He walked down the street, looking over his shoulder every now and then. Then he turned into Madison Avenue and walked faster, no longer looking for pursuers.

Can you spot all echos? There are three, not counting repetitions of ‘he’ and ‘the’.

Echos really bog down the prose. Everyone seems to agree. At the same time, ironically, there’s a tendency to only use ’said’ for dialog tags, banning even the innocent word ‘asked’, not to mention phrases like: she added, explained, cried, shouted, whispered, murmured…

Oh well, just a fashion thing, I hope.

Rule: Avoid weak verbs (and adverbs with it).

Don’t write: He walked fast.

Write: He ran, dashed, jogged, sprinted. Whichever fits best.

But: Don’t forget that most times people simply ‘walk’. Don’t try to avoid ‘walk’ or ‘go’ at all cost or else your prose starts to feel stilted.

The weakest of all verbs is ‘to be’, but would you really edit Hamlet’s famous soliloquy: To be or not to be, that is the question.

Happy Writing!

Happy Holidays!