How Can Editors Fix Synonym Fury In Manuscripts?

My brain still perks up when I spot a passage where the writer has clearly been hunting for ‘fancier’ synonyms like they're Pokémon. Synonym frenzy usually shows up as jittery prose — every repeated noun, verb, or descriptor gets swapped for a marginally different cousin, and the tone skates all over the place. My first tactic is almost surgical: do a global scan for the most repeated lemmas (verbs and core nouns) and flag them. I’ll make a short spreadsheet or simple list: the word, how many times, and the replacement used each time. Seeing it in a table is satisfying — suddenly you can see patterns, like “she laughed / she chuckled / she chortled” cropping in the same chapter. That’s your cue to choose one voice-appropriate verb and use it. Consistency beats variety when the variety is distracting.

When I’m hands-on in a manuscript, I prefer to work in passes. First pass: identify repeat offenders and note where the swaps change meaning or tone; sometimes a synonym shifts the intent (’whispered’ vs ’murmured’ vs ’said softly’ all carry different weights). Second pass: consult the author — I leave comments rather than making wholesale replacements, especially in dialogue and inner voice, because character-specific diction matters. Third pass: smooth the sentences around the chosen words so the rhythm reads naturally. I also create a short style sheet for the project — a mini lexicon that lists preferred words, banned synonyms, and character-specific tags. This comes in handy with long projects or series where you want the same world-language to persist.

Practical tools I use: a simple word frequency tool (even Word’s find+replace helps), regex for common alternations, and sometimes ProWritingAid or a corpus tool to spot odd collocations. Beta readers are underused here — fresh eyes will tell you which variations feel jarring. And a gentle rule: favor clarity and cadence over thesaurus bravado. Where synonyms are there to indicate nuance, keep them; where they’re just decorative, trim them. Fixing synonym fury isn’t glamorous, but it’s deeply satisfying — the manuscript breathes easier, and the characters start to sound like real people again.

There’s a special kind of relief when I calm a manuscript that’s been suffering from synonym overload. My quick approach is to pick a consistent voice for narration and each character, then scan for frequent swaps that break that voice. I usually start with a frequency list or just use the document search to find repeated verbs and adjectives, mark where the author has tried to ‘dress up’ a sentence, and ask whether the synonym actually changes meaning or just tries to sound different.

My go-to rules: keep ‘said’ for dialogue unless a verb truly adds action, choose one favorite descriptor instead of rotating through five near-identical adjectives, and create a tiny style sheet so replacements stay consistent. I also leave comments instead of changing everything on the first pass — that keeps the author in the loop and preserves intentional quirks. Tools like ProWritingAid or simple find/replace macros are lifesavers for sweeping fixes, and a read-aloud pass helps catch places where the synonym swap trips the rhythm. It’s less about killing variety and more about making every word earn its place.