This is me reviewing for you: You have a 'handled' echo.

You: Huh? Are you high? What's that even supposed to mean.

Let me enlighten you. Echo is a word used to shorten the following phrasing: you use this same word twice in very close proximity. So saying you have a 'x-word' echo, means you've just used it and you're doing it again.

Why is that bad? Because echoes are very visible and pull a reader out of the story. Sometimes, using the same word in close proximity is necessary. Most of the time, it's not.

Let me give you an example to make it clearer:

He needed to get this over with as fast as possible, so he headed down the street, his feet shuffling, his eyes focused on the ground, trying not to trip over the massive amount of garbage at his feet. His eyes darted left and right to make sure there were no passing cars, then he darted to the other side of the street as fast as he could.

Notice the highlighted words. This is an example of echoing words. All of them can be removed and it will only improve the flow of the writing:

He needed to get this over with now, so he headed towards his destination, his feet shuffling, his eyes focused on the ground, trying not to trip over the massive amount of garbage. He gazed left and right to make sure there were no passing cars, then he sprinted to the other side of the street.

Same meaning, no echoes. It's true that my example was also pretty wordy, but you get the idea. Using synonyms or changing sentence structure will make sure you get rid of echoes. It will also make you reconsider if all the information you provide is needed or not. In the above example, I completely eliminated the 'at his feet' after garbage because if he's looking on the ground, the garbage is obviously there, so there was no need to mention it again.

A word of warning:

Some words are hard to overuse, so they don't echo. These are the common words we always use and which are invisible to readers, such as:

He needed to get this over with now, so he headed towards his destination, his feet shuffling, his eyes focused on the ground, trying not to trip over the massive amount of garbage. He gazed left and right to make sure there were no passing cars, then he sprinted to the other side of the street.

Whoa! That's a massive amount of echoing words. But you didn't notice them. Because they're not echoes. Using these words so much is normal. This usually applies to pronouns, conjunctions and preposition, so don't become a zealot and try not to use these twice either.

How to eliminate echoes:

Like most things in your writing, these can be fixed by rereading what you wrote (or if you have a hard time seeing them, read out loud. Or publish them. You always see your mistakes after you publish them).

Try not to use the same word twice in one paragraph. If the word is a complex one, try using it as rarely as possible. A word of advice, when using synonyms, try to think of one which is normally used, not just pick one out from the awkward Word thesaurus. That pulls a reader out worse than an echo.

Change sentence structure and eliminate unnecessary information. Your flow will thank you for it.

When not to eliminate echoes:

When you're consciously doing it for emphasis. Echoes can do wonders for showing a character obsessing over something:

What was he supposed to say anyway? It sounded crazy inside his own head. But the pain; the pain was real. So real that it cut him open and he half-expected to bleed.

In this instance, the echo actually helps put the message across in a dramatic fashion.

But as someone very wise once said to me, you need to know the rules before you can break them.

If you have any questions on the subject of echoes, feel free to leave them in the comments.

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~written by Wimbug