# The Craft of Repetition — Steering the Craft

## Deliberate vs. Accidental Repetition

There is such a thing as clumsy repetition — the accidental echo that occurs when you aren't rereading as you write. That kind is easy to fix in revision. But to make a rule against repetition is to go right against the nature of narrative prose.

### The Anti-Repetition Myth
The journalistic and pedagogical rule against using the same word twice on a page drives writers to the thesaurus in search of far-fetched synonyms — flaming words that stick out of their prose like flamingos in a flock of pigeons.

If the right word is "said," use "said" — do not cycle through "exclaimed," "uttered," "pronounced," "declared," and "vouchsafed" to avoid repeating it.

## The Power of Deliberate Repetition

From the grandmother telling a folktale to the most sophisticated novelist, all narrators use repetition. The skilful use of it is a great part of the power of prose.

### Types of Repetition

**Verbal Repetition** — repeating a word or phrase for emphasis, rhythm, or accumulation:
- A word repeated like a hammer blow, gaining force with each use
- A phrase that becomes a refrain, changing meaning through context each time it appears
- A key word echoed across paragraphs, creating subconscious connections

**Structural Repetition** — events, situations, or patterns that echo each other:
- Near-repetition of events in different contexts
- A scene that mirrors an earlier scene but with changed stakes or meaning
- Patterns across the novel analogous to recapitulation and development in music

**Comic Repetition** — a recurring element that gathers comedic weight:
- Micawber's "Something is certain to turn up" in David Copperfield, gaining meaning with each recurrence

**Incantatory Repetition** — repetition used for ritual, rhythmic, or hypnotic effect:
- Sacred and oral narrative is completely fearless about repetition
- Repetition can give words majesty and power, as in an incantation
- The repeated phrase shapes the story and marks its rhythm

## How Repetition Works in Novels

### Opening Chapters Set the Pattern
The first chapters of great novels often introduce images, words, and themes that will recur throughout the book. Jane Eyre's opening chapters introduce images of imprisonment, fire, coldness, and justice that echo across hundreds of pages.

### Repetition Creates Structure
At the level of the whole novel, structural repetition creates the architecture the reader feels but may not consciously identify:
- A conversation that recurs in different contexts, revealing how the characters have changed
- An image (a colour, an object, a place) that appears at key turning points
- A physical action repeated — the same gesture meaning something different each time

### Repetition Reveals Change
One of the most powerful uses: repeat an element and change one thing. The contrast between what's the same and what's different reveals exactly what has changed in the character or situation.

## When Repetition Fails

### Accidental Echoes
An unconscious verbal echo within a paragraph or across adjacent paragraphs is distracting. It draws attention to the words themselves rather than what the words are saying. Catch these in revision by reading aloud.

### Dead Repetition
Repetition without accumulation — saying the same thing in different words without adding meaning. This is not the same as deliberate repetition for emphasis. Test: does each repetition add something? If the reader's response is "you already said that" rather than "yes, again, harder," the repetition is dead.

### Thesaurus Syndrome
The opposite failure: avoiding natural repetition by substituting awkward synonyms. If a character is walking, they are walking — they are not "ambulating," "perambulating," "proceeding on foot," and "locomoting." The word "said" can appear fifty times in a chapter and remain invisible; "ejaculated" cannot appear once without derailing the reader.

## Practical Guidance

### In First Drafts
Don't worry about repetition. Write the word that comes naturally. Deliberate repetition will emerge instinctively if you're listening to the rhythm of your prose.

### In Revision
1. Read aloud and listen for accidental echoes — fix these
2. Look for places where deliberate repetition could strengthen the prose — add these
3. Check the thesaurus impulse — if you've replaced a natural word with a synonym to avoid repetition, put the original back
4. Map structural repetitions across the whole text — are there patterns that could be strengthened?
5. Check that every deliberate repetition accumulates meaning — each occurrence should add something the previous one didn't
