What are the most common errors amateur writers tend to make in the writing industry?

This thread has gone in the direction of selling your finished product. If that's why you write, it's important to pay attention to what these experienced and successful writers have said about getting your work sold. I think they all have a good handle on the difficulties (and rewards) of getting traditionally published.

Self-pubbing is also an option these days, of course. That has its own rewards and its own problems to overcome.

Both of these selling mechanisms are part luck, part hard work, and partly dependent on the interest of others, aren't they? You can't completely control what happens to your work once it's finished. Lots of things factor in to the publication game, as these experienced writers have pointed out. Producing the best product AND perseverance with the publishing side of it seem to be the key. Along with accepting that it might take a long time to 'get there,' or you might never get there. Or you might get there in one jump, as @Laurin Kelly did. (Speaking as somebody who has read her first book, I'm not surprised. It really did stand out.)

However, what you DO have total control over is the product itself. That's where some of the earlier contributors to this thread have hit it on the head, in my opinion anyway.

Wanting to be a writer and actually writing are two different things. Planning can be a stage in writing, but if you can't get yourself out of the planning stage, you're not really writing, are you? Planning is building a vision and telling yourself a story. However, writing is an attempt to tell a story to others. And I think maybe some folks are scared of taking that first step.

That's where @deadrats 's advice comes in, in my opinion. You need to read. Not just here and there, because somebody's got a gun at your head telling you to read, but actually READ. That doesn't mean you need to study what you read (although you can if you want.) By all means, read for fun. Read the stuff you enjoy reading. Your subconscious will pick up what good writing sounds like. You will experience a storytelling tone that suits you. And then off you go. Write your OWN story—one you would enjoy reading.

AND TELL YOURSELF NOBODY WILL SEE WHAT YOU ARE WRITING until you're happy with it yourself. Try not to fall into the 'writing by committee' trap. (Otherwise known as 'brainstorming'—which is fine in a corporate meeting room, but not so fine for a writer who is trying to be original.) You give up control of your story if you become reliant on others to solve your story problems for you, or to come up with ideas for you to write about. Or seek approval at every step. Or to decide what to name a character. Or to decide what works best, this or that. You might as well be ghostwriting somebody else's story.

Resist the temptation to display work that's not done yet. (We see this here on the forum all the time.) Keep it to yourself. You're not going to invite people to taste a cake before you've put it in a pan to bake it, are you? And then throw it away and start again and again because somebody doesn't like the batter? In essence that's what premature display does. You need to have the confidence to finish baking the thing. THEN get folk to taste it. If it's a failure, figure out why, mix up another batter, bake it again and see what you get.

Yeah, you'll make mistakes, but the beauty of writing on a computer is that these mistakes are easy to change. Gone are the days when you had to scratch out a story on paper. You can not only re-write with ease these days, but you can actually save whatever you wrote before. There is NO DANGER of making changes you will later regret. You can always get the original back, if you keep copies. So write without fear and edit without mercy. Get your story done. Then you'll have something concrete to work on.

Some families and friends are better than others at giving feedback. How many times do you read dedications at the front of books, where the author pays tribute to his or her spouse ...saying this person is their best and first critic every time? Some people are lucky with family. So don't be afraid to show your family your work. But do be aware of two things—opposite things, actually. One, they might be trying to save your feelings. Two, they might be subjecting you to knee-jerk family disapproval. So you need to know these family members well, and take their feedback for whatever it may be.

As far as feedback goes—if you 'know' what betas say about your writing is true, then act on it. If you feel they've missed the point, then figure out WHY they've missed the point. Is it something you can work on, so your next group of readers doesn't miss the point? Try to bridge the gap between what you intended and what is getting picked up. Don't just assume the reader is at fault.

Do your betas talk about your story itself, or just comment on the writing? If they talk about your characters and what happened in the story, you've probably hooked them at some level. Pay particular attention to what these people say, because they are invested in your story already, and you're halfway there. However, don't dismiss criticism about your writing style or your grammar, either. Resist the urge to resist. And also resist the urge to change everything. Stay calm, stay neutral, and digest what betas have said before making any changes. You have control here. Don't go off in a flap just because somebody didn't like something. Think it through.

Another amateur mistake I believe people make (and we see it discussed a lot here on the forum as well) is taking on the notion of absolutes. This usually comes from encountering somebody-or-other's Do/Don't School of Writing.

Never use adjectives or adverbs. Tell the story only with dialogue. Never use anything but 'said.' Always start the story in the middle of some exciting conflict. Never write a prologue. Never use italics for thoughts. Always use italics for thoughts. Never do anything that will slow your story down. And etc.

Realise that all words, techniques, and approaches to writing do exist. They can all be used, as needed. Think about the EFFECT of what you're doing, and work the tools accordingly. How-To-Write book authors are trying to sell THEIR books. Some offer good advice, but some are just trying to sell you Miracle Food. Life (and writing) is rarely that simple.

Most of all? Have fun! I know writing my novel has given me pleasure like nothing else I've ever created. Maybe because a lifetime of reading novels has given me an equal amount of pleasure. Nice to know I've joined that stream.

 

To return to the question the OP asked at the start, here's a partial list of mistakes I think new writers tend to make. This has more to do with writing than marketing. Maybe start your own list?


starting a story with unnecessary mystery—‘a figure was riding a large animal through a landscape’

starting a story with a fight or battle because fights/battles are 'exciting,' then having to backtrack to explain what it’s all about

not recognising the difference between 'intriguing' and 'confusing'

screeds of unattributed dialogue where the reader loses track of who is saying what

saying something, then feeling the need to say it again (several times) in different words, in case the reader missed it the first time.

head-hopping

laundry-list character descriptions from the author’s perspective

not understanding the difference between ‘show’ and ‘tell,’ and thinking one is bad and the other is good

putting too much emphasis on what happens, and too little on why it is happening, or on how characters feel about the situation

 

One important item to add to this list (because I still do it occasionally) is writing out things as thought the book were a film. I'm sure this can create multiple problems, but to spell out just one:

Not every action/detail needs to be laid out in a scene. The reader can infer steps. It's not like in a movie where your eyes see each frame in a scene. In novels, many frames can can be inferred.

 

Worrying about structure and reader base before the wip is done. That seems to be the usual issue I see. Write first, ask questions later. But I get it, I used to do it too.

 

Adding in a few from my personal (admittedly, embarrassing) experiences, and those in my circles...

- Too much telling, not enough showing.
- Too much exposition in a scene(s).
- Writing narrative when it should be a scene.
- The feeling of inadequacy, and/or imposter syndrome.

 

- Trying to reinvent the wheel. People are treating the idea of "subverting expectations" as though it's this gold bar standard. It's not that simple, because execution is just as important and writing something original.

- Spending a disproportional amount of time in world building. I think you should spend as little time as possible in world building. Just enough that certain things make sense. The rest should be spent in building the characters. "But Kallisto! What about the world feeling 'real?'" Well, the world will feel real as the characters interact with it in a realistic way.

 

Serious question: What's the difference between narrative and scene?

My understanding so far has been that the narrative is basically the telling of the story in practice, whereas a scene is a component of the narrative structure. Though, I'm mostly an autodidact when it comes to writing and sometimes I worry I don't understand the terminology as well as I think I do.

 

There are probably other ways to look at it, but for me, in writing, 'narrative' is simply the part of the story that doesn't involve dialogue. People who love to tell a story exclusively with dialogue don't like to use narrative. And if somebody doesn't ever use dialogue, the story will be told in narrative form.

As far as scene goes, it's really not connected to narrative in terms of meaning. A scene is just a part of the story that happens in 'real time,' so to speak. It can be dialogue, narrative, or a mixture of the two.

Chapters are often made up of many different scenes. If you think of a chapter as a mini story, a scene will be a very very mini-story included within the chapter, etc. Scenes can take place in different locations or time frames and still be part of the same chapter.

Chapter One, First scene, your POV character is walking to the corner grocery store after his first full day back at school, worrying about how he's going to get his science homework done, because he didn't take good notes in class that day. Second scene, your POV character is at the grocery store checkout with an armload of snacks and soft drinks, when a new classmate enters the store. They strike up a conversation and decide to do the science homework together, because the new classmate DOES have good notes. Third scene, they're back at the POV character's 'home,' working on the homework, when (maybe something else happens, etc.) Likely Chapter One will all be about the character making a new friend among his classmates AND getting (or not getting) his homework done as a result.

The consequences of both of these things can be the start of Chapter Two. Which will contain more scenes, etc.

 

Ah, I see how that would make sense. Though, I think of that part as the narration, specifically. As in, it's the part of the narrative that's actually narrated.

I guess that might seem redundant? Part of all this is probably that we have equivalent words in Swedish that work pretty exactly that way.

Right, that's how understand it as well. Narrative structure. Books are made up of chapters which are made up of scenes.

With this in mind, what Damage said still puzzles me.

 

I was basing that off of something that my editor pointed out a few times on my WIP with regard to specific parts. In some cases, I was just narrating for the sake of exposition, but those parts were better served broken down with dialogue and little chunks that actually moved the plot. It's subjective. "Narrative fluff" is another way of putting it , which you don't always want to do in short stories...and I had the tendency to do that.

 

Using other writers style instead of using your own style.

 

Well, there is a BIG list that first timers make from their expectations, to their approach, in their writing, and when actually attempting to publish so it's almost impossible to list them all.

One of the big ones is putting the cart before the horse. I see a lot of (although not on this forum) "I'm 14 and like I want to publish my finished novel. I've been writing since I was like 10 and my friends and family and teachers tell me I'm like really good. So like how do I go about it? Thanks" REALLY? I don't even answer those questions anymore.

You can just google this question and get pages and pages of opinions on the biggest mistakes. I really do think the biggest mistake is rushing it without learning your craft (that includes the business side).

 

Yeah, I'd certainly include 'rushing to publication.' And that means 'rushing to send out query letters' as well as rushing to self-publication. It's hard to over-emphasize the need to edit thoroughly before ever reaching this stage. Get beta readers by the ton, if you can. Get that story honed. Rushing to publish a first draft that's only had a spellchecker run over it means you're going to get a reputation for having written rubbish. And that's you for the forseeable future. Not a good way to launch a writing career.

By all means, enjoy finishing your first draft! It's a very important step. Without a completed first draft, you don't have a story. But then work needs to start on the presentation. And that can take a long time and create many 'versions' of the story before it's ready to give to the world.

 

I don't either. In fact, as time goes on, there are fewer and fewer questions that I'll take from amateurs, simply because it is clear that they haven't done even the slightest modicum of research on their own. They hop online and pretend like the world is their personal Google and everyone needs to come to their aid and do all of the work and only provide answers that the amateur writes because it's all about them.

Sorry to say, it never is.

 

There was some guy posting on Reddit today who wanted to be walked through publication, even though he hasn't even started his book yet. More people need to be willing to smack people in the head and insist they get back to work before they put the cart light years ahead of the horse.

 

I like the idea of doing a character build, but as it relates to your story or as a way of getting a better idea of the story, though it shouldn't be long. For all my characters of my current WIP, it took me a few minutes per character. From building my characters before my outline I was about to see that two characters were too similar so I had to make changes and one character was useless so he got cut. But yes, I do agree that investing loads of time and energy is not helpful.