Italics Urinate on Fire Hydrants

Some of the rules from Fiction Writing 1 for better writing and critiques:

These words can be removed or replaced to make writing better. Usually in the narrative portion of a story. Dialogue is an exception (within reason) because a writer tries to emulate how people speak. Therefore these words can be said to me more colloquial in nature:

-thing
-A thing can be any object. These can easily be replaced with a noun.
-removing makes the writing more specific

-very/really
-better ways exist to convey emphasis
-ex. "Tina was very tired." vs "Tina was exhausted."
-both sentences convey the same meaning, but "exhausted" is stronger than "very tired"

-society/reality
-too abstract and broad of a concept, especially in papers

-adverbs
-some adverbs are obvious or make sentences repetitive
-ex. "The man crept quietly around the building."
-If the man is creeping, than it is obvious he is being quiet

-there
-this is called a "ghost subject" in that it doesn't refer to anything specifically
-ex. "There was a man on the building." vs "A man stood on the building."
-There doesn't refer to any one place. The second sentence is more direct and sounds stronger

-it
-difficult to know when to remove because the word "it" can be both specific and ambiguous
-if "it" refers to an object or creature previously mentioned, then the word can be kept
-ex. "The woman ran towards the wall. Thankfully she got behind it in time."
-In this case "it" refers to the wall
-if "it" refers to nothing than it can be replaced with a noun
-ex. "The woman ran towards the wall. It was too late."
-Here "it" refers to nothing specific.
-A good way to tell if "it" is ambiguous is to ask the question "What?"
-ex. What was too late?

-love/like/enjoy
-referring mostly to critiques and reviews of work
-these words do not help a writer. Yes you "liked" the story, but we want to know why. The same applies to hate/dislike. Writers want explanations to know what they are doing wrong and right

-the verb "to be" (is/are/was/were)
-a strange word to try and get rid of since the verb is such a large part of our vocabulary. The reason is that many times a better, more descriptive verb can be used in place of the verb "to be". Sometimes it can also weaken a sentence.
-ex. "Martha is a great leader." vs "Martha leads us better than anyone else."
-ex. "John was jumping through the arena." vs "John jumped through the arena."

-seem/appear/understand
-more strange words, but they are often over used in writing. Much like reality and society, these words are a little abstract or broad



The following subjects should be avoided (at least we were told to avoid them in class). Rules can be broken and all subjects can be used, but they have to WORK:

-E-mails, letters
-Guns/Knives/trains (essentially the act of killing/dying)
-Internet references, Facebook
-Princesses/castles/dragons/knights
-Sex
-Avatars (as in people or entities working through other sources)
-Vampires

All these subjects were listed due to clichés, overuse, current popularity and abuse. For example: too many people use death as a cheap way to end their stories (same with: "Then she woke up. It was all a dream.") Subjects like "vampires" should speak for themselves...*cough cough TWILIGHT cough*

As I said, all rules can be broken and subjects used if and only if they work (well-written, creative and differ from current norms).