Counts, Part 2: Department of Redundancy Department

Redundancy: (noun) the state of being no longer needed or useful.

This issue can manifest in multiple ways, which can all be fixed with good editing. It’s natural for this to happen in first drafts, but if you want your work to be as good as it can be, it’s a good idea to check for these.

From the Turkey City Lexicon:

AS YOU KNOW, BOB – “A pernicious form of info-dump through dialogue, in which characters tell each other things they already know, for the sake of getting the reader up-to-speed. This very common technique is also known as “Rod and Don dialogue” (attr. Damon Knight) or “maid and butler dialogue” (attr Algis Budrys).”

COUNTERSINKING – “A form of expositional redundancy in which the action clearly implied in dialogue is made explicit. “‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, urging her to leave.””

From How Not To Write A Novel:

THE CLONE ENTOURAGE – “If the protagonist is going to have more than one friend, they should serve more than one purpose and have more than one personality. Most crucially, they must be distinguishable by more than the names that have been assigned to them. Generally, if they can be collectively referred to as ‘the guys’, ‘the gals’, or ‘the gang’ with no harm to the plot, there doesn’t need to be more than one of them.”

THE SECOND ARGUMENT IN THE LAUNDROMAT – “NEVER use two scenes to establish the same thing. We do not, under any circumstances, want a series of scenes in which the character goes to job interviews but fails to get the job, or has a string of unsuccessful dates to illustrate bad luck in love.”

THE REDUNDANT TAUTOLOGY – “If you have made a point in one way, resist the temptation to reinforce it by making it again. Do not reexpress it in more flowery terms, and do not have the character reaffirm it in dialogue[…] This point is worth repeating: don’t reiterate.”

THE SKIPPING RECORD – “Give us the thought once. We will assume that the character’s opinion remains the same until you tell us otherwise.”

And one of my own:

OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN – the character suffers negative consequences from a choice, demonstrates that they know they should have learned a lesson from this, possibly explains in detail how they should change their behaviour after it, and proceeds to do the exact same thing again. Overlaps with “Too Stupid To Live”, which I’ll discuss in a later post.