Back to Basics

I'll admit I'm not one for rules. I don't like following them though I do usually attempt to find out what the rules are before I try to break them. But the past few weeks I've discovered a couple things I've ignored as "not for me"…well, they kind of are. Things that will make my writing tighter. Things that also take a lot of time, but them's the breaks, I guess. Part of doing what you love includes putting in a lot of hours to ensure your words come across the way you intended them to.

Some rules still confound me, I'll admit, and I worked as an editor for an e-publisher for two years and so far, as a proofreader at a newspaper for eleven. So I thought I'd share two tips for tightening your writing that I've been confronted with in my latest batch of edits
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1) Get rid of words you don't need. Even ones you like, such as "even." I love "even". We're bff's. I'm also quite enamored of "little", "always", "exactly", "all but", "besides", "though" and probably a dozen others I repeat without knowing it. Clean writing is the goal and cluttering up your sentences lessens their impact. It also leaves you with a ton of edits from your editor. *waves hand*

2) Break the "was" habit. It's not always passive voice, but that doesn't mean you need them all the time. I like "was" almost as much as "even." One thing I've noticed while doing my many edits recently is that I tend to drop into "was" territory when I start telling and not showing. You need some of them in your story for sure, just don't them overpower the soup. Sometimes you can replace was with a more active construction. Example: She was jumping rope. Becomes this: She jumped rope. Fewer words, punchier sentence.

What crutch words do you find yourself returning to again and again? Do you have any tricks to make self-editing less painful?