Every writer has a set of words they use far more often than they realize. These are not the words you choose carefully. They are the words your fingers type while your brain is focused on something else. They are linguistic autopilot, and they are making your prose less precise than it could be.
The frustrating thing about crutch words is that you cannot see them. You have read your own manuscript dozens of times, and each individual instance looks perfectly fine. It is only when someone tallies them up and shows you the numbers that the pattern becomes visible. Two hundred uses of "just" in a 80,000-word manuscript. Eighty-seven uses of "seemed." Forty-three sentences starting with "And then."
The Usual Suspects
Some crutch words are nearly universal. "Just" is probably the most common. It creeps into dialogue, narration, and internal monologue alike. "She just wanted to go home." "He was just standing there." "It was just a scratch." In most of these sentences, "just" adds nothing. Remove it, and the sentence means exactly the same thing.
"Really" and "very" are intensifiers that usually weaken rather than strengthen. "She was very tired" is less vivid than "She was exhausted" or, better yet, a sentence that shows the tiredness through action or detail. Intensifiers are a sign that the word they modify is not precise enough.
"Suddenly" is a paradox. It is meant to convey surprise, but its effect is the opposite. By announcing that something is about to happen suddenly, you remove the surprise. "Suddenly, a shot rang out" is less startling than "A shot rang out" because "suddenly" gives the reader a microsecond of warning.
"That" is a structural crutch. English often allows "that" to be omitted: "She knew that he was lying" works just as well as "She knew he was lying." Not every "that" should be cut, but running a search will reveal how many of them are unnecessary.
"Seemed" and "appeared" are hedging words. "He seemed angry" distances the reader from the observation. Unless there is a genuine reason for uncertainty, "He was angry" or, better, showing the anger is more effective. These words become a habit when a writer is unconsciously reluctant to commit to a description.
The Personal Ones
Beyond the universal crutch words, every writer has their own. These are harder to identify because they are often perfectly good words that just appear too frequently. You might use "glanced" for every quick look, "murmured" for every quiet statement, or "nodded" as your default reaction beat.
One writer might lean on "dark" as an all-purpose descriptor. Another might use "small" in every other paragraph. A third might start every chapter with a weather description without realizing it.
To find your personal crutch words, you need data. A word frequency analysis of your manuscript, sorted by frequency relative to standard English usage, will reveal your patterns immediately. The words that appear far more often in your text than in average prose are your crutch words.
Why Crutch Words Persist
Crutch words survive because they are functional. They fill a gap, smooth a transition, or maintain rhythm. Your brain reaches for them because they work well enough in the moment, and in the moment is where drafting happens.
They also persist because of frequency blindness. The more often you use a word, the less you notice it. It becomes part of your prose's wallpaper. This is why other readers spot your crutch words immediately while you have read past them a hundred times.
Some crutch words are tied to your writing process. If you draft quickly, you accumulate more of them because your brain defaults to familiar patterns under speed. If you write slowly and carefully, you might have fewer but they might be more deeply embedded and harder to recognize.
How to Find Them
The simplest method is a search-and-count approach. Take a list of common crutch words and search for each one in your manuscript. Record the count. Any word that appears more than once per thousand words is worth examining, though the threshold varies by word.
A more revealing approach is to look at your word frequency list without a predefined target list. Sort all words in your manuscript by frequency and scan for surprises. You know that "the" and "and" will be at the top. But what unexpected words appear in your top hundred? Those are your crutch words.
Another technique is the fresh-eyes test. Ask a beta reader or critique partner to highlight any word or phrase they notice recurring. What you cannot see, they will spot immediately.
How to Fix Them
The goal is not to eliminate every instance of your crutch words. Most of them are legitimate words that deserve to appear in your manuscript. The goal is to reduce them to a frequency where each instance feels chosen rather than habitual.
For each identified crutch word, search your manuscript and evaluate every instance individually. Ask: does this word earn its place here? Is there a more precise word? Does the sentence work without it? Make a decision for each occurrence.
Do not do a global find-and-replace. That way lies disaster. Each instance exists in its own context, and some uses are perfectly appropriate. The problem is not that you used the word. The problem is that you used it two hundred times.
Some crutch words have easy fixes. "Very" plus an adjective can almost always be replaced with a stronger adjective. "Very big" becomes "enormous" or "massive." "Very quiet" becomes "silent" or "hushed." The replacement is nearly always more vivid.
Other crutch words require more thought. If you use "nodded" as your default reaction beat, you need a wider repertoire of reactions. Characters can also shrug, tilt their heads, look away, shift their weight, or say nothing at all. The fix is not just finding a synonym but varying your approach to the underlying narrative need.
The Revision Pass
Dedicate one complete revision pass to crutch words and nothing else. Search for each identified crutch word, evaluate each instance, and make your changes. Do not try to combine this pass with other editing objectives. The focus required to catch frequency problems is different from the focus required to evaluate plot or character.
After your crutch word pass, run your frequency analysis again. Your counts should be substantially lower. If they are not, you may be replacing one crutch word with another, which is a common trap.
Draft's Repetitions analysis automatically identifies your crutch words and overused phrases, showing you exactly how often they appear and where they cluster in your manuscript. Try it free.