: Is it a bad habit to write "something" too much? If so, how to get rid of it? I just realized my prose is filled with somethings. Here are some examples: I was already too far away

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Your use of "something" is a bit of a literary crutch. Most writers have them in one way shape or form.

Since you have have identified this particular issue, now would be a good time to correct it. As others have already noted, the word "something" is just a placeholder. By itself it literally means nothing.

I'm not saying that "something" should be banned as a word. It definitely has its uses. It could be used to create an air of mystery, or to attempt to describe an object, mood, feeling, idea, etc. that doesn't have a name.

As others have suggested, you can replace the word with another phrase which is more descriptive.

I was already too far away to go back, and I figured the dog (if it'd been a real one) had ran back to where it had came from—which meant there was another way into the forest. At least that’s what I hoped for. Not a minute passed, however, when something made me stop again. The rottweiler! I spotted his eerie green eyes right behind a bush. It sprinted away as soon as it saw me.

Can be changed to:

If the dog was real, then there must be some other way out! I scanned the area, and I caught a glimpse of his eerie glowing green eyes behind one of the bushes. I tried to approach him, but he must have gotten spooked. He leaped out of the bushes and took off down the path.

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Every writer has certain phrases they repeat "this", "what I did", "and then", "some sort of".

Mine is "some sort of".

Where and how you employ these phrases have to do with your style. It would be a sin to omit all of them. It would be excellent to keep them where they fit.

"something" isn't anything to omit, it lets the reader put whatever they want in its place. You wouldn't want too much of that or they'll lose grip of the story. But it does add mystery. Consider this example:

She wanted me to move to Houston or something. She had ideas about us. A whole future.
She had been doing some thinking. I had my own ideas of how that would go. It would be
something that would end in a fiery explosion visible for many miles in the night sky.

The first something works because it tells us the reader is hardly paying attention to her. The second something can be omitted. It obfuscates. (also doing away with night sky).

It would end in a fiery explosion visible for many miles.

If removing the words you use to frame the imagery leads to a better result, cut it out. Otherwise, sometimes they lend a familiarity or extra beat to a sentence, and can be left as they are.

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Yes, such generic placeholders are definitely washing out the image. The reader reads descriptions to gain knowledge of given situation, and these are empty, useless duds.

If the information is limited, give the scraps that are still available. A surprising sight made me stop again. Two hands shoved me, or a mass against my back shoved me.

Only use something when the data is insufficient to provide any meaningful info. "Something's rattling inside the box." There's very little to be said about whatever's rattling, so "something" is justified here.

Same goes for "A kind of" or "Some sort of." There's hardly a worse way to describe an object than as "some sort of object", especially if it's generic and exists in thousands variations. "We arrived at some sort of castle" is the laziest way of getting out of describing the castle while still technically describing it.

Now, for curbing that... well, Ctrl+F is your friend. Just find all occurrences and think of improving them. After several dozens corrected, you'll start catching yourself when you write that.

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By and large, overusing a specific word or phrase is not great style. However, what I see here is the same word used three times with three different meanings. The first usage references a mental idea or thought process. This could probably stand to be more specific (what made the narrator stop?) but otherwise is a perfectly cromulent usage. The second is in reference to a physical object or person, which the narrator cannot see and/or identify. As for the third usage, "or something" is a basic turn of phrase used to express ambiguity.

So, for the specific examples you cite, I don't think there's anything wrong with them or that they necessarily need changing. Of course, like all things stylistic, a lot of it is down to personal preference. In a more general sense, if you find yourself using the same word or phrase over and over, look more closely into why you use it, and whether there's a better way to express it that's more specific or simpler to understand.

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