Her face was quizzical as she considered writing about facial expressions.
Overwriting: writing too many words, wasting words, writing words, words and more words
Overwriting bores the reader, so don’t do it.
Filter words: how to remove the reader from the character’s head
Filter words remove the reader from the narrative, bringing them out of the world you’ve invented and back to the fact that they’re reading a book. Find out what these words are and how to remove them.
Stage directions: who’s doing what?
Characters do stuff and move about. If we don’t convey this to the reader, our characters might as well be statues. However, too much stage direction risks tedium. We need to get the balance right.
Point of view: whose world are we experiencing?
Who is narrating your story? Is the reader in that character’s head or is the narrative hopping into the heads of all the characters?