When reviewing your writing, take the time to read the text aloud to get a feel for the rhythm and fluency of the writing. Prose has a sound of its own, just like poetry or even music. Do the sentences flow smoothly into each other, or are they choppy and awkward? One of the worst culprits is alliteration in the wrong place. For example:

The man held up the can.

Try reading that aloud, noticing that the alliteration between “man” and “can” makes the sentence awkward to read. If this sentence was part of a paragraph that described a tense or a fast-moving scene, the tempo would be completely destroyed. Try rephrasing, perhaps by using the character’s name or even completely re-writing the sentence or paragraph.

Colin held up the can.

He held up the can.

Here’s another example, where the first part of the words is in common:

Kerry spotted the spider on her lap.

Here, “spotted” and “spider” cause an alliteration, spoiling the sentence. Much better to rephrase:

Kerry noticed the spider on her lap.

Kerry realised the spider was on her lap.