When it gets down to the sentence level, try the following:
- See how many words you can remove without causing confusion or losing the meaning of the sentence
- Take a crack at rearranging the order of the words to relieve the monotony of your common pattern (subject, verb, object)
- Seek out adverbs that can be removed by using stronger verbs
- Look for adjectives that can also be removed by using stronger nouns
- Don't obey any rules about beginning a sentence with coordinating conjunction (and, but, yet, so, or, nor and for)
- Ask yourself if the sentence you wrote contains two independent clauses can be two separate sentences?
- Ask yourself: Do I really need this sentence? If the answer is no, cut it.
- Nothing makes a novel better than cutting.