1. Overusing exclamation points to convey fear, yelling, and surprise. Do a search for exclamation points. If you’ve got 300 in a 200-page manuscript, you’ve fallen into the pit. (Don’t laugh. I see it all the time in manuscripts.) Remove ALL of them with one global search-and-replace, then start at page 1 and put back only a few. The rest of the time, use dialogue, narrative, and context to convey emotions, surprise, and yelling.
2. Overusing ellipses to drag things out. This is melodramatic and overtly manipulative. Build up tension through a scene and across chapters. Don’t try to cheat with punctuation—earn the tension.
3. Overusing “suddenly” and “surprise.” Those two words can easily get overused in scary stories. How many things really are “sudden”?: Suddenly, a scream ripped through the house. How about just have the sudden thing happen?: A scream ripped through the house. You can interrupt a character’s dialogue to indicate a suddenness: “I can be there in about—” A scream ripped through the house. Be creative, not repetitive.
Happy writing—and happy Halloween!
The Editor
The Editor, Deborah Halverson, has been editing books for thirty years and specializes in picture books, Middle Grade/Young Adult fiction and nonfiction, and New Adult fiction. For her editorial guidance in making your manuscript ready for submission to agents and publishers or for self-publishing, click Editorial services. Learn more in her books: Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies and Writing New Adult Fiction
The global search for exclamation points is a brutal but useful test. Three hundred in a 200-page manuscript sounds extreme until you run the count on your own draft. I noticed the same habit creeps into text-message scenes, where characters suddenly shout in every bubble. Letting a short, flat reply carry the fear usually works better. Do you treat dialogue inside texts or messages differently from spoken dialogue when you edit for this?