Whether you are a new writer or a best selling author there will be a times that we all might make a mistake. Not because you don't know but mainly due to rush or due to the fact that you have been working with your book for so long that you just missed that tiny little mistake.
No matter what the reason is I just want to assure you that everyone does mistakes and that's totally normal.
Below I have some of the most common mistakes that you will be come across while writing a book.
1. Weak introduction
In everything the first impression is the one that makes you stand out and so does in story telling.
Here writers often make the mistakes ( including and myself, when first started writing) and they start their first paragraph of the story with a cliches kind of idea, such as a recall of a dream , waking up from a dream, a mundane kind of event or like talking to themselves in the mirror.
This not only is a cliche thing but also doesn't give much about the characters, the story or make the readers want to continue reading. The readers will continue reading only when you make them care for your character
This doesn't mean that you need to make your introduction very big either. Long and to much description also are the best thing. So make sure to make your first paragraph intriguing
2. Unrealistic Characters
One thing that makes the readers want to read your book is because in a way the connected with your character and created a bond with them. If you on the other hand create actions and events without credible motive or backstory, that most probably will make your reader lose their interest in the story.
Make sure that your readers can understand the actions and motives of your character in order to be more easy for them to bond and care for your characters
3. Weak Plot
Do you all remember when you where in school and had one of those creative writing classes? Well one thing I remember is our teacher repeatedly saying to us to follow the order that a good plot has : Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. In other word each and every story or even essay should have a beginning, a middle and an ending, messing up in this means a total failure.
This seams easy right ? Well let me tell you that it's not. Why ? Because sometimes unconsciously writers might miss an element, the element that would probably take the story to its climax. Think of it in this way you are on your way to the beach, you drive for a while and then come across a crossroad, you can either go left, right or go straight. You decide to go left but soon you realize that its a dead end, you then go right same its a dead end so this time you go straight and .... you come to the point you were, kinda boring and mood ruining right? well that's exactly what happens when there is a weak plot.
One other reason a plot can be weak is because there is no relevant obstacles to conquer and make the whole thing seem impossible until the time that its approaching towards the end of the story.
That's the whole point after all, to make the reader feel anxious, connect and get all the feelings of the character make them thing that the character won't make it but then in a smooth way everything falls into it's place.
4. Predictability
One of the most easiest traps to fall while writing a book is to go by the flow of the current trends. Following what is popular might be intriguing and seem like a good idea at first, as from the time you expect more people be interested in your story in that way, but keep in mind that in that way you might end up making your story predictable.
5. Poor handling of dialogues
One other mistake is noticed in the dialogues. Of course here there are many way things can go wrong but the worst is when the dialogues sound more of overtly literary rather than a normal dialogue that sounds more realist.
Make sure to write dialogues that are not too long risking to end up with dialogues that do not contribute to anything of value. Instead focus on making your dialogues in a way that they convey with crucial plot information and develop your characters' personalities.
6. Overly complex plots.
The main problem here is that some writer are getting intrigued with a story idea the come up with but when they start writing it, they figure out that it's kind of complicated and that they do not fully understand it or even worst they end up losing the control they have over the story. So keep in mind that sometimes simplicity its the key.
7. No conflict between the characters
I know that we all love a happy ending in our stories, who doesn't. But how do you expect to keep the flame in the hearts of your readers if you don't have any conflicts. I am sure you don't want your story to sound like this :
A: Hello John
B: Hi Judy
A: How is everything with Mary?
B: oh the usual all good, we are getting married
A: Congratulations guys .....
Like come on..... it's kinda boring to be honest. No one likes the bad stuff I know that believe me but it would be much more interesting like this:
A: How dare you cheat on me with Mary after sooo many years we've been together
B: You accuse me,when you are the one who cheated on me first!
Let's be honest it's inevitably interesting .
8. Flat Character
Your character is what makes the story in the first place, if your character is with little to no complex emotions, motivations, or personality then the story becomes boring.
You must try and make your characters believable. Create a background story for each and every character of yours, whether it's the main character or secondary, not matter whether you will use the backstory of that character in your story or no you still need to have one as from the time it will help you with your story and how it develops.
9. Story events that don't move the plot
There are several reasons why someone might fall to this trap and I am not judging, I have been there myself too.
Let's see some of those reasons:
You need to kill time in your story
Sometimes we are having the feeling that we need to show the time pass, and sometimes we feel that we need to include every single details of that time pass otherwise the readers won't get the full idea. Wrong ! Filling up the pages with "useless" information that do not contribute to anything and do not show any progress in the story are just waste of time and you risk making your readers lose their interest (Or simple they will start skipping pages )
E.x Agatha woke up in the morning and brushed her teeth, then went to he room and started choosing her outfit for the day ..... then she got in the bus to go to school.
Instead you could simply start your next scene from the school bus - if there is something important that will happen there, otherwise start straight forward from the school.
The only time it's ok for you to write scene like that one, is only if it shows something even with that simple mundane action. For example if it shows some kind of culture thing by brushing teeth, maybe it's a cultural thing and it shows the way people live and interact in their daily life in that culture.
Cool ideas
It's common when you write to suddenly get a lot of ideas at once and you have the need to include them all. But the problem is that you don't know how to connect them all together.
In such cases writing an extraneous scene might happen.
So my suggestion is, in such cases just sit down and analyze the whole thing, weight your ideas check it with the story, if the fit well or not, make a good dusting and stuck with the ideas that can offer something to your story.
You feel that something need to happen in this scene
When writing a story, writers often get to a point were they get stuck and down know how to move to the next important scene. The feel that they must make something happen in order to be able to move to the next important scene . Again that's not true. Simple go on with the next scene.
E.x Bad guys just got done shooting at your P.I. hero. Now what? Maybe he goes to talk to the head of Internal Affairs at the police department—who just happens to be an old flame. Shocked by the bullet graze on his face, she turns tender and patches him up. They talk, he tells her all about the case (stuff readers already know), then takes a tough-man swig from the bottle of Scotch hidden in her bottom drawer and heads back out to the streets.
This sounds like a totally reasonable progression of events. Why shouldn’t he take a breather while he gets himself patched up? The relationship aspect of the scene even sounds pretty interesting (ooooh, old flame!). But what actually happens in this scene?
You guessed it: nada. So they talk—so what? So she patches him up—big deal. So she gave him a drink—that was nice.
But did the plot get advanced? Nope!
As it stands, it did not. This was a total filler scene, designed simply to show something happening. This might be useful for a movie script but not for a book.
10. Telling Not Showing
One thing that some writers might often confuse is that books are not movies, you can't write something and expect the readers to understand everything you have in mind or what you want to show. If you want to make them get in the same mind signals as you, you need describe stuff.
Not only explain them things, make them experience them as if they are there. It's not a movie where they can see the way the house was, the way the characters were looking at each others .... describe it to them.
Make them activate all 5 of their senses : Smell, touch, hear, see, taste
11. Confusing Hyphen / En dash / Em dash
Actually there isn't any big difference between this three, they just differ by length. However they have a huge difference and make a huge difference in a sentence. Let's see the differences :
Hyphen: “I have a blue-green sweater.” The hyphen here is used to amalgamate or mesh the two colors into one.
En dash: “Would you say this sweater is blue – or green?” The en dash is used for pause or emphasis.
Em dash: “The sweater could be called blue — the blue of the sea or the sky, or green — the green of the forest.” The em dash is also used for pause or emphasis, mainly by US writers. Something about the length makes it look elegant and thoughtful in a sentence.
12. Writing like it's 1889
Every person has someone that they look up to and they want to be like them, be like their idols. Same for writers, every writer was first aspired from another writer who made him / her start writing, including and myself.
Most of the time the writers we are aspired from are the classic writer, what's better than that right ?
That's amazing and wonderful ,they are classic for a reason in the end of the day. But sometimes that influence is what makes some writers write in an overly flowery language that makes them sound as if they are from a different era.
As I said there is nothing bad with that, but if your target is the new generation and young readers that might not be and the best idea to write in that style, unless you are a historic fiction writer, then by all means go for it.
13. Not proofreading - Proofreading and editing and writing at the same time
When the thing come st o this there are two types of writer: those you spend more time writing and very little time editing / proofreading and those who do all at the same time. Both have its bad sides.
Writing a book is one thing , and I would say the easiest part rather than editing, believe I know what you are thinking " That can't be right! editing is a piece of cake - try coming up with something new every times" I feel you, seriously I do , but believe me when you have to spend hours and hours to try and fix unspotted plot holes and try to keep the story pace without writing something that will end up being a time wast but at the same time fix that plot hole is a much more bigger headache than coming up with a new story idea.
Editing and proofreading is not only for finding the grammar and spelling mistakes but also watch the plot holes, the flow etc. Here you can ask someone to have a proofread for you, a fresh pair of eyes are always better in spotting something that might be off.
On the other hand doing everything at the same times is not a solutions either. You are over-exhausting yourself that's one, second you spend endless hours in fixing a paragraph without actually writing anything and the time goes on and on, like this it might even take you forever to finish a book cause you are doing two and more actions at once.
I used to write like this all the time. I spent hours tinkering with my sentences, and I went back repeatedly to perfect them. I played around with verb tense and verb agreement, switching from the past to present and back again.
This is a terrible way to write your book. It gets you to nowhere at the end of the day. Remember your first draft will not be the final one, so first focus on writing the book and then spend time editing it.
14. Writing too many projects at once.
Writing lots of things at once is fine if you’re Stephen King, Neil Gaiman or a pro author who has been at this for over 10 years.
But when you are a new author that could actually be bad, and I will tell you why.
Working on many projects not only distract you but also in this way you will find it harder to create a writing routine and stick with it. Thus you will delay finish those projects.
15. Writing only when inspired
Writing is not what most people think, taking a piece of paper and pen and start writing. It requires from you to unlock your creative side and put all those colorful thoughts on paper.
So with that in mind you can't just expect from yourself to be able to quickly unlock the creative thoughts box in a matter of second when you haven't bothered writing for days or weeks, it requires times.
Think of a dancer they need to warm up, practice, try and try endless times until they are fully ready for the big day.A dancer ( and have been a dancer myself) can't just go on stage and do a perfect split without a warm up, that' s bad and no dance instructor would ever recommend that. It's the same for writing.
No matter how under the weather you are, busy you are, you need to try find at least few minutes to focus on your writing. A dancer won't ever say "ohhh today I am under the weather so I wont practice my dance" in that way of thinking they won't ever make it to the big day.
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That's all for this blog. Hope this will help you with your writing. Remember this is not everything they are still many other mistakes when comes to writing, but this are the most common based on my opinion.
That's All She Wrote
Laura Melkonian
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