Editing

I have been Googling how to edit a novel. Most of the editing articles I've read have been useless. Some of them I questioned how good the writer could be if their articles were so dull. I did read a good one though that explained some common writing mistakes. It's coming in quite handy. 

http://litreactor.com/columns/8-words-to-seek-and-destroy-in-your-writing

I don't recommend eliminating all of a word, just the ones that are unnecessary. Sometimes the sentence makes perfect sense without the word in question or even sounds better without it.

I particularly liked how the author explained suddenly. If you tell your readers that something suddenly happens you are warning them and then it comes off as less sudden. It took me quite a while to fix this one issue. Editing is proving far more difficult than I anticipated. 

Another good site recommended to me by my sister is 

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl

She explains the dangling particle quite well which is what the 8 words author was getting at in his IS portion.