1. “Nice.” This is a bland nothing word. Ditto “interesting.” You can come up with better adjectives.
2. Offensive words outside of dialogue. (Unless you are making a useful point and not using a gimmick.) If you’re trying to shock me, that will wear off quickly. Then you’ll just be boring me and slowing me down. Good writing does not slow the reader.
3. Adverbs. (Example: “He shut the door firmly.” You probably don’t need that adverb (“firmly.”) If you feel you can’t lose it, (“He shut the door.”) take another look at your verb and see if you can make it stronger. (“He slammed the door.”) If you really can’t change that verb and still feel the adverb serves you, then keep it if you must. I wouldn’t.
4. Out of date words (unless you’re writing historical fiction.) If you use the word behooves, you’re either immortal or own a time machine. Go kill Hitler.
5. Jargon. You’ll lose your reader.
6. Acronyms. Ditto #5. And yeah, I know Tom Clancy uses tons of acronyms and I don’t care. Don’t do it.
7. Dialect. Writing in dialect puts such a strain on the reader his head might well explode. Mine would. Don’t do it and if you must, do so very sparingly.
8. Ten-dollar words, long words, show-off words. Reduce. Readability is more important than what you can find in your thesaurus. I love my 1901 dictionary and yes, I do throw out weird Cool Word of the Day posts. They’re fun. They aren’t for actual use.
9. Flowery words and purple prose. You’ll come across as melodramatic and overwrought. Romance novel sex scenes are notorious for falling into long descriptions which are really long lists of unintentionally hilarious euphemisms. If you’re going to attempt those sorts of scenes, read a lot of it so you can do it well. Credible sex scenes (read: writing that doesn’t make you giggle) take a lot of skill.
10. Wrods thst you haevn’t raed oever at leats twce. Proofraed!
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