Little Random Crumbs About Writing

Eliminate Your Crutch Words

Crutch words, in writing, are words you tend to overuse, kahit pa meron namang other better options. And it's your job to spot them and take them out before they could annoy the shit out of your readers.

Iba-iba tayo ng crutch words. In my case, those are: smirked, shoot blasts, power, leaned forward, at marami pang iba na posibleng hindi pa ako aware.

In your case, it could be pouted, screamed, love, basically, actually, cried, etc.

It could be anything. Basta ba sila iyong mga words na maraming beses na nababanggit sa story⁠—except siyempre sa mga natural na madalas gamiting salita tulad ng the, said, what, etc.

The problem here is that they could snap your reader back to reality, reminding them that they're reading, not experiencing the story.

I remember one time, na-annoy ako sa pagbasa ng story dahil madalas magtawagan ang mga bida ng BB (as in baby). And as in bawat page, may BB talaga!

Hindi ko na alam kung nasaan na iyong librong iyon. Sinunog ko na ata.

But you get the point. Too much repetition would drive anyone mad.

The problem here is mahirap matukoy kung aling salita ang mga crutch words natin, dahil nauulit-ulit lang naman natin ang mga iyon unconsciously.

Or most probably, tinatamad lang talaga tayo mag-search ng synonyms.

There are several options you could choose though. Pwede kang maghanap ng text analyzer online at i-scan mo iyong manuscript mo roon, to check which words had a greater frequency. I tried the Text Analyzer from online-utility.org kanina kaso walang kwenta, pati iyong mga common words like don't e sinama sa bilang.

Or you could search for add-ons for your text editor.

Or you could just simply ask the help from your readers/beta readers. After mong ipabasa ang akda mo, you could ask them for feedback if there are any words na sa tingin nila e masyadong repetitive.

At kung dumating na sa point na aware ka na sa mga crutch words mo, what you could do next is to replace them with other words with same meaning. Para mas malinis. Para hindi ma-tempt ang reader na sunugin ang gawa mo.