Want to learn how to write right? Sometimes the best way to ace your writing is to first learn how to avoid doing things the wrong way. But wouldn’t you need a comprehensive list of the most common writing mistakes authors make—and tips on how to avoid them?
Yup. And here’s that list!
In my ongoing Most Common Writing Mistakes series, I identify the most common writing mistakes I see time and again. You’ll be able to avoid your fellow authors’ mishaps by learning how to spot problem areas in your structure, narrative, and character building. Even better, you’ll learn more than just how to avoid these mistakes—you’ll learn how to turn them on their heads to create strong writing techniques and powerful stories.
You’ll learn:
- How to avoid opening lines that bore readers or, worse, lie to them—and instead how to craft strong and compelling openers that hook your readers’ curiosity.
- How to keep readers from tripping over your characters’ thick dialect—and instead how to perfectly convey an accent or regional dialect in dialogue.
- How to avoid irrelevant or anticlimactic endings—by structuring your stories into cohesive wholes that build in tension and interest from beginning to end.
- How to eliminate choppy prose from your narrative—and instead write prose that flows effortlessly and pulls readers into the story.
- How to cut out flabby flashbacks—and instead create important character memories that fit seamlessly within your story.
- And that’s barely the start!
Even established authors sometimes find themselves tripping over these mistakes. Learn how to spot them, smash them—and write flawless stories that rise above the pack.
Mistake #1: Verbs That Tell Instead of Show
Learn how to keep your eyes open for places where you can effortlessly strengthen your scenes by using verbs that show instead of tell.
Mistake #2: Using “There” as a Crutch Word
Whenever you see the word “there” used as a pronoun, you can be sure it’s a crutch holding up a weak and passive sentence.
Mistake #3: Poor Cause and Effect
If you can strengthen the narrative of your story by showing a logical progression of cause and effect, you’ll end up with leaner prose, more honest character reactions, and more involved readers.
Mistake #4: Vague Writing
As the creator of your story’s worlds and characters, you don’t have to wallow in the quagmire of vague details and fuzzy ideas. You can make statements of authority. If you’re not the authority in your stories, who is?
Mistake #5: Incorrect Speaker Tags and Action Beats
Let’s a take a look at two means for indicating speakers and varying the rhythm of speech and narrative: the speaker tag and the action beat.
Mistake #6: Overpowering First-Person Narrator
First-person narrators, more than any other type of narrator, are inclined to lapse into self-centered telling, in which they overpower the story, at the expense of the other characters and even the plot itself.
Mistake #7: Opening Lines That Lie to Readers
Your opening line may be bristling with energy, danger, and barbed fishhooks with which to reel in your readers, but if the paragraph that follows pulls the old switcheroo, your reader is more likely to be irritated than impressed.
Mistake #8: 10 Stylistic Mistakes
In writing, little stylistic mistakes often turn into big mistakes that can endanger reader trust. Here are ten easy fixes.
Mistake #9: Nothing Happening in Your Scene
Let’s take a look at some signs your scene may be more of the nothin’ sort than the happenin’ sort.
Mistake #10: Character Overload
When authors are dealing with large casts of characters, readers sometimes find themselves in grave danger of character overload.
Mistake #11: Giving Readers the Wrong Impression of Your Characters
The wrong choice of just a single word can be enough to give readers a completely different (and wrong) perspective of your character.
Mistake #12: Flabby Flashbacks
To flashback or not to flashback? Sooner or later, that’s a question every writer is confronted with. Here’s how to decide on the answer.
Mistake #13: Too Much Explanation
Always be aware of why you’re including a particular explanation, then reevaluate it to determine its value. Don’t be afraid to chop it if it’s interrupting the information that’s of true importance to your story.
Mistake #14: Vanishing Setting Syndrome
Authors see everything so perfectly that we don’t always realize we’re not providing readers the necessary details to allow them to properly visualize the setting.
Mistake #15: Non-Reactive and Over-Reactive Characters
Character reaction can be difficult to portray without falling into one of two pitfalls: non-reaction or over-reaction.
Mistake #16: Not Enough Tension
Tension is the threat of conflict. It’s conflict’s calmer–but no less potent–cousin.
Mistake #17: Characters Who Lack Purpose
The result of any of these purpose-sapping boredom causers will be treacle-slow scenes that fail to move the plot forward–and probably don’t do much to advance character either.
Mistake #18: Skipping the Best Parts of the Story
Sometimes, without even realizing it, writers can end up skipping the best parts and leaving readers growling their frustration.
Mistake #19: Overusing “Suddenly”
“Suddenly” has an ironic tendency to mitigate the very effect it’s trying to create.
Mistake #20: Poor Use of Dialect in Dialogue
If you can’t use phonetic spellings to indicate a character’s accent or dialect, then what can you do?
Mistake #21: Over-Explaining
Over-explaining can manifest in several ways, but the core of the problem is always repetition–and it’s usually symptomatic of authorial insecurity.
Mistake #22: Scenes That Focus on What Isn’t Happening
When we place the emphasis on non-actions, we’re failing to tell readers what they should be visualizing.
Mistake #23: Overly Complex Prose
Used wrongly or too often, complex prose can create distance between your readers and your words–or, worse, just leave them confused.
Mistake #24: Animate Body Parts
Animate body parts can create ludicrous or even confusing images and remove the emphasis from the primary actor.
Mistake #25: Characters Who Lack Solid Story Goals
If you can give your characters solid story goals that keep them running through your plot, you will never have to worry about boring readers.
Mistake #26: Under-Explaining
Avoiding under-explanation comes down to a few key techniques.
Mistake #27: Weak Character Voice
Weak character voice is often due to the simple problem of too much telling in your narrative.
Mistake #28: Choppy Prose
Authors need to be aware of the difference between lean prose and choppy prose–and learn to avoid the latter.
Mistake #29: Stories That Begin Too Early
If you are wondering whether or not you might have opened your story too soon, ask yourself these questions.
Mistake #30: Nonsensical Character Choreography
Surprisingly, one of the most difficult parts of describing character movements is sometimes simply remembering to describe those movements in the first place.
Mistake #31: One-Dimensional Conflict
Conflict is an essential ingredient of fiction. But one-dimensional conflict is not enough to plumb the depths of a story’s potential. Find out why!
Mistake #32: Boring Opening Lines
Consider some standard types of boring opening lines and what you can do to flip them around into something fascinating.
Mistake #33: Telling Important Scenes, Instead of Showing
How do you know when a scene is important enough to warrant full-on showing? Consider the following checklist.
Mistake #34: Repetitive Dialogue
At first glance, repetitive dialogue may seem to be nothing more than lazy writing. But even experienced authors can get caught in the trap.
Mistake #35: Random Story Elements
Random doesn’t sound so bad upfront. But give this insidious little devil half a chance, and it will unravel your story’s cohesion in the blink of a scene.
Mistake #36: Too Much Introspection, Not Enough Interaction
When you end up with characters doing more observing than acting, this is often a sign you’re avoiding the best parts of your story.
Mistake #37: Unnecessary Filler
As we continue to discuss the most common writing mistakes, we’d be remiss to leave out the all-too-prevalent faux pas of unnecessary filler or padding.
Mistake #38: Irrelevant Book Endings
One of the easiest writing mistakes to fall into in your book endings is actually one that has much to do with book beginnings–and, indeed, the entirety of your book.
Mistake #39: Referencing Characters by Title Rather Than Name
In the time it takes to write two words, you might distance readers from your narrative. Luckily, the fix is an easy one. Find out what it is!
Mistake #40: Unnecessary Scenes
Discover four types of unnecessary scenes that may be sinking your book – and three ways to find them and kill them.
Mistake #41: Inferring Non-POV Characters’ Thoughts
Is your narrator killing subtext by inferring other characters’ thoughts too accurately? Find out!
Mistake #42: Story Stakes That Aren’t High Enough
There are two different ways you can blow your story stakes–and both of them have the ability to ruin your book. Find out how to avoid them!
Mistake #43: Too Many Exclamation Points!
Sometimes exclamation points will be legitimate. But more often than not, they’re simply overkill. Learn how to tell the difference!
Mistake #44: Too Many Participle Phrases
Find out when participle phrases (those “-ing” words) are acceptable–and when are they not. Will using them make your book unacceptable to editors?
Mistake #45: Avoiding “Said”
Is avoiding “said” really one of the most common writing mistakes? Yep. Avoiding this hard-working speaker attribution can lead you into some major prose problems.
Mistake #46: Anticlimactic Endings
Here’s how to write books readers love–and yet still hate you for. It’s easy. All you have to do is divebomb into anticlimactic endings.
Mistake #47: Ineffective Setting Descriptions
Setting descriptions can be surprisingly tricky to detail effectively. Are you committing these three mistakes? Find out how they’re harming your story.
Mistake #48: No Conflict Between Characters
Are you characters happy? They shouldn’t be! Learn to tackle this common writing mistake caused by lack of interpersonal conflict.
Mistake #49: Weak Conjunctions
Bad news: most authors are blind to their weak conjunctions. Good news: once you are aware of them, they’re super easy to fix.
Mistake #50: Info Dumps
Learn how to avoid four lethal types of info dumps, and, even better, how to use them as opportunities to strengthen every part of your writing.
Mistake #51: One-Dimensional Characters
Is your character a one-trick pony? Learn four tricks for turning your one-dimensional character into a three-dimensional bombshell.
Mistake #52: Stagnant Story Conflict
Too many authors write story conflict that isn’t so much conflict as a delaying tactic to fill their books. Learn how to fix this problem before it starts!
Mistake #53: No Contractions in Dialogue
Contractions need to find a place in your dialogue (with a few exceptions, in which it is actually best to avoid them).
Mistake #54: Story Events That Don’t Move the Plot
Once you understand what to look for, you can find and fix even the most extraneous of story events before they derail your book’s narrative.
Mistake #55: Beginning Your Story Too Late
If you have the sadly sinking suspicion you might be beginning your story too late, consider these six signs and solutions.
Mistake #56: Unfulfilled Foreshadowing
Learn the three ways you can go wrong with unfulfilled foreshadowing, as well as five ways to avoid accidentally creating it in the first place.
Mistake #57: Dead-End Relationships
Discover how avoiding dead-end relationships will help you eliminate other story killers such as dull plots, insipid characters, and flat themes.
Mistake #58: Too Much Description
Avoiding too much description is ultimately about controlling your entire narrative. Use these description tips to advance your plot, character, and theme.
Mistake #59: Overly Complex Plots
The problem of overly complex plots is really the problem of authors writing stories they either fail to fully understand and/or aren’t in control of.
Mistake #60: Flat Plots
Here are the three most obvious (and important) entry points to creating strong, dimensional storylines, rather than boring flat plots.
Mistake #61: 5 Types of Clunky Dialogue
Fixing clunky dialogue is one of the single best ways to give your manuscript a major facelift. Here are five rules of thumb to get you started.
Mistake #62: Head-Hopping
Take a look at what “head-hopping” means, why it creates problematic POVs, and how you can correct it to create a stronger story.
Mistake #63: Purple Prose
Learn what purple prose is, how to recognize when you’re creating it, and how to write genuinely excellent prose in its place.
Mistake #64: POV Problems
When it comes to Point of View, the vastness and the complexity of the topic makes it all too easy for authors to accidentally stumble into POV problems. But fear not! We’re going to clean everything up.
