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This past weekend, I did a presentation for my local writers group about common writing mistakes I see as an editor, and since it ended up being a rather long presentation, I thought I’d put my notes into blog post form in case this might be helpful for anyone else. JSYK, this is just a quick overview of these issues. I could go on at length about any one of them. So, if you have questions, please pop them in the comment section, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

The
Info Dump

An info dump can appear anywhere
in a story, but in client edits, I usually see it in the beginning of the book.
However, this advice stands no matter where the dump occurs.

Often, our first impulse, as writers, is to spread a thick layer of backstory so the reader knows everything they need to know to understand what our characters are about to experience. And we mistakenly feel that they need to know all of this stuff before the action ever starts.

I’m going to need you to immediately squelch the impulse to info dump. Put it in a burlap sack with some old bricks and broken cement chucks, tie the bag shut, and toss it in the river. 

In case you’re wondering what
might qualify as an info dump, let’s look at some backstory info for our
protagonist, Tabby. We might think that the reader needs to immediately know:

Tabby’s
grieving her sister who went missing a year agoHer
parents’ marriage is falling apartHer
mom is an alcoholicHer
therapist is full of empty platitudesShe’s
always felt inferior to her missing sisterHer
parents believe that her sister is deadTabby
doesn’t think she is and wants to search for her

All of those elements are important to the story and to Tabby. And those things do need to work their way into the narrative, but it doesn’t need to happen in a giant avalanche of information.

When a
reader is confronted with giant swaths of backstory and story setup, there are
no questions to ask. There’s nothing to be curious about. There’s nothing
that’s going to want to make them turn the page.

You want to slowly sprinkle those bits of backstory in as the plot unfolds. It’s the difference between gently seasoning your soup and tasting it as it’s cooking, and upending an entire one-pound box of coarse sea salt into the crockpot before you even put the lentils and beans in.

Starting
the Story in the Right Place

Starting
the story in the right place is closely related to the info dump beginning. The
narrative typically takes too much time getting to the action.

When
clients are having difficulty narrowing down where to begin the story, I ask
them to write a bit about what their character’s “normal” life is like. Then, I
ask them what’s about to change and what the impetus for that change is.

Either shortly before that moment of change or right at that moment of change is almost always the best place to begin the story.

Chapter
Hooks or the Lack There Of

If you
take nothing else from this presentation, please take this. Learn how to nail
both your beginning and ending chapter hooks.

If
you’re unfamiliar with the term, a chapter hook (either at the beginning of the
chapter or the end) is that line that makes the reader want to keep reading.

As a
writer, one of your goals should be to end each chapter with varying degrees of
 “Oh, shit. Now what?!” so the reader
tells themselves that they’re just going to read the next paragraph to make
sure everything is okay, and then they’ll go to sleep.

But they
end up reading the entire next chapter instead and, before they know it, it’s
stupid o’clock in the morning, and they need to be at work in four hours. And if
 they put your book down to sleep,
it’s only because they have a modicum of self-preservation, and they plan to
read the rest on their breaks and any time their boss’s back is turned.

You
don’t ever want to make it easy for them to put your book down. Which is why I
would caution you to avoid ending a chapter with your POV character falling
asleep. I’m talking about a normal going to bed moment—not falling asleep at
the wheel of a city bus or in the middle of a performance review with their
boss. (Actually, I’d totally turn the page to see what happened there.)

Your
hook doesn’t always need to be a crisis sort of situation, but there should be
enough uncertainty surrounding that action, thought, or bit of dialogue that even
if the reader has an iron will, they still want to turn the page, even
if they’re capable of not caving to the desire.

As
you’re beginning your chapters and, especially as you’re ending them, ask
yourself if this is a line that would encourage you to screw over your chance
of getting a good night’s sleep and being a functional human being the next
day. If you’re just kind of meh about it, make a note and come back to it in
edits to shore it up.

Unnatural
Dialogue

You guys…I have sooooooo many feelings about dialogue. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you may remember the five-part post I did on writing natural-sounding dialogue. If you missed it, and you’d like to read the whole thing, click on Writing-Related Stuff and look for The 10 Dialogue Commandments.

But, right now, I’m just going to hammer on a couple things that crop up the most in client edits, rather than all ten dialogue commandments.

Lack
of contractions

Lack of
contractions in dialogue is a huge problem—particularly in contemporary
stories. Human beings are inherently lazy—this applies to our speech, too. We all
use contractions in our daily conversations, it makes sense that our characters
do, too. When they don’t, their words and their delivery comes across as
stilted or robotic. If you’re not already using contractions in your dialogue,
please take a moment to read that dialogue aloud, and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m
guessing you either sound like you’re a low-budget AI, or an invading alien
species that’s trying to blend in with the human population.

There’s
a caveat to this rule. If your character is trying to make a point, it’s fine
not to use the contraction to drive that point home.

For
example: “I will not go to a Nickelback concert with you.” Or “I would
rather chew broken glass wrapped in tin foil than watch a single episode of Naruto.”

Normally,
you’d use I won’t or I’d rather. But since you’re trying to stress the severity
of the reaction, it’s fine to skip the contraction. But I’d recommend doing it
only when it really matters—when the characters’ reaction warrants skipping it.

(The contraction rule goes for the narrative prose, too, BTW.)

TV
Script Dialogue

TV
Script Dialogue is what I call it when characters are constantly using each
other’s names in their conversation.

I think
that script writers do it because their goal is to get viewers engaged with and
hooked on the show. And they know that if someone’s stumbling in on a show
after the fourth or fifth episode, they’re less likely to continue watching,
because they won’t know who any of the characters are. Now, say you’re flipping
through the channels and you happen across Lucifer. In each scene, the
main characters refer to either the other character’s name or their occupation
or relationship. This works as shorthand to catch the viewer up on who’s who.

For
instance, Chloe constantly uses the names “Trixie”, “Dan”, “Linda”, “Ella”, and
“Lucifer” (who are her daughter, her ex, Lucifer’s therapist, a forensic
scientist she works with, and, of course, the devil) in conversation with them
in each scene they appear in.

For
Lucifer’s part, he’s constantly referring to Chloe as “detective” to Amandiel
as “brother”, to his therapist as “doctor”, to Chloe’s ex as “detective douche”,
Chloe’s child as “urchin, spawn, or child”, to the forensic scientist as “Ms.
Lopez”, and to his bodyguard as “Maze”.

All
television shows do this, though, some are more subtle about it. And once you
see it, you can’t unsee it. So…you know…you’re welcome.

The problem with this is that it’s annoying as hell. Especially, when you’re reading and characters continually using each other’s names or nicknames or terms of endearment in conversation. It doesn’t sound natural.

People
typically only use one another’s names in conversation if they’re A.) trying to
make a point. Or, B.) trying to get someone’s attention.  

This
name technique isn’t as prevalent in movies. I assume that’s because once
you’ve made it to the theatre and the film’s begun, it’s unlikely that you’ll
forget who’s who.

Think of
your characters’ conversations more like a movie script than a TV script. They
know who they’re speaking to. And unless your reader is having issues with
short-term memory formation, they know, too. So, the constant name usage can
make readers stabby. And no one wants stabby readers.

Related
to this is, Letting Your Dialogue Speak for Itself.

Some
common writing advice is to use words other than said in dialogue tags so the
conversational exchange doesn’t get monotonous. That’s decent advice, but at
the same time, it’s really not.

First
off, you don’t always need dialogue tags. Action tags often work better because
they typically work to show the reader what’s happening in the scene.

Second,
too often those replacement tags, like exclaimed, lamented, sneered,
deadpanned, joked, teased, etc. are telling the reader how to interpret
the dialogue.

If you
feel that your dialogue needs that kind explanatory tag, it’s not strong enough
to be in the story. Dialogue needs to be strong enough to stand on its own. It
needs to be effective enough that the reader can infer tone. Thy don’t need to
be told how to interpret it.

When
those kinds of tags are utilized, it shows the reader that you don’t trust that
the dialogue stands on its own, and you don’t trust that the reader is smart
enough to figure it out. No one wants to be condescended to or spoon fed.

Avoid
Name Dropping

By this,
I don’t mean mentioning Beyoncé or Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Don’t
have one character think of or mention another previously unknown (to the
reader) character without giving a least a phase of explanation as to who that
person is.

Sure,
you might go into to detail two paragraphs down but, by then, it’s already too
late. The reader has already been pulled from the narrative flow wondering who
Barbara is. Or why the protagonist is flipping out over seeing the name Brad on
his caller ID.

You
don’t want to do anything that yanks the reader from the narrative flow.

Head
Hopping

Head
hopping is when the reader is bounced from once characters thoughts and
feelings to another. I’ve seen it happen every few paragraphs and I’ve seen it
happen every few lines. This greatly hinders the readers ability to emotionally
connect with your characters because they’re not really with them long enough
to get attached to them.

Another
head hopping no-no is to bounce into characters’ heads who the reader may never
see again. The restaurant server, the Lyft driver, the weird dude on the
subway, the protagonist’s dog walker, the chemistry teacher. It’s not their
book. We don’t need to be in their heads. At all.

If
there’s something that one of those people might be thinking that’s crucial to
the plot, it needs to come out in action and/or dialogue. Not by dipping into
their head.

A good
rule of thumb to avoid head hopping is to stick with one narrative POV per
scene or chapter.

Head
Hopping adjacent is Too Many Points of Views

You
might be wondering how many is too many. That varies by genre.

Is it a
romance between two people? More than two is too many.

Is it a
thriller, fantasy, sci-fi, lit fic, mystery? You can have more than two, but
each POV you allow into a story needs to have its own character arc that the
plot of the book depends on. If the POV doesn’t meet that criteria, that’s not
a character, that’s a plot device. And plot devices have no business having a
narrative POV.

Which
brings us to our next mistake, Character as Plot Device

One of
my proudest parenting moments was when my daughter was watching some anime, and
I heard her yell, “That’s not a character, that’s a freaking plot device!” from
the next room.

Being my child she, of course, didn’t say freaking, but this post is taken from my presentation which was given in a family restaurant. So…

Anyway, some characters are literally plot devices—like the aforementioned Lyft driver and weird dude on the subway—and that’s cool.

One issue
is when a character is introduced as if the character is this really big deal,
like a close friend or relative, and the main character thinks about how
important this person is to him, but the person is literally in the story to
give the protagonist a ride to the 7-11 across town because he needs to meet
someone there who has information for him about a murder, and he can’t ask
anyone else to drive him because then they’ll know he’s getting involved in
something that he shouldn’t.

Another
issue is when a POV character is used as an information delivery system. That
character exists in the story to give the reader information about things
happening in a place where the heroine isn’t. Now, it’s one thing if that
character has discernable goals and motivations of their own—if they’ve got
their own development arc that contributes to the plot. If they don’t, that’s
not a character, that’s a plot device. And plot devices don’t get to have their
own POVs.

If you have that going on in your book, your job is to find a way to deliver that info to the reader in a different way or by developing that plot device into a full-fledged character with their own story goals, motivations and conflicts.

Whose
POV?

‪If you’re writing a multiple POV book, it can sometimes be a
struggle to figure out whose POV the scene should be told from.

Nine times out of ten, it should be told from the character who
has the most to lose at that specific time in the story—the character who has
the most at stake.

Who has the most to lose physically, financially, emotionally
(emotionally is the most important one here)? That’s almost always the POV
you’re going to want to use because that POV is what the reader is going to
respond most strongly to.

Speaking of emotional responses, I want to talk about the Use
of Filter Words for a sec.

When you can avoid words like feel/felt/feeling,
hear/hearing/heard, watched/watching, see/seen/saw, know/knowing/knew,
thought/think all act as filter words. They filter the action in the sentence
through the character’s awareness and only then does it come to the reader.

When filter words and phrases are used, it pulls the POV from
deep to shallow.

For example: Julia heard the crunch of metal on metal and
slammed on her brakes.

Okay, so, the reader knows that Julia heard something and
reacted to it.

Compare that with: Metal screeched and buckled, the noise so
startling and jarring, Julia gasped and slammed on her brakes.

The second example is more immediate—more immersive—I hope.
Also, it’s a bonus illustration for telling vs. showing.

When filter words are used, they distance the reader from the
action of the story and sometimes the heart of the character. When there’s
distance, readers have a hard time connecting emotionally. And when they don’t
connect emotionally, they don’t care about the characters like we want them to.
When readers don’t care, they stop reading the book and are highly unlikely to
pick up the next one. It’s the horrible writer version of If You Give a
Mouse a Cookie.

Sentence
Fragments vs. Incomplete Sentences

Both a
sentence fragment and an incomplete sentence are incomplete sentences.

The
difference is, the sentence fragment conveys a complete thought. The sentence
fragment doesn’t.

This is
an incomplete sentence: With his hair sticking up and out at odd angles, brown
wingtip shoes that matched his velvet pants.

This is
a sentence fragment: Hair sticking up at odd angles, brown wingtip shoes and
matching velvet pants.

For a
sentence fragment to work, it typically needs to be paired with a line or two
that sets it up.

Mira
peered out the peephole. The blind date her neighbor had sent over had arrived,
and he definitely looked like someone Gretchen would try to set her up with. Hair sticking up at odd angles, brown
wingtip shoes and matching velvet pants.

This
fragment works because there are no extraneous verbs floating around, and the
rest of the paragraph sets up and supports the fragment.

Shoehorning

There
are a number of things that fall into this category.

Like trying
to cram too many things into one character. Like…the hero who’s a billionaire,
ex-SEAL, rock star, vampire, motor cycle club member.

This
happens more often than one would hope.

Then
there’s trying to shove actions in where they don’t belong. This speaks to
character consistency and motivation.

Let’s
say that you’ve established a character who’s smart and cautious. She’s timid
and plays it safe, doesn’t take chances, and despite the fact that she’s had ample
opportunity during the story to try new things, but she’s opted not to.

Now,
you’re coming up on the climax of the story, and your plot outline says that
she needs to be in the graveyard when it occurs. So, suddenly, your heretofore
cautious heroine (without any real motivation or explanation for her change in
outlook) suddenly becomes too stupid to live. She goes to that graveyard full
of vampires who want to eat her face for the flimsiest of excuses. Like, she’s
pissed at her BFF, the vampire slayer, because her BFF thinks she’s too
cautious when prior to this moment, she was fine being cautious. If this is
something that *just* occurs to her, that’s not motivation. That’s just
shoehorning your character into your plot in a way that’s not working.

Another
form of shoehorning is trying to include elements simply because they’re
currently popular in fiction, but they don’t really fit the story. They don’t
move the story forward or fit the characters at all.

An
example of this would be two characters who are in the midst of a sex scene.
Neither one of these people has shown any interest in anything kinky, but BAM
suddenly one of them decides to spank the other one with a hairbrush or I don’t
know, some other household implement and the partner is inexplicably totally
into it.

In
fiction, this is a little condition I call Sudden Onset BDSM.

In real
life, this is assault.

So, as
you’re writing, make sure that all of the elements you include make sense for
your characters. And if they don’t, find a way to motivate them so they do.

This is honestly a topic that needs its own entire presentation because there’s so much to unpack. One of the biggest mistakes I see is Lack of Conflict (and conflict that’s resolved too quickly)

Uncomfortable
things need to happen in the story. Things that are uncomfortable for your
characters and your readers. When there’s no discomfort, there’s no growth.
When there’s no conflict, there’s really no plot. Only conflict is interesting.

It
doesn’t all have to be huge and life threatening, but it needs to matter to your
characters. If it matters to your characters, it’ll matter to your readers.
There need to be consequences and stakes.

Often
writers will give their characters a little bit of discomfort and then resolve
it almost immediately. Unfortunately, that makes your story tension go up and
down instead of continuing to climb and tighten to the inevitable climax of the
book.

I have some words of wisdom my dear friend, Alex Kourvo, told me a million years ago, and I’d like to share it with you.

It doesn’t matter how much you
love your characters, you still have to grab them by the back of the head and
shove them face-first into an emotional meat grinder and make their lives complete
and total hell.

Then, when it’s really
bad, you need to make it worse.

Conflict is crucial.

I have a couple more technical type mistakes I’d like to mention.

Know
when to use you and I vs. you and me.

This is one of those things that
is constantly misused, mostly because a lot of people think that using me
sounds wrong, and often childish or uneducated. Here’s a trick that my 10th
grade English teacher taught me, because this was one of his biggest
pet peeves.

Use “I” if you’re the subject of
the sentence. Use “me” if you’re the object.

Here are some examples:

The teacher gave Sally and me
good grades. This is correct usage. You can tell because if you swapped
out “I” for “me” and took Sally out of the equation, you’d have The
teacher gave I good grades. And if the teacher is giving me good
grades for this kind of sentence construction, the teacher and I have bigger
problems than using “me” and “I” correctly.

The trick is to remove the other
person from the sentence. If “I” still works, you’re golden. If not, switch to
“me”. And when you do, you can thank Mr. Gossett, like I do.

Here are some other examples:

“Siobhan and I had some whiskey.”
(Siobhan and I is the compound subject of the sentence, so I is correct.)

“Tristan and I talk regularly.”
(Same deal. Tristan and I is the compound subject of the sentence.)

“I’d prefer this stay between you
and me.” (I’d is the subject here. You and me is the compound direct object in
this one.)

“There’s
only room here for you and me.” (Again, you and me is the compound direct object,
here.)

“Libby
and I know each other quite well, don’t we?” (Here, Libby and I is the compound
subject, again.)

Know your homophones. For instance, peak, peek, and pique all sound the same, but they all mean very different things. It’s important to get the right one. The wrong one will toss most readers out of the narrative flow. There are far, far too many to list, but here’s a website that did the work for both of us.

Know when
and where to use an apostrophe. An
apostrophe indicates the possessive form of a word, not the plural form.

There’s a sign I see every year,
starting around the beginning of Lent: All you can eat fish fry’s every Friday
evening. 

No…just no. It’s fish fries.

Fish fry’s indicates a
possessive. It means that something belongs to the fish fry. What is it? The
fish fry’s excessive use of vegetable oil?  The fish fry’s extra-large
napkin order?  The fish fry’s pungent odor that clings to the hair and
clothing of everyone present? What?

It’s not book’s, rug’s, fan’s,
machine’s, or dresser’s. It’s books, rugs, fans, machines, and
dressers.  Unless something specifically belongs to any of these
things, you don’t use an apostrophe.

And if you’re sending out holiday
cards or invitations to an entire family, they don’t go to the Jones’s, the De
La Rosa’s, the St. James’s, the Jarman’s, the Norris’s, the Cease’s, the Bartz’s,
the Trout’s, or the Green’s.  They go to the Joneses, the De La
Rosas, the St. Jameses, the Jarmans, the Norrises, the Ceases, the Bartzes, the
Trouts, and the Greens.

And,
yes, if you see corrected sale and/or produce signs at the Meijer on Alpine,
that was probably me. Or possibly my daughter.

Vary
Your Sentence Structure and Length

It’s
easy to fall into a rhythm while writing. He did this. She punched that. This
happened and, as a result, a sinkhole opened in Jacksonville and led straight
to hell. Rinse, repeat.

The
problem is, we tend to fall into narrative patterns that are comfortable for
us. As a result, the writing can become stale or even sing-songy—even when the
plot and characters are solid.

You
don’t need to worry so much about this during your first draft. Just get the
story out. But definitely pay attention to this during your editing process.
Make sure that you’re not starting all of your sentences the same way. Make
sure they’re of varying length.

Look at
each paragraph. How many similarly formed sentences do you see? Read them aloud.
Does it sound monotonous or sing-songy? If so, change it up! Surprise yourself
and your readers.

If
you’re having trouble varying your structure, pick up a favorite book, open it
to anywhere and take a hard look at the different types of sentences the author
uses. How many start with gerund phrases. How many start with “I” or the
character’s name/pronoun. How many are true compound sentences.

It’s
better to do this with a favorite book since you’ll already be familiar with
the storyline.

Do
Your Research

‪If you’re not an expert on what
you’re writing about, do your due diligence and research it. If you can, find
an expert who’s willing to read those sections and give you feedback, or who
will answer questions for you. If you’re writing a character who is of a
different race, gender identity, or sexual orientation than you, find yourself
a sensitivity reader who’s willing to give you feedback on your work.

Thesaurus
Misuse and Abuse

I’m all about avoiding
word reps. They’re annoying to read and when you start noticing a lot of them
in the prose, it begins to feel like the author is either lazy or dumbing down
the narrative. Now, I’m sure you’re reading this and thinking, well the
thesaurus is the best friend of people who hate word reps.

It is…and it isn’t. You have to
be careful when you’re choosing synonyms that you have the right one in the
right form. Often times, I’ll be reading, and a fairly mundane word will just
stop me dead in the middle of a sentence because it reads as so out of
place that it jolted me from the story. When you’re searching for synonyms, the
thing to keep in mind is that words have nuances. And you need to make sure
that those nuances apply to your sentence.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you write the
sentence: He made a good point.

But then you realized that
 you just used the word “made” three lines above. So you get out your
handy dandy thesaurus and you look for synonyms for made.

And you write this: He
contrived a good point.

No. No, he didn’t. That’s not how contrived works. Just because contrived is listed as a synonym for made doesn’t make those two words interchangeable. Be aware of the word’s nuances before you haphazardly try to swap it out.

Welp, that’s it for now. I hope you found it helpful.