No, not the type that you yell across a valley or into a cave. I’m referring to repeats of the same word in quick succession. We’ve all done it, and since I’ve been learning how to edit, it’s something I hadn’t thought about before.
I use a grammar program called Pro Writing Aid and it helps me discover them. I hadn’t even known they were called echos until ai used that.
This is a basic example of one:
She walked across the room and slammed the door. As she returned to stand beside him they both stared at the door.
It’s so easy to do and now I’ve discovered it, I see it in the books I read. Often I’ve read a word and someone on the radio or television utters it at the same time. That’s a different type of echo, and it constantly amuses me.
As a writer this also gives me an amazing opportunity to explore words. For example, these are some of the alternatives for door:
Entrance, portal, exit, aperture, opening, etc. There are probably more. So, if you are struggling, try restructuring your sentence instead.
I went from here to look for a book on Amazon. I came across this description. It just shows how easy it is to do. As mentioned above, the way round it is to reshuffle or amend what you’ve written.
recently retired and moved to Moelfre on the idyllic holiday island of Anglesey off the stunning northwest coast of Wales, accidentally stumbles across an international criminal organisation involved in precious gemstone smuggling, drug importation and distribution, and money laundering. Initially, he is looking into a local unsolved “missing persons case” associated with an empty bungalow just outside the old fishing village of Moelfre which he is interested in buying and refurbishing to rent out to the large local holiday let market. Whilst looking into the old mystery, he meets and teams up with another local retiree, ex-Detective Chief Inspector who was in charge of the investigation before retiring himself with the case still open.
Together they investigate the case without much success until, out of the blue, Steve receives a threatening text message telling him to drop his investigations and, at the same time, using some of his old contacts within the police, the retired Detective Chief Inspector uncovers several incriminating “coincidences”
Here are a couple of books that may help with both echos and other editing techniques.
World of Stories 