Writing is simply telling your story. In rewriting you ramp up the quality of the way you tell your story. When the rewrite is done, it’s time for serious editing. Again in this phase I focus on different elements to sharpen my writing. This is where I re-examine word choices and sentence structures, for example.
Which words I use to tell my story determine whether the prose is strong or weak. So I seek out weak verbs and try to replace them with strong verbs (did he run to the door or scramble? Or sprint?)  I look for adverbs and try to eliminate them. (Did he answer too quickly? Or did his mouth get ahead of his brain?) I try to lose clichés (raining cats and dogs? Or raining down every known type of pet!) I’m also on the lookout for inaccurate word usage and overuse of adjectives. Finally, I try to keep the writing simple. I want to use words everyone knows, and occasionally the odd word that people SHOULD know. I try to avoid those words that nobody knows. Nothing contrived or academic, unless it’s in dialog from somebody trying to impress everybody else.
Sentence structure choices can make your writing less boring. Have you tried the occasional one-word sentence? I have. I also use fragments on occasion. I try clauses to see if they work in a certain place. When I want to pick up the pace, I might use a series of short sentences. When I want to crank up the suspense I might switch to longer sentences.
At the same time I remind myself that less is often more in terms of prose. I don’t want to overcomplicate my writing. When I wrote news copy for TV I learned that sentences over 25 words made me run out of breath, so that became my cutoff. I try to use the same rule in my novels. Also, three commas in a sentence is my hard limit. So I try to keep it concise, as long as it doesn’t push my showing into telling.
I also love to use similes and metaphors, so in the editing phase I examine each one. It’s easy to unintentionally use a cliché. These comparisons need to be original. So I test every one.
In the dialog I want to be sure “said” is the dominant tag. It doesn’t disrupt the flow of the dialog or slow it down. Better still, I try to use actions to show who’s talking. This helps the reader to picture the conversation. People never just sit and talk to each other.
After my edits, it’s time for an outside professional to attack the manuscript. But at least at this point I know it’s as good as I can make it.