Today, I will be going into one of the finer points of writing. Word choice. There are a few rules that I use in order to improve the quality of my writing in rough drafts.

-Use Had, Was, Were, Be, and Any form of the previous words sparringly. These words make you write more in the passive voice more often than not. Eliminating them forces you to write more in the active voice, which is more entertaining to your readers AND you as you write. (Especially if you like a good challenge.) Now, this does not mean you can't use them. It means you shouldn't be using it once per paragraph, that is all. I use mine maybe two or three times a page. More, if the situation demands it.

Dialogue does not count in this.

- Use a variety of words.

A good rule of thumb is that you should not repeat the same descriptive word more than once in a paragraph or two. For example, you are in a forest. Don't repeat tree or forest unendingly. Use a bit of a variety, or try to avoid cornering yourself in a situation where you have to use it more than once.

- Use ly words in moderation.

Adjectives, while they can help a piece of writing, tend to be overused. There are much better ways to describe a scene than using ly words a lot. Like with was, had, were, etc, you can use them. Just don't use them every paragraph, or every page. In fact, limit how many times you can use it on a page. That will help drastically lower the amount of times it is used.

- On Dialogue

Dialogue is the one area you are allowed to break most of the rules. You WANT to be realistic, and most people do not speak with perfect grammar. Have your people use realistic voices. It will help a great deal. People from the same region will tend to use a similar speaking style. If you have individuals from different areas, enforce this with how differently they speak.

This is one of the most difficult aspects of writing a realistic piece of work.

For starting, these two points are -more- than enough to keep any writer amused for months. (It took me about 2 years to improve on the first count, and much less for the second and third. I'm still working on the final point.)