Two more tips and your manuscript is ready for an editor.

Ditch the Prepositions

Prepositions are used for relationships between words and when you use too many, your writing becomes weak, unconcise and non-specific. Some of the common prepositions include:

About

After

Against

At

Before

Behind

Beneath

Except

From

In

Into

Like

Of

Since

Too

Toward/s

You get the idea.

Look through a few manuscript pages. Can you see these words in longer text strings? Can you see a lot of smaller word, less than four letters? There’s a good chance that you need to start chopping to make your manuscript easier to read. Plus you’ll have more room to use strong descriptive words instead. It might help you to read aloud – prepositions are what make readers stumble.

Also look for phrases consisting of multiple prepositions – “in spite of”, “in front of”, “according to”, for example. These add nothing but extra words and muddy up your story.

Remember – a preposition will always get an object that can be turned around.

Prepositional phrase – The manager of the store

Rewritten – The store manager

Prepositional phrases can normally be replaced with much better word choices:

Prepositional Phrase – He came down with flu because it was going around at his workplace

Rewritten – He got the same flu that his work colleagues had.

Filter out the filter words

Filter words put up a barrier between a character and their perceptions, feelings, and thoughts. They also add unnecessarily to your word count, forcing your readers to focus on those rather than what’s going on.

Some of the common filter words are “know”, “feel”, “hear”, and “see” but there are loads of others.  Your readers don’t need to be told that your character “feels”, “sees”, “hears”, or “knows” – they want you to get to the point.

Filter Word – He realized that he’d never feel the same again

Rewritten – He’d never feel the same again

Filter Word – She heard a strange noise at the door and woke up

Rewritten – A strange noise at the door woke her

Filter Word – She felt as though she would never love again

Rewritten – She would never love again

Filter words can be useful when you need to focus on a character’s experience. For example, this is fine – As the pain gradually subsided, he felt the whisper of a breeze against his skin.

Look through your manuscript and see how often the following words appear. Then decide if the context allows them to be changed:

Able to (he was able to)

Decide

Experience (he/she experienced something)

Feel

Hear

Know

Note (she noted that)

Notice

Realize

Remember

See

Seem

Sounded like

Think

Watch

Wonder

Work on these common problems and your manuscript will be miles better. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hire a professional copyeditor before you publish or look for an agent but it won't cost you so much. Your work will already be clean and that is generally cheaper because a copyeditor won't have so much to do. It isn’t wise to skip hiring a professional anyway but doing some of it yourself is an invaluable experience.