Pesky Words

When I finish a piece of writing there are a few quick editing steps I take. The first is to look for passive voice. I've gotten good at not using it, but I am far from perfect and find a number of instances in any piece of writing.

The second thing I do is look for words that indicate lazy writing or poor sentences. I've created a list in OneNote that I add to as I find new pesky words. Right now, they are:

1. Additionally
2. Merely
3. Nearly
4. Just
5. To do
6. Much
7. Can
8. My
9. Would
10. That
11. Could
12. I
13. You
14. The
15. "Crutch Words"
16. In fact
17. --ing
18. --ness
19. --ize
20. --ingly

Not always, but generally speaking, these words indicate transitions and sentences or whole paragraphs that fall down a little bit and with some pruning and replanting could be made much more verdant.