Writer Blogs

Every one of us might have a great story but what separates a great writer from a story teller is penning down the thought process in paper/laptop. In order to become a better writer , a beginner must rigidly avoid the following basic writing mistakes.

1)Blind start

Don’t just start writing thinking you have to be the best selling author out there. Indeed every author dreams of becoming a best selling author. But that puts unnecessary pressure on our mind and we cannot think of more creative ideas than pondering about our future success . Remember your creative imagination is the quintessential requirement in writing a great story. Success will come down the way eventually if you have patience .This is one of the first writing mistakes of a beginner before jumping into the field of writing.

2)Indiscipline

Write one chapter daily. Its a normal tendency that while writing a book, we delay in writing even though the plotline is in our head. Don’t neglect writing chapters regularly. It will help you complete your book early. Any beginner I have seen would make a jump start and then looses the flow. They don’t get past over the writer’s block easily. Such writing mistakes lack of and right mindset for the beginner is detrimental for his writing career.

3)Unaware of their writing genre :

An author should identify his/her strength well before drafting the story. He/she should know his genre well – whether its science fiction, fantasy, romance, young adults, non fiction whatever. Simply don’t try to emulate some other author which is a common writing mistake. Look into the mirror and ask your self – which genre you can write more creative stuff. A new author always try to accomplish multiple tasks which will not give good results. Identify your strengths. Master your skills in specific genre.

4)Editing while writing

This is probably the biggest mistake a new writer makes. Remember editing can be done after you complete writing your story. It is quite natural that we want to correct every mistakes as we write. But that hinders your productivity to larger extent. Focus on your content, creative imagination and only after completing your story, dedicate your time in proper editing or get a proof reader.

5)Planning your story

Planning your story is important. You should have out story line ready with you. You should n’t write without having the story line ready with you- opening, exposition,main characters, conflicts, action , drama and proper ending. Just don’t simply start writing without having a goal of your story. Otherwise,you will keep on writing without knowing where to stop.

6)Show, don’t tell

New writers tend to tell the readers about the story and it is a common fallacy for the author especially writing fiction. You got to show the readers about the emotions, actions in your story not by directly saying. You need to practice to achieve these skill. Usage of adjectives and idiomatic expressions are quite helpful in showing a particular scene the better way. For example – how would explain someone is worried while taking exam in a particular scene from your novel. You need to describe the physical condition of the character of your novel at that point of time. Your character is vigorously sweating and every minute, he is wiping his sweat from his face, he is drinking lots of water. These are personifications of the person in that particular scene from your novel. You could have told directly but no you should never.

7)Writing out of the box

In fiction, we generally think of having the privelege of writing something new, unheard of. As a fiction writer we can define new worlds, new magic and new life, new concepts but that must be comprehensible to the readers. Readers should not scratch their to understand the significance and meaning of your story. If this happens throughout the book, they can stop reading your book. For example, you have a defined an alien planet in faraway galaxy. The planet might have 48 hrs a day or 4 hours a day. This is easy to understand. But if you write the planet have 50 some random stuff per day. Audience won’t be able to relate or understand your narrative. So use realistic things in defining something unknown especially in fiction writing. You will be get this skills mastered once you read a lot fiction books.

8)Balance of conflict

Maintaining too many conflicts in the novel is tough task for new writers. Avoid too many conflicts within the characters in your book and keep a proper of balance in conflict in your novel. Conflicts in the characters hook the audience but irregular usage of conflicts without having relevance will make your audience stop reading the book.

9)Defining plethora of characters

This is not mandatory. But it is often seen that using lot of characters makes a new writer go off track. Keep only the characters having roles in your book. Don’t name and keep characters who don’t have any role in your story. Initially keep it simple and use 4 to 5 characters for your story. The more you grow as a writer, you can increase the number of characters om your novel.

Conclusion

Good writers are not created overnight. They developed the skills and learn from the mistakes and keeping track of it. Thus a beginner should avoid such writing mistakes and start growing from day one itself.

Also read

How to write a killer synopsis

Writing a good query letter to publisher/literary agents

Topics for creative writing