“She always washes her hair on Friday evening.” Oh? What about the Friday scene when the protagonist was hospitalized from a skiing accident?
Every is another word to omit. “You can set your clock by my neighbor who brings in the newspaper every morning at seven.” Oh? What about the descriptive scene when his newspaper was stolen while he slept?
I’ve revised my manuscripts with a search and replace for never, always and every. Those edits pushed me to update characteristics of my female protagonist and her neighbor. I added ecology, so she washes her hair on days she’s allowed extra water usage in her desert town. Her neighbor has less complaints about his missing newspaper because I reduced the delivery to weekends!
I didn’t stop there. I saved extra gallons of water when I clipped the protagonist’s long blonde hair into a spike. I denied her wishes for a Jacuzzi and prompted her landlord to install a water-regulating showerhead. I also saved a forest of trees when I switched her paper-reading neighbor to online editions.
None and all are two other words I should eliminate from my vocabulary, but I need them. None of my cozy mysteries has been polished to publishing perfection. They are all in the editing process–and the switch to ecology.