No more bloopers: how to edit like a professional

Jennifer Gennari, another grad student (who's in my workshop), showed us her top 10 mistakes--things she especially looks for when editing her work. These included

• resist the urge to explain
  
• avoid stage direction (too much moving people around or describing lots of tiny actions that have no relevance)
• use dialogue beats and misdirection

Since reading Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print, I've become more aware of these kinds of errors and how to correct them, but this was a nice review for me.

Jennifer also walked us through a fun excercise. She took a scene from a published novel, Stoner & Spaz by Ron Koertge, and introduced errors. Then she had the audience try to identify them all. Some of her errors were funny and obvious, but others less so.