Sentence-level

These are things that are easily fixed, but by showing your competence in this area, you will show off your professionalism to agents and publishers.


Things to avoid

Filters
A filter is when you unnecessarily go through that extra step to describe something. If you're writing in first person or limited third, it is implied that everything in the narration is through the perspective of the protagonist. Removing filters makes it more concrete and it helps the pacing. Signal words are Saw, Watched, Remembered, Thought of, etc.

For example...

Don't do this: "Sue bought her daughter a new bike. She remembered that for her own first bike, her mother had given her a bike with the same type of basket."
Do this: "Sue bought her daughter a new bike. For Sue's first bike, her mother had given her a bike with the same type of basket."

Don't do this: "Bill looked out the window. He watched a fire engine zoom past."
Do this: "Bill looked out the window. A fire engine zoomed past."

Swain says that filters prevent the proper motivation-reaction sequence because the thing the character sees/remembers/etc. is the stimulus that the character has to react to in the next sentence. Things get muddy if the character reacts to something that involved his/her own action.


Direct thoughts
Don't do this: Why hasn't George come to pick us up yet?
Do this: Why hadn't George come to pick them up yet?

According to The Editor, it's a current trend to use indirect thought rather than the direct thought that goes in italics formatting. The reason for this is that it's less tedious to read indirect thought, and it isn't necessary to use direct thought if you have a consistent limited third person narrative (or first person, for that matter).


Passive voice
You probably already know that to-be verbs are usually passive, especially"was." Did you know that there are other types of passive sentences to avoid?

1. To-be verbs: "He was painting the house yesterday."
Any form of "to be" such as Is, Was, Be, Am, Were
How to write it actively: "He painted the house yesterday," or "He started painting the house yesterday," or "He painted part of the house yesterday."

2. Have verbs: "She had brown hair and green eyes."
Any form of "have" such as Have, Had, Has
You'll want to work physical details into the scene to make them active: "She brushed her brown hair away from her green eyes."

3. Linking verbs: "He became angry," or "Bruce became the Hulk."
Linking verbs are passive because one thing does not affect another thing (Burroway).
Linking verbs are any verb that connects the subject to an adjective or subject complement.


Introductory phrases with infinite verbs
These should be avoided unless you're using it to slow down the action. You can avoid these by using compound predicates, qualifiers, appositional phrases, subordinate clauses (Gardner).
Don't do this: "Carrying a stack of mail, Joe entered his house."

Swain says that even though in reality people do things simultaneously, that doesn't translate onto the page because of the nature of words. One word follows the next, so you never read two things at the same time like you can experience two things at the same time.


Voices from nowhere (Gardner)
Don't do this:
Janni sat at her desk, working on her homework.
"What are you doing?"
She spun around to see her brother standing in the doorway. "My homework," she said.


"Now" and "Then" qualifiers
Don't do this: Tony and Archibald rolled around on the grass, punching each other. Then, Christine tackled Tony and pulled him off Archibald.


Adjectives and Adverbs
Don't do this: She stopped abruptly.
Do this: She stopped.
You see how the sentence itself feels abrupt? (Burroway)


Weasel Words
A weasel word is a word that is empty of meaning. Most people have a word that they fill in subconsciously or because they think it sounds nice or they think it creates emphasis when it doesn't. Mine is "actually." "Actually" doesn't actually do anything, actually. Think about an egg that a weasel has sucked the insides out of. The shell makes it look like all the other eggs (the word "actually" appears like all the other words) but inside, it's empty and useless. Some words are born empty. Some you can accidentally create by over-using them. If you use "dashed" because it sounds fast, that's fine. But if you have your character "dash" three times in the same chapter, the word loses its speed.


Intensifiers
Intensifiers (or qualifiers) ironically make your prose weaker rather than stronger.
Don't do this: Amber had a really bad day.
Do this: Amber had a bad day.
Other words include but are not limited to: Very, quite, actually, truly, seriously, etc.


Falsely elevated language
This is something that bothers me in fantasy writing. I know that a lot of the older fantasy had all its characters speaking in lofty speech, but it's annoying these days. That isn't to say that you can't have one of your characters speak with an elevated air to show off their background, but when you have kids or people from our world and time, even entering other worlds, they're not supposed to say things like "I shall not allow you to destroy all I have worked for." Here are some of Gardner's qualities of elevated language to watch for:

1. abstract language
2. cliche personification
3. Latinate language instead of Anglo-Saxon