When the whole of imagination and possibilities are at your fingertips, creating a story people want to read and are invested in becomes difficult.
Like all crafts, creative writing is learned through thousands of hours of practice and learning. But when starting out, it’s easy to get caught up in the little things and become blind to the bigger mistakes you don’t know about.
Here are some common writing mistakes aspiring authors make and ways to fix them:
Mistake 1: Thinking you’re done after the first draft
As a teenager, I was so happy to have finished the first draft and so in love with my own story, that I thought my mom was stupid for saying I’d have to edit it. But as I grew older, I realized that the first draft is only raw material you work with — you still have to shape it into something fantastic. Usually, this requires several rounds of editing and revisions.
The fix: Celebrate the completion of your first draft, set it aside for a few days or weeks and then come back to it ready to make it even more amazing than it already is.
Mistake 2: Editing as you go
Many upcoming writers like to edit as they go, especially when they hit a roadblock in the story. This can range from reworking the entire last section to line editing a few chapters or completely reworking the opening. But editing as you go slows you down and on the first draft, is counter-productive.
The fix: Leave editing for the second draft when you know exactly where you want your story to go and have a better sense of what needs to be accomplished each step of the way. If you edit as you write, you’ll end up having to redo most of it anyway — the goal is to edit less, not more.
Here’s my quick guide to how to edit with the least drafts and have the greatest outcomes with each round.
Mistake 3: Beginning the story too early
Many writers start their story at the very beginning, building out the world, the character’s backgrounds and all the exposition needed before the story begins — but that’s way too late! Although the exposition is important for the writer to better understand their own world and characters, it ends up being a boring opening chapter(s) for the reader.
The fix: Start your story at the first most interesting part. Gone is picking flowers with grandmother as a child. Say hello to running through the streets with an officer on your heels and a million dollar diamond grasped tightly in hand. All of that wonderful exposition, background and world building can come out as the story progresses, so don’t be afraid to jump right in to the action.
Mistake 4: Not enough tension
Many writers are attached to their characters. We love them heart and soul and we don’t want to see them suffer or struggle to overcome challenges, but if we let them off too easy, the book will suffer. Have you ever read a book where the character thinks about how much they love their house for several pages? Maybe read a book where the characters reach the villain’s castle which is impossible to break in to, but they manage to walk through the front doors and to the villain’s throne room with only a few minor hiccups? Is any of that fun? Most would say no.
The fix: Keep finding ways to up the tension. Make each barrier harder and harder to overcome so that characters have to be more creative to get to the next part of the journey. And eliminate as much sitting around and waiting time as you can. Readers want to see the action and drama of your world, not wait for someone else to make a decision before they can move on. If you’re not careful, the waiting parts of your story can add up — a paragraph here, a paragraph there, until it feels like the whole chapter spends more time waiting for things to happen rather than carrying on the adventure.
Mistake 5: Mixing point of view
There are generally only three points of view that stories are written in: First person, third person and omniscient. Many new writers will begin in one, for example third person limited, but then halfway through the chapter, slip into another character’s point of view, only to return to the main character’s in the next sentence.
The fix: Although it’s tempting to mix point of views in a single scene, in general it’s best to keep each section or chapter to a single POV. You can always swap to another character in the next chapter or scene.
Mistake 6: Rushing
This is a mistake every writer makes. You’re reaching the end of the story or are in the middle of a tense scene and you just can’t wait to get to the end, so you rush through it. Although rushing is fine in a first and second draft, the final piece should correct that pacing.
The fix: Imagine your book as a movie. Rushing is like getting to the climax and putting the show on 2x speed. It’s not as enjoyable of an experience. So slow down, describe, make us feel every emotion and action beat you can glean from that scene. And don’t be afraid to double the word count. It’s much easier to delete unnecessary words than add details in.
Mistake 7: Playing it safe
Similar to not having enough tension, some stories end up feeling a bit too cliche. It’s a fine story, but it’s predictable, there are no twists or changes, every character behaves as you thought they might from the first page. It’s not a bad story, but it’s also not very good.
The fix: Playing it safe is often a symptom of insecurity. It’s hard to have your story criticized after spending hours making something you believe in, so some new writers stick to safe plot points, cliche twists and low tensions that are harder to critique. But doing so ends up making the story fall flat. It’s okay to take risks, don’t be afraid to try something new! It’s okay if it doesn’t work on the first try, you’ll be able to edit it into perfection.
Mistake 8: Writing flat or unrealistic characters
Writing meaningful, relatable characters can be quite difficult. It’s easy to fall into a trap of characters that have few to no traits. These tend to read as flat characters that feel like cardboard or robotic.
On the other end, are characters with too many conflicting traits, too many good or negative traits or unrealistic characteristics, like a teenager who, without training, is an Olympic bowman and runner who can read minds and shoot laser beams.
The fix: Characters and their dynamics can elevate your plot from a “beat the bad guy” story to a tragedy of sacrifice and love among friends that keeps readers glued to the page. To fix flat characters, give each character a positive and a negative trait, ideally that conflict. For example, they have a very kind heart and are always looking for ways to help, but they also have an addiction to shopping so they never have the money to help when their friends need it most. These conflicting traits add build-in tensions and dramas that can help your characters feel more balanced and alive. As you write your character, keep these traits in mind and ensure that the decisions, dialog and actions of the characters align with their traits.
For unrealistic characters, make sure they fit into the world and have at least as many meaningful faults as abilities. Although it could be fun to have an over powered teenager in the normal world, unless you’re writing about superheroes, it’s not a good fit. Unrealistic characters are also hard for us normal people to relate to, so rather than make them impossibly good, find faults or struggles that the average person can relate to. This could be getting flustered when there’s too many tasks to do, having an outburst when they are hurt and overwhelmed, struggling to feel like they belong, or any other number of things. The more common the doubt or fear or weakness, the more relatable it will be.
Mistake 9: Too many cliches
Cliches are an easy fallback to lean on and often the result of not spending enough time to think. This is especially true for phrases like “bun in the oven”, “diamond in the rough”, “when it rains, it pours”, and “through thick and thin.” Cliche phrases are always getting added to the list — a currently overused phrase is “but the smile didn’t quite reach his/her eyes.”
The problem with cliches is they have been used so often and are so common that they lose meaning or interest. They can come across as flat, unimaginative and even boring.
The fix: 1) Replace cliches with unique phrases for your world — “A tired as a dragon after pillaging”; 2) Consider phrasing it in a different way — “Through mud and tears”; 3) Or just cut it. Sometimes, it’s stronger to show rather than tell. For example, instead of saying “there’s a bun in the oven.” The character can smile knowingly while rubbing her belly.
Mistake 10: Bland or too much descriptions
Descriptions are notoriously difficult to write so it’s no wonder many beginning writers struggle. Some have too little description and fall back on bland terms like “white”, “new”, “old”, or “a house” with no description. On the other hand, some writers put far too much description in, killing the vibe of the scene and slowing the plot down to a snail crawl. It’s a difficult balance to find.
The fix: One trick is to describe the location or item first in a general sense “the rain washed through the sleeping town,” and then with one or two specific or small details such as “rats rummaged through the overflowing trash cans and all the shutters were shut against the rain and smell alike.”
I also find reading poetry and using a thesaurus helped me take my descriptions from “white house” to “a suburban heaven with off-white walls and black shutters to bring out the color of the front garden.”
Lastly, your character, location, item doesn’t have to be described all at once. It’s okay to start with one or two things, then add to that as the scene progresses.
Mistake 11: Fluffy dialog
Dialog can make or break the characters and the plot, and the number one mistake is fluffy dialog. Fluffy dialog includes characters saying “thank you” after every little thing that happens, spending time on small or idle talk, or having stilted dialog such as “hello, I am Jonah. It is nice to meet you.” “Yes, it is nice to meet you too. Thank you for coming in today.”
The fix: First, only include necessary dialog that pushes the story forward. In most cases, you can skip the small talk and most of the thank you’s that we’re used to hearing in normal conversation. Unless you’re writing an awkward scene between two characters, it isn’t likely to serve a purpose, so don’t be afraid to jump to the point.
Second, go to your local library or coffee shop and ease drop on strangers. Transcribe as much of it as you can. You’ll be surprised to see the way people talk. Often, they drop formalities, use slang and topics can leap from one thing to another. For example,
“Ugh, I can’t wait for this paper to be done.”
“Right? I’m supposed to go out with Jerry tonight but like, my mom will kill me if I do bad in this class.”
“Did you see Anna’s sweater today?”
“Cute, right?
“Not as cute as my new dress. This isn’t a flattering photo but look!”
Mistake 12: Too much happiness
Similar to letting characters off too easy, some writers struggle to add serious problems and conflicts to their story, thus making their novel feel like a children’s picture book.
The fix: It’s okay to have happy situations and characters, but they shouldn’t be the main purpose of the story. Like real life, you can consider yourself a happy person with a content life but still snap at your significant other over something silly, still scream into your pillow after a bad day at work and feel betrayed when your friends go out on the town without inviting you. Happiness is not a lack of problems, tensions or hurt, but a brief moment when those things don’t matter.
Mistake 13: Telling instead of showing
This is one of the hardest skills to master for new and published authors. “Telling” means laying out the facts in an obvious or flat way. “Showing” is giving readers information about the situation without saying it outright. Most authors (regardless of experience) have a lot of telling in their first drafts that is changed to showing through the editing process. Although there are many situations where telling is appropriate, it should be used sparingly.
The fix: Make your character’s actions speak for them.
Telling: “I’m pregnant,” she said.
Showing: She rubs her belly, a smile crawling up the corners of her mouth and her eyes shine as she looks up to her husband.
Telling: “I’m hurt really bad. I think I broke my leg.”
Showing: Face contorted in pain, he clutched his leg. Blood oozed through his fingers and his foot was bent in the wrong direction.
Any other common mistakes come to mind? Comment them below with examples of how you fix them.
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