Polish Your Fiction: A Quick & Easy Self-Editing Guide

In fiction, italics are generally used for internal dialogue, especially in third person narratives when the internal dialogue is written in first person.

almost
by
can/could
even
feel/felt
finally
hear/heard
in
ing (do not insert a space before this)
is/was
just
out
over
really
see/saw
seem
smell/smelt (AmE: smelled)
so
soon
that
taste/tasted
up
very
which
who

Strong verbs are a storyteller’s saviour.

Stephen King says, if you need a thesaurus to find it, you are using the wrong word

If everyone killed all their darlings, they’d have no family left.

SHOW, DON’T TELL

Can you visualize what you are reading as though it were happening right in front of you? (yes)
Can you feel the emotions your characters are feeling? (yes)
Do your characters seem flat and lifeless? (no)
Have you made your characters real? That is, would your readers recognize your characters if they met them on the street—without you using a lot of explicit exposition to describe them? (yes)