Before You Hit Send: 5 Things I Fix in Almost Every Client Draft

You know that feeling when you finalllly finish a draft, skim it once, and hit Send with a sigh of relief? I get it. But as someone who’s been hired to clean up everything from cover letters to academic papers, I can tell you: there are often these five sneaky little things that show up in almost every client draft, no matter how smart, talented, or sleep-deprived the writer is.

Here’s what I fix:

1. The Introduction That Doesn’t Introduce Anything

You know the one. It starts vague and generic, warms up slowly, and by paragraph three, finally says what the piece is about. I cut those first few lines that take up valuable space yet may lead to your readers feeling drowsy or impatient. Readers are busy - if they don’t know where we’re going by sentence two, we’ve lost them!

2. Sentences That Go On, and On, and Then - Wait, What?

Trust me, I'm guilty as well. I love a dramatic em dash as much as anyone! But when every sentence is three clauses deep and 6 lines long, the message gets buried. I break up those marathon sentences, restructure ideas, and bring some oxygen into the paragraph. Think of it as line-edit CPR.

3. Wild Tone Swings

Some drafts start off like a TED Talk and end like a tweet. Others shift from “we at the company believe…” to “so, anyway, here’s what I think!” I smooth out voice and tone so it feels intentional, not like three people wrote it in a shared Google Doc while slowly losing faith.

4. Fancy Words Trying Too Hard

Optimize, leverage, utilize… I see you. And I usually delete you. -_- Complex ideas are great; unnecessarily complex language is not. I swap the jargon for clarity and let the smartness come through in the thinking, not the thesaurus.

5. Endings That Just… Stop

The conclusion is not the place to get shy and lose the enthusiasm. I help make sure the ending lands - whether that’s a call to action, a clever callback, or just one solid final sentence that doesn’t feel like someone ran out of steam mid-thought.

✂️ Final Thoughts

Good writing doesn’t have to be perfect on the first try. That’s what editors (hiii!) are for. But knowing what pitfalls to look for can make your next draft stronger before you hit send.

And if you want a second pair of eyes - I might just know someone who’d love to help!