02 March 2010

10 on Tuesday: things I usually have to edit in my writing

In honor of National Novel Editing Month, I present the following:

  1. Adverb overuse
  2. Unnecessary descriptions of what's going on
  3. "Talking heads"
  4. Noun-pronoun agreement (yes, I'm guilty of using "they" and "their" when I shouldn't)
  5. Long sentences (sometimes I ramble)
  6. Repetition
  7. Rough scene transitions
  8. Cliches
  9. Things I think are funny that actually aren't
  10. Too many line breaks (to show a change in scene, passage of time, etc.)

2 comments:

  1. I would like to add the over-use of the word "that". I do it myself all the time.

    You don't seem to have this bad habit. Notice on your previous post, you could have said: "Just as NaNoEdMo, shows writers that they have the time..."

    Well, maybe it sounds picky, but I always try to go through what I have written and just see if I can delete all the "thats" I put in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sometimes I overuse "that," as well. But it's something I try to be aware of as I write.

    ReplyDelete

Add a little caffeine to my life...