The Problem Word List: An Essential Tool for Your Self-Editing
If you’re facing down your final round of self-editing before sending off your manuscript to a professional and/or hitting the old “Publish” button to release your finished book to the world, you might feel a bit daunted by all the picky little things that need to be checked, rechecked, cleaned up, rewritten, or corrected. Here’s a tool that might make the process a touch easier, even though it seems incredibly simple: a problem word list. Keep reading to find out more, including what goes on a problem word list and how to use one effectively.
What’s a Problem Word List?
A problem word list is, simply put, a list of words and phrases that you overuse, repeat, tend to misspell, want to ban from your book, that might be offensive to readers, or otherwise cause you trouble and grief.
This list can help you keep track of writing habits on the spelling and grammar level that live in your subconscious and pop up when you’re in the zone, drafting freely, and not paying attention (rightly so) to the nitty gritty details of language in order to get the story told. When you’re ready for your revision/self-editing pass, you can then whip out the word list and zap those offenders quickly and easily with a simple search (more on that below).
Problem word lists can “travel” from book to book, series to series. Once you create it, you can use the same base list for every project you write, then add book-specific names or titles or words that do or might trip you up for that particular story. (Example: if you create a made-up-language-specific noun for your world, but find yourself spelling it slightly different in the beginning of the book versus the end, add it to the list.)
What Should I Include On a Problem Word List?
As an editor, my base list contains quite a few commonly misspelled words, idioms that are frequently mangled, words that are often misused, plus entries for phrasal verbs and gendered/offensive words to watch out for.
However, as a writer, your list might be different, and it should definitely be tailored to your specific peccadilloes.
Here are a few ideas to get you started, though:
Your common misspellings
Add words that you commonly misspell or swap in meaning (like rifling/riffling, vice/vise). These should form the bulk of your list. Include all the various ways you tend to misspell the word, too. (This will be important later; see below.) For instance, if you sometimes spell “broccoli” as “brocoli,” put both spellings on the list. Highlight or bold the correct spelling.
Hedge/inflation words
Include any words that clutter a manuscript without adding much meaning like really, literally, usually, seems to, etc. For further explanation of hedge/inflation words and more examples, see this awesome article: https://janefriedman.com/hedge-word-inflation-words-prune/
Redundant/overused words
If you tend to overuse certain words or phrases across the entirety of your work, put those on the list, as well as any phrases composed of words that are redundant in meaning (like “nodded his/her head” or “stood up“).
Tricky idioms
If you know you have a problem writing idioms correctly—such as “for all intensive purposes” rather than “for all intents and purposes”—put the incorrect version on the list, followed by the right one.
Anything your editor commonly flags in your books
Once you’ve been edited a time or two, your editor will probably identify other problem words or phrases that can also go on the list. Keep the list handy while you work through his or her suggestions and add to it liberally.
Words particular to the world of your story
If you’ve created any words or languages for your book’s setting, put them on the list. Yes, even though you created the words, you might misspell them or mistype them, so having their correct spellings handy as you self-edit is a wise idea.
How Do I Use a Problem Word List?
As one of the last steps during your self-editing, you should be doing a pass through your manuscript to clean up spelling, grammar, and basic language-level mistakes.
During this pass, have your problem word list handy. In your word processing software, open up your Find or Search function (in Word, this is done through CTRL+F) and search for each individual word on your list. Search for their variant spellings and any misspellings that you might tend to use (for example, if you commonly misspell “vise” as “vice,” run a search for “vice” and zap any that come up). Search for shortened versions of tricky words: that is, search “river” to find any uses of “river bank” (the word is commonly closed up: “riverbank”) or “rose” for “rosebush” (also closed), etc.
A Problem Word List Isn’t a Magic Bullet
You can probably guess that having a problem word list around isn’t a solid guarantee that you’ll find every misspelling or incorrect usage. But it does help you locate your most common snafus, and that alone might help you reduce the errors in your manuscript significantly.
You do have to put effort into creating the list up front, but then keeping up with the list, while worthwhile, can also be resource intensive, especially if you’re an author who writes prolifically.
Conclusion: Use a Problem Word List to Up Your Self-Editing Game
Self-editing is such an important part of the writing and publishing process, even if you engage the services of a separate editor. Approaching self-editing in as professional and thorough a manner as possible is one way to ensure you’re putting out a quality product that your readers will appreciate and respect you for. A problem word list can help you level up your self-editing game, and potentially even reduce the cost of editing should you engage a pro since you’ll be handing him or her a cleaner, more polished manuscript to work on.
For more self-editing tips and resources, visit the Resources section.
