15 writing habits that make it harder for readers to enjoy your indie story

Introductory post about readability

©2016 Clonefront. Duly licensed.

(Updated May 1, 2025)

The Short Story

Poorly copyedited writing may tell a compelling story—riveting enough that your most enthusiastic readers can ignore the errors and inconsistencies. Yet, most of us maintain higher standards for formally published work than for the editorial hellscape of online forums, comments, and chat. Better copyediting means improved readability, which is about reducing barriers for people who might enjoy your work. A little editing goes a long way in showing you care about your readers.

The Real(ist) Story

The fifteen habits listed below are some of the most common things that trip me up as a reader and make me cringe as an editor. (Several folks rightly pointed out that I skimped on examples in the original version of this article. I’ve tried to rectify the situation, inserting errors and such into sentences plucked from my Vaporous Realms stories for illustrative purposes.)

1) Placing a comma wherever you’d take a breath when speaking (and nowhere else), instead of where they clarify phrasing in written English:

Between cinching her bedroll, and lashing it to the saddlebag she used as a pillow, Zshurii picked out Cactus’s familiar silhouette, from their horse-line nearer the perimeter.

More readable: Between cinching her bedroll and lashing it to the saddlebag she used as a pillow, Zshurii picked out Cactus’s familiar silhouette from their horse-line, nearer the perimeter. [The commas here help organize the sentence into logical clauses and phrases instead of breaths.]

2) Using a comma to splice together dialogue with narrative that describes other actions of the speaking character, not the way the character delivered the dialogue:

Zshurii petted Cactus’s muzzle, “Think thyself too good just to eat grass, hmm?”

More readable: Petting Cactus’s muzzle, Zshurii murmured, “Think thyself too good just to eat grass, hmm?”

3) Inserting a redundant pronoun, right after its antecedent (the noun it refers to):

Sandy-haired, round-faced Rhecah, she slipped into line on Zshurii’s left.

More readable: Sandy-haired, round-faced Rhecah slipped into line on Zshurii’s left.

4) Using scrambled syntax (sentence structure or word order) that aspires to be old-fashioned but is, in truth, convoluted and unnatural:

Wherefore, mere heartbeats from the skirmish, Zshurii now smacked with the flat of her scimitar a swordsman in a bent-crested helm across the shoulder blades, unsuspecting though he was, and shoved him aside, heedless that he might be an ally.

More readable: Zshurii was mere heartbeats from the skirmish now. With the flat of her scimitar, she smacked an unsuspecting swordsman in a bent-crested helm across the shoulder blades. Unheeding that he might be an ally, she shoved him aside.

5) Using a pronoun with an ambiguous antecedent:

Zshurii tried to take advantage of the prefect’s open flank, but he repulsed her with a swift kick that almost connected with her knee. Then he thrust the sharpened butt of his scythe backward to parry Anntica’s attack from behind. He followed up by knocking her akilter with his left elbow. [The final “her” could apply to one of two characters, Zshurii or Anntica.]

More readable: Zshurii tried to take advantage of the prefect’s open flank, but he repulsed her with a swift kick that almost connected with her knee. Then he thrust the sharpened butt of his scythe backward to parry Anntica’s attack from behind. He followed up by knocking the commander akilter with his left elbow. [Eliminating the final pronoun clarifies that “the commander,” or Anntica, is the recipient of the prefect’s follow-up blow.]

6) Using a singular subject with a plural verb (or vice versa), often in situations where a plural or collective noun comes between a singular subject like each or either and its verb:

Each of the enemy soldiers were bearing a standard on their back, like the one she carried. [Regardless of how you feel about using a plural prounoun like their in potentially gender-ambiguous situations, the verb “were” here mistakenly treats “soldiers” as the subject of the sentence.]

More readable: Each of the enemy soldiers bore a standard on his back, like the one she carried.

7) Shifting verb tense unnecessarily—for instance, between the past and present tense or between the simple past tense (slew) and the present perfect (has slain):

The defenders on the bulwarks to either side continued hurling arrows and stingers, but their aim had erred high. A stiff breeze had been buffeting Zshurii from the side. [The verb tense slips from simple past “continued” to past perfect “had erred” to past perfect continuous “had been buffeting.” Any change in tense without a contextual reason is a potential distraction, and the wordiness of the perfect tenses slows the pace.]

More readable: The defenders on the bulwarks to either side continued hurling arrows and stingers, but their aim erred high. A stiff breeze buffeted Zshurii from the side.

8) Connecting most thoughts with and, even if they’re loosely related or a different conjunction would reflect the logical relationship better:

She didn’t try to aim carefully and made a slight adjustment each time, and they closed from the arm-aching limit of her range to a less strenuous bowshot.

More readable: She didn’t try to aim carefully but made a slight adjustment each time, as they closed from the arm-aching limit of her range to a less strenuous bowshot.

9) Bogging down your sentences with adverbs—or worse, adverb clusters:

It might have been only an illusion, the dance of sunbeams, but he seemed to leave a trail of light, really quite faint and almost dissipating, wherever he’d last been. [Unless you’re getting paid by the word, trying to do a bad Dickens or Austen impersonation, and/or aiming for an ironically detached tone, cut the fat y’all.]

More readable: It might have been an illusion, the dance of sunbeams, but he seemed to leave a faint, dissipating trail of light wherever he’d last been.

10) Capitalizing words idiosyncratically and inconsistently:

The battle-clamor intensified as they neared the clash of red and purple banners in the center. The Commander’s sturdy Sea-folk infantry were better equipped and more desperate than the foes they confronted. A fourth Company of their battalion, newly arrived, drove toward the defenders’ exposed flank.

More readable: The battle-clamor intensified as they neared the clash of red and purple banners in the center. The commander’s sturdy sea-folk infantry were better equipped and more desperate than the foes they confronted. A fourth company of their battalion, newly arrived, drove toward the defenders’ exposed flank.

11) Placing non-quote, non-dialogue words within quotation marks as a lazy way of indicating irony or emphasis, thereby adding more to visual clutter than to reader comprehension:

As if her half-formed thought had bid them into being, scorpion “stingers” flew through the air from the direction of the city gate.

More readable: As if her half-formed thought had bid them into being, scorpion stingers flew through the air from the direction of the city gate.

12) Using comic book conventions like ALL-CAPS or multiple forms of end punctuation(?!!) outside of comic books:

“What do we do NOW?!” she shouted. Zshurii heard the panic tingeing her question.

More readable: “What do we do now?” she shouted. Zshurii heard the panic tingeing her question.

13) Attaching descriptive phrases to the wrong part of a sentence—that is, using dangling modifiers, which may get the gist across well enough but make for loose writing and occasional head-scratching:

Handy enough with a scimitar in drills, her skill with a bow was certainly greater. [“Handy enough with a scimitar” is supposed to describe the character, but grammatically, it refers here to the subject “her skill”—which makes no sense.]

More readable: In drills, she was handy enough with a scimitar, but her skill with a bow was certainly greater.

14) Frequently using words that add more to syllable count than to meaning (like even, nine times out of ten):

Surely this was only hopeful speculation. But even so, from a man called a prophet, it carried more weight. [Full disclosure—this was the version I actually posted in Daughters of the Rising Sun.]

More readable: Surely this was hopeful speculation. Yet, from a man called a prophet, the words carried weight. [It’s not that “only” and “even so” made no difference whatsoever. But the meaning of the sentence comes through fine either way, and an incrementally more direct tone better fits the narrative context. Words must earn their keep.]

15) Using a semicolon instead of an em dash (long dash) to connect a sentence fragment to a complete though:¹

It was a matter of duty; terrible duty, the warp yarns that held together the weave of a civilized realm.

More readable: It was a matter of duty—terrible duty, the warp yarns that held together the weave of a civilized realm.

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If you do any (or many) of these things, I’m not judging your overall skill or talent as a writer. We all exhibit some of these habits sometimes, so join the club. But I say something because I care that you care about your readers. If you need help understanding any of these habits or how to address them, let me know. At the very least, try reading your work aloud to yourself before posting. Every bit of editing makes a difference.

Godspeed and happy (re)writing!

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1. You may think this particular error isn’t so grievous compared to the others. It’s not, hence its placement at the end of my list. But for folks who know on some level that the semicolon is meant to join complete thoughts, or to replace serial commas in a list where listed items already abound in commas, semicolon errors are a hiccup in our reading experience. The semicolon signals our brain to look for an independent clause, so we find ourselves momentarily perplexed, looking for a complete thought that isn’t there instead of staying immersed in the story.