Using Phrases in a Novel

A snappy phrase sticks in a writer's mind and it's easy to use it twice, having forgotten the first time you used it. Describing a river rapids as a foaming tumult is really good, but it's only good once. A black scowl is a nice turn of phrase, but again only once. In the age of global search, you can look at your entire manuscript in a second. If not, I'll write it into the manuscript and also add it to the used phrase list.