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I had to create a list of "Mari's common crutch words" in my notes - after I finish something, I go back and do searches for those things. Some of what I find makes my teeth ache. Mostly for "seem", "that", "saw", and "of course". I abuse "of course".
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"I run searches for a whole list of problematic words as part of my final editing process" This is as it should be! 
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Joined: 1/9/2012
Posts: 22
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'Seemed' is a particular favourite of mine, along with the ever-popular 'that' and 'was'. I find the best way to spot them is leave the manuscript for a while (at least a couple of weeks) and do something completely different in the meantime.
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Joined: 12/17/2011
Posts: 11
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Yes, I find 'seemed' or 'seems' crops up lot in my drafts. And another is 'then' - I note these are linking words. But I use similar descriptive phrases like 'narrowed eyes', 'nodding'. I had to cull them out because it sounded like I was writing a book on nodding novelty toys each wearing a suspicious expression. The online free Thesaurus is my best friend when it comes to coming up with alternative words or phrases. Or writing it in a different way.
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Joined: 7/25/2012
Posts: 25
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Two things.
One, the action tag 'grinned'. The main character grinned after saying this, grinned before saying that. I resolved this by letting him go ahead and grin, but I established it as one of his character traits - his 'smart-ass grin' perfected since childhood. He's a smart-ass anyway. Then I eliminated grinning from everyone else. (At least mostly.)
The other thing isn't a word, but a whole clause.
"Well, don't just stand there looking stupid..."
"Well, don't just stand there looking at me like you're falling in love."
"Well, don't just stand there, fool, drag the corpse into the sanctuary so we can make it talk!"
Again I tried to narrow it to one character. And I only picked up on it after five full read-throughs (looking specifically for problems like this.) I'm sure there's others I just can't see. Sometimes you just need an editor, no getting around it.
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Editors required.
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Joined: 5/28/2012
Posts: 43
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I noticed a few (too much shrugging, nodding, and taking sips of drinks) in my first manuscript. My boyfriend wrote me a computer program (he's a software engineer, took him all of 5 minutes) that counted the most common words and phrases in my manuscript. I then proceeded to do a command+F in my word processor and replaced most instances (not all, as it's OK to use these actions a few times, just not 20 or 30).
I think I'm doing better in my second manuscript but I'll run the program again. Can't be too careful. Don't want people to start counting nods instead of actually reading the story.
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I totally forgot I had this in my bookmarks.
Great website:
http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp
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Oh good grief, Yes! My characters shake their heads and smile & nod like bobbleheads. I regularly have to edit out "was, that, had" & superfluous modifiers ending in "ly." I like to believe I'm getting better but there's still no substitute for ruthless editing.
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Joined: 5/28/2012
Posts: 43
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There was a point in my life when I wouldn't have been able to be ruthless in my self-editing process. But that was before I went to graduate school. Then, I had to do research and write up my findings for submission to scientific journals.
But it's never just one author name, at a minimum my advisor is on the paper, too. And most of my projects have been collaborative, with two or three or seven other authors. So whatever I wrote there, was then sent out to be approved/amended/changed by the other authors. Sometimes things I really liked, got removed. I learned to deal with it. There's absolutely no benefit to arguing with a professor or colleague that one sentence is essential, when he believes it isn't. These were the people who were going to have to sign off on my dissertation and defense, so sometimes I had to just admit defeat.
But even though this was a completely different type of writing than fiction writing, it gave me new perspective. It made me see that I could, in fact, get rid of words/sentences/paragraphs/scenes that I really liked, and that the world wouldn't end because of it. (And at least I earned the position of final proofreader and grammar editor of my scientific paper submissions, so we could all benefit by avoiding the grammar and usage mistakes that seem to plague the scientific literature.)
It definitely pays to run a program or to visit a website that runs a script or to have readers check your work for crutch words. Some you will spot from a mile away, and others will show up that you didn't even realize were problems. That was the case for me, for sure. I caught the nodding and smiling, but didn't realize the drink-sipping thing. (Specifically sipping, don't know why I chose that word so much as opposed to any synonyms.)
When I have enough time to review works-in-progress on Book Country, I try to mention crutch words when I see them. Because when I review published books on my blog, if I spot crutch words, I'm merciless. Best to get help here to write the best work possible than to be made fun of by bloggers later!
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In this YA I'm doing, the FMC's words are
I mean
Like
Not that I
Whenever
It's just that
I'm about ready to sit on her fingers so she can't type any more.
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Crutch words can be dealt with by using a software such as http://www.wordle.net/. It will highlight the most "used" words in a story, so you can see what words are being overused.
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