Generally speaking, the more you write, the stronger your writing becomes. If you’re not studying the craft of what makes writing clean and powerful, however, you could develop poor writing habits, which makes more work for you during the editing stage. So, yes, you can fix these things in editing, but if you can train yourself to stop doing some of them in your drafting stage, it will help you. Here are five editing practices that you can develop into first-draft habits and save yourself a great deal of time and effort.

1. Vary your sentence structure.

Prose in which every sentence has the same structure is awkward and boring. Work on alternating sentence types and lengths to create writing that flows. There are four different types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. Below are examples of each.

Simple sentences have one independent clause (which contains a subject and a verb). Here are some examples:
-Riley walked to the bus stop.
-Megan plays soccer and volleyball.
-Aaron loves to play his Nintendo Switch.
-Luke and Kaitlyn are siblings.

Compound sentences have two independent clauses that are joined by a coordinating conjunction, a conjunctive adverb, or a semicolon. Here are some examples:
-Riley walked to the bus stop, and he waited on a bench. (coordinating conjunction)
-Luke participates on the robotics team; however, Kaitlyn is in the school play. (conjunctive adverb)
– Aaron plays his Nintendo Switch on the weekends; he is not allowed to play on school days. (semicolon)

Complex sentences have one dependent clause that is connected to one independent clause. Here are some examples:
-While Luke is on the robotics team, Kaitlyn is in the school play.
-Mike, who is a senior, only has four classes.
-Authors who write fiction rarely write nonfiction.

Compound-complex sentences have two independent clauses that are connected to one (or more) dependent clauses.
-Mike, who is a senior, only has four classes; however, Kate, who is also a senior, has a full schedule.
-While most fiction writers rarely write nonfiction, Kelly writes both, and Allen writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

*When in doubt as to what these sentences might look like, use Google and simply look up examples. There are so many websites out there to help you learn these types of things. Be proactive and learn!

2. Keep your subjects and verbs together.

The closer your subject is to your verb, the easier your story is to read. Consider how much work the reader must do to keep up in the following sentence:

-Miley Robertson, the author of a YA fantasy series who grew up in Texas on a horse ranch, is doing a book signing tomorrow at the local Barnes and Noble.

There is way too much information shoved in the middle of that sentence. Better to cut out the unimportant details, rewrite the sentence, or divide the sentence into two.

3. Eliminate the obvious. Part of turning out a strong final draft is learning to write tight and cut unnecessary words. Consider the following edits:

He shrugged his shoulders. vs. He shrugged. (Because what else would he shrug?)

A smile grew on her face. vs. She smiled. (Because where else would a smile appear?)

Another tip is that, whenever possible, eliminate your use of “there is,” “there are,” and “it is.” Doing this will also tighten your writing.

There are many people who text while driving. vs. Many people text while driving.

There were two hundred and six people who came to the writing event. vs. Two hundred and six people showed up for the writing event.

*Don’t take the cutting of “to be” and its various forms too far. You only want to consider cutting the ones that aren’t doing any work. When the “to be” is attached to the verb, it’s necessary and shouldn’t be cut: I am a student.

4. Get rid of -ly adverbs.

It’s a good general rule to avoid using -ly adverbs in your first drafts. If you later decide you want to add one, go for it. Less is more, though. I might use from two to six -ly adverbs in one book—and only if I really want to use them.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use them or never should. Sometimes you need one. I met a writer who gave me a great sentence in which an -ly adverb was used well. Here is is:

When kicked off my bed, the cat stretched, then crossed the room as slowly as possible.

5. Use “said,” but get rid of as many as you can.

Avoid using fancy words for “said” in dialogue attributions. The word “said” in invisible and doesn’t clutter up your writing. I’ve always made exceptions for “asked,” “yelled,” and “whispered,” since those words speak to tone and volume. Other than that, “said” is the only word I’ll use to assign dialogue. Even so, you can still get rid of lots of uses of the word “said.” If there are only two people in a conversation, you can use the “said” once for each person so that the reader knows who is who, then you simply go back and forth. Doing this can help you get rid of lots of words. Consider these two paragraphs. In the second one, I only needed to type “said” once since Ana used Mike’s name, which made it obvious he was speaking when he responded to her question.

“Hey, Mike,” Ana said. “How are you?”
“I’m better, Mike said. “My voice is back to normal.”
“Does that mean you’ll try out for the solo?” Ana asked.
“I am thinking about it,” Mike said.

v.s

“Hey, Mike,” Ana said. “How are you?”
“I’m better. My voice is back to normal.”
“Does that mean you’ll try out for the solo?”
“I am thinking about it.”

So, what do you think? Have you already trained yourself to avoid these habits? Which one comes most easily to you? Which is the hardest to remember when writing your first drafts? Share in the comments.

Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms, and the author of several young adult fantasy novels including the Blood of Kings trilogy. She loves teaching about writing. She blogs at goteenwriters.com and also posts writing videos on her YouTube channel and on Instagram. Jill is a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant. She grew up in Alaska without running water or electricity and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids. Find Jill online at jillwilliamson.com or on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.