Helpful McHelpfulpants

You should read this: It's a steampunk novel and it has a lot of the traditional elements of steampunk in it, at least for the first half. It's also brilliant.

Why do you need to have the bus ride turn out to not be real? It just seems... excessive, and, as you say, trite. It's not necessary, if what you ...

Quiet, although not absolutely necessary, is preferable. Best if I'm sitting propped up on something comfortable, like at the foot of my bed with a pillow for my back. A ...

Or, better yet, skip Cindy's morning routine entirely! =D

Well... putting a lot of information in a prologue is actually a pretty bad place to break the 'show, don't tell' rule. Infodumps. They make my eyes sore. D: That ...

In fact what I hate most is cliched writing. Next in line are cliched characters; lastly a cliched plot.

In general I think the repetition of 'said' doesn't really register at all with a reader. At least it doesn't for me. But it's a good list.