very topic. “I’m trying to wean myself off my very Gen X abuse of the word ‘literally,’” she says. “‘Gone Girl’ contains at least 33 uses of the word, which is 32 more times than any single novel needs. I just have a deep, wrong love of that word; it’s so punchy. I basically (literally) use it instead of an exclamation mark.”

See? It’s not just you.

Sometimes you find repetition in your beats: your characters constantly blush/flush/turn red; they frequently smile or smirk; they glance or look over, huff* or sigh … all the time. This is a problem I see regularly, kids.

Often it’s an adjective or an adverb. Sometimes it’s slang. (Slang words really pop. Also, they can date a novel in a hurry, so be cautious.) And there’s the ever-popular So or Well we find at the beginning of sentences in dialogue.

I call this Favorite Word Syndrome. Carol Saller, the Chicago Manual of Style’s Subversive Copy Editor, says she tries to refrain from pointing out bad writing habits, but it’s my job to do it. Thus you might get a list of Your Favorite Words in my editorial notes. (It’s Sallers’s job, too; she’s just nicer about it than I am.)

But wait, you say, I’m establishing my theme here! It’s symbolism! It’s a rhetorical device! It’s my voice! My style!

No, it’s what we call a writing tic (“a frequent, usually unconscious quirk of behavior or speech,” says my favorite dictionary—or writing, says Your Editor). There’s a difference between establishing a theme and redundancy, and you’d be wise to develop a sense of the difference.

How? In your self-edit process. In your second (third, fifth …) draft. Because you’re not sending me your first draft, right? Right. Get the words down, get the characters, the plot, get it all workin’ in what Anne Lamott calls the “shitty first draft.” Redundancy is fine here. But in your next drafts, you’ll be tweaking those sentences, making them prettier … and looking for words you’ve used too often.

There’s software to help you with that too. When I asked around, I learned Scrivener has a feature that will pull out and number frequently used words. And I was directed to WordCounter (free) by my friend Michelle Ule. A brief search turned up Hermetic Systems’s Word Frequency Counter (for Windows users, and not free). There may be others. (And none have been test-driven by me.)

And here’s another quick tip: read your manuscript aloud. You’ve heard this advice before from me as a remedy for a variety of problems, and it really does work. Those writing tics will leap right off the page when you hear them. Having a friend read aloud while you listen is even better.

Bottom line: There are three hundred thousand words in the Oxford English Dictionary, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t avail youself of those myriad choices. Establish a theme, sure, but keep an eye out for your favorite (ahem) words and other redundancies. Consider this when you are polishing up your manuscript.

* Although I really hope not.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”