Editing Journey

Words

1) Remove most (not all) adverbs. Pay special attention to the - ly ones, and the ones that are in the dialogue attributions. Ex: slightly, bashfully, loudly, timidly.

Find: "You are so funny," she uttered playfully.

Replace: "You are an adorable little jokester," she said.

Exercise: take a chapter/story of yours, copy it into an editing tool, and remove ALL adverbs. Then read it again and add back an adverb if the meaning is missing. See how many adverbs you didn't miss.

Note: Adverbs get a bad reputation. There are plenty of places where using them helps the reader and enhances the prose. But overusing them where other methods could convey emotions better is something that can detract from the reading experience.

2) Rephrase most sentences that start with As, - ing (some are okay, but it should not be your go-to sentence openers) and check how many start with when/while.

Find: As she entered the room, she took off her coat.

Replace: She entered the room and took off her coat.

Find: Guiding him into the door, she was careful not to touch him.

Replace: She guided him into the door, careful not to touch him.

Note: count how many —ing phrases you have in your chapter/story where they indicate actions that are sequential (one happens after the other) and not simultaneous (one happening at the same time as the other).

Replace the sequential ones with 'verb and verb' structure (She guided him into the room and sat on the chair), instead of 'gerund, verb' (Guiding him into the room, she sat on tge chair).

P.S. Word ending in -ing at the beginning of the sentence is usually a gerund.

3) Check how many sentences start with I (for the first person narration) or he/she (for third person narration) and reword some of them.

Find: I have never seen this boy before.

Replace: The boy is unfamiliar.

4) Check for repetition:

- same words used many times in the sentence, paragraph, chapter, across the novel (unless done so on purpose). Have a thesaurus open for synonyms (I use thesaurus.com and a book I reference in sources chapter).

Find: She cupped the hot cup of tea in her hands.

Replace: She cupped the hot mug of tea in her hands. She held the hot cup of tea in her hands.

5) One ! per 50K words is the golden rule. This is an exaggeration for most commercial novels, but confirm with a trusted someone who does not have an ! addiction before deciding the ! is needed. I had one hundred exclamation points in the first ten chapters of my first novel before I learned about this rule.

6) Go easy on the ellipses . . .

At the time of my writing this the Chicago Manual of Style (a bible of grammar rules and beyond) listed this format for the US English: . . . (British English standards differ)

Use . . . in dialogue to show thought trailing:

"I was wondering . . . if you . . . wanna go out with me?"

Use the en dash (–) or em dash (—) to show a dialogue interruption.

"I was wondering—"

"Yes, you oaf, I would go out with you."

7) Avoid filter words. For example (not a complete list):

noticed, seemed, spotted, saw, realized, felt, thought, wondered, believed, knew, decided, heard (sometimes).

Find: She seemed to have excellent taste in clothes. (Unless you really want to emphasize doubt by using seemed).

Replace: She had excellent taste in clothes.

8) Remove most ( not all) 'that' at the beginning of a clause in the middle of the sentence if the meaning of the sentence does not change without it:

Find: She ate the pancakes that her mother made.

Change to: She ate the pancakes her mother made

9) Avoid these words:

just

only

really

almost

perhaps

maybe

simply

somehow

absolutely

basically

actually

essentially

now (unless talking to distinguish past vs present)

suddenly

sort of, kind of, a little

Run a search in your draft and see how many you have of each. Eleminate most, as long as the meaning doesn't change. Note which ones you overuse. Taking note of it helps me do it less in future chapters.

Note: Like with adverbs  it doesn't mean take ALL of them out, but they should be used sparingly in the cases they are necessary vs when those words were the first option your brain went to in your first draft.

10) Beware of using 'very'. It diminishes instead of emphasizing.

Find: He was very impressed with her knowledge of marine biology.

Replace:
He was impressed with her knowledge of marine biology.

Or find a stronger verb:
He marveled at her knowledge of marine biology. (The stronger verb may be preferable.)

11) Best to use these for special occasions:

all of

as a matter of fact, as being, as yet

at all times

being that

during the course of

each and every

for all intents and purposes/for the most part

in order

in the process of

point in time

pretty - It's pretty common to add ketchup. vs. It's common to add ketchup.

up/down - You can stand up or sit down to read these. vs. You can stand or sit to read these.

12) Remove as many prepositions after the verbs as possible, when meaning does not change.

meet with/meet

bought up/bought

sold off/sold

cutbacks/cuts

this time around/this time

13) Avoid descriptive words after the phrases of dialogue. The lines of dialogue should express the emotion, not the tag.

Find: "I repeat," he repeated and slammed his fist on the table.

Replace with: "I repeat." He slammed his fist on the table.

Find: "You can't be serious," she said in astonishment. (Astonishment is expressed by "You can't be serious" line).
Replace with: "You can't be serious," she said.

There are exceptions to these rules.