Kill your writing bad habits before they kill your writing, by Josh Stallings

 

Q: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

A: My first drafts have more tics than a Swiss watch. As I learn to tame one, another rears up and bites me. An early bad habit was what editor Elizabeth White referred to as Yodaisms. I would flip the beginning and end of sentences. It took me a while to see this, and a while long...