Make it a habit to check for these clues to poor writing every time you edit.
Passive Tense
Use active instead of passive tense whenever possible. Don’t understand the difference? Just ask who’s doing the action. If no one, it’s passive. Example: ‘The article was read’ is passive. ‘The journalist read the article’ is active.
‘There’ is a warning!
Do a word search for ‘there’ to check this one. If it shows up as ‘there is/there are/there was/ there were’ or similar forms such as ‘it is’ or 'it was' look for a stronger verb construction. Example: ‘There were a thousand people in the church.’ versus ‘A thousand people packed the church.’
Words ending ‘ly’ clues you to an adverb
Adverbs are fine but use them sparingly for description. More powerful verbs should be used to show action and description. Example: ‘He walked quickly’ versus ‘He sprinted’ or ‘He bolted.’
Unnecessary personalization
To me. I thought. As I was thinking. To my way of thinking. As the writer, the thoughts should all be yours. It's not necessary to tell the reader you were thinking. Make the point instead.
Of course, in fact
Sometimes, of course, it's relevant to make the point with a phrase such as ‘of course.’ But in fiction or non-fiction, phrases such as these are often used as padding. So if they’re not used meaningfully, lose them. If a phrase is simply a bad habit, do a word search each time until it becomes automatic to catch it before it makes the page.
Repetition in words or meaningRepetition doesn’t put more muscle into a paragraph, it weakens it. For example, saying a character is ‘tired’ and ‘exhausted’ with ‘slumping’ posture and ‘drooping eyes?’ has made the point in spades. Instead, expand the description to other attributes of looks, personality or character.
The boredom factorIf the writing seems lengthy and boring it probably is. Tight writing moves the story ahead in action and emotion. Overwriting just makes the reader want to yawn. One way to keep things hopping is to put action and drama into each scene. Remember to show the action, don’t tell it.
Check endingsWeak writing is sometimes just a matter of placement. The strongest position for the most important thought is often at the end – of a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, with everything else leading up to it.
Variety counts
Whatever you do, vary sentence length, long, medium and short.
Long sentences are relaxed but for drama or excitement go for the short sentence, even (despite an English teacher’s warnings) the one word sentence.
Strong writing becomes a habit. Yes, sometimes good writers ignore ‘rules.’ But they know they’re doing so. Just ignore them for a good reason and not because it's the lazy way out.
