Whether of the past or as a portent of what is to come, echoes can be a wonderful device to create and build tension – or they can be the bane of a writer’s existence.

How often have you sat in front of your screen, the words pouring forth so fast that your typing sometimes more closely resembles code than English. Scene completed, immersed in your other world, that frequently-fleeting feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment inspires the PRINT command. Done! The critiquing group’s admiration and awe of such eloquence and irrefutable logic is a foregone conclusion.

Then, fighting to control facial muscles, it is time to share this amazing jewel. And to cringe. Echoes abound. What had happened? Where did they come from?

Echoes for emphasis are one thing; echoes reflecting a lack of vocabulary are a writer’s nightmare.

Suggestions:

• Identify favourite words/expressions. They leap onto the screen by osmosis. (Search and Replace is one of the best features of Word. Right after its personal dictionary.)

• Read the work aloud, preferably to another human being, but the cat or dog will provide an uncritical audience. There is something about reading aloud, from a paper copy, which permits easy identification of echoes.

• Striking oneself on the head doesn’t help, is definitely painful, and achieves nothing. Instead, acknowledge the effort and fix the problem.

• And echoes, if salted carefully throughout your novel, can provide subtle reminders to the reader of a particular matter – or clue.