Spring Clean Your Manuscript

DAY 61

Word Count: 38,673

Sentence of the Day: He'd rather take a bullet to the head than traipse around Bond Street today--or any day, for that matter.

Take a deep breath. Smell that? Lemony fresh with a chaser of Pine-Sol. Yep, it's that cleaning time of year. Time to de-clutter and spruce up the shabby areas...of your WIP.

Throw out exclamation points.

Don't use punctuation marks to get your point across. Replace them with powerful verbs. No, I'm not saying you have to ditch them all, just make sure to use them appropriately. Try limiting exclamations to interjections.

Pack up your darlings and send them off to Goodwill.

Do a search for pet words such as just, really, back, up, down, very, knew and my personal bugaboo...so. Get rid of 99% of them and your sentences will be stronger.

And while you're doing a search for words, don't forget to look for 'it'. More often than not, you should define what that 'it' is. Makes it a lot easier for your reader, and believe me, if your reader has to work hard, they'll set down the book.

Sweep away the ho-hum.

Does each chapter end with a hook? The last sentence should make a reader drool and flip the page to find out what happens. Check on each ending line and if it's not drool-worthy, rewrite.

Scrub off the adverbs.

Not all of them, mind you. Comb through your manuscript for 'ly' words and erase half of them, then go back and look at what you've got. Keep only the adverbs you're willing to fight for.

By completing these 4 easy cleaning tasks, even if your house isn't tidy, at least your manuscript will sparkle.