A short list of things to crop from your story---

 Before you send that story to your editor, here are some things that if you do them, will leave even the toughest of editors smiling:

1) Passive Voice: Active Voice is just that, direct and to the point. Passive voice beats around the bush and bores the reader. 

2) Distraction Prose: Do not go on and on and on with descriptions. Like Journalist, get to the point! Your readers will thank you and your story will be cleaner with fewer words. Drop the filler words and get to the point. If you must write settings then never more than about a short paragraph.  

3) Said Synonyms: Do not agonize over these. If said works leave it, if you think you used it too many times, find places to drop it. Most of the time "said" will not distract your readers but done well, even your editor won't notice. 

4) Type Usage: Follow your house guidelines on font and spacing and save yourself a lot of trouble. For example, some houses prefer commas where a semicolon is called for, simply because the semicolon can be distracting to readers. 

5) Telling: We hear it all the time--Show Don't Tell! Drop the He thought, She said, He looked, She realized, He saw---a lot of times just removing the two culprit words give a better sentence and don't take the reader out of the story. Write it as if you are showing the story from the character's eyes...not telling how it happened. Show it, just like we hear. 

6) Cliches: I've always heard only use a cliche' if you can add a twist to it. Cliche's can keep readers guessing what is meant and that takes them from the story. 

7) Adverbs: "ly" words are passive and not active writing. Search and take them out of your story and you will have a stronger work

8) JUST/WAS/HAD--Good words to search and remove to have a more active story. 

9) Cut Quantifying words- little/very for example. 

10) Avoid Dumps of Back Story---Tell pieces throughout the entire novel, not all at once. 

11) Avoid Head Hopping: Make Point of View changes clear or readers will become confused. 

12) Dialogue-Read it out loud, does it sound normal? Cut where you can. 

This is only a small start to what items can be cut. Take a moment to study each of these and you will have a better novel.