Last week I talked about how I was overusing the word MADE when I could be using so much better words. So I’ll do another along that line. GET.
 
So sometimes I could just delete the GET because it was unnecessary. I tightened my sentence. No, it’s really not a lot of words, but it’s cleaner.
 
-I slipped over to the water fountain to get a drink as a girl clutching The Time Traveler’s Wife cruised by.
I slipped over to the water fountain for a drink as a girl clutching The Time Traveler’s Wife cruised by.
 
-I’d rather be teaching upper level classes, but that’s not what TAs get to teach.
I’d rather be teaching upper level classes, but that’s not what TAs teach.
 
- I need to get to my grading finished.
I need to finish my grading.
 
Other times I could use a better, more descriptive word. No, they’re not really fancy replacements, but I’d rather use those words than the plain GET.
 
-Then they’d get quiet.
How about grow instead of get?
 
-After our next two books, perhaps we can get a Stephen King in.
Why not read? Because that’s what she means.
 
I suppose GET would be a word you could use to differentiate characters, but I didn’t see that as important here, so I cleaned up as many of them as I could. And I got rid of/replaced about 50 GETs. So not bad.