Editing 101 – No more -ly’s

One of the key pieces of advice often given to writers is to cut down on your use of ‘-ly’ words. They tend to slow pace and add to your word count. A good way to gauge the necessity of these words is to delete them and see if it makes any difference. They’re pretty superfluous most of the time and tend to bulk out writing. That’s not to say they shouldn’t be used at all, just sparingly.

A quick example –

John pulled the stupendously heavy gun from his massively shiny holster rapidly and poin...