Sloppy Writing 101.04: And then I’m going to show you something important.

I didn’t know this was a problem. And then one day I was blog hopping and came across why you should avoid this phrase. And then I went into my manyscript to see if it was a problem.

It was.

Here are my examples from Frosty. I took these straight out of an old version. And I am aware there are other issues, but look for the one problem that shows in each line.

-They had a hot lunch line. A heart attack line—pizza, hamburgers, hotdogs and fries. And then the deli line.

-Kids started to filter in, most checked me out and then went back to their conversations.

-How long before he told his friends and then everybody would know too?

The unnecessary phrase would be and then. Specifically the then.

I found 52 occurrences of and then in my old Frosty manuscript. For comparison, I found 4 in my current manuscript and they are all in dialogue–which is okay.

Totally. Completely. Unnecessary.

So I added and then to my list of sloppy writing. The list keeps growing.