Having finished your story you are eager to send it out into the world. However, this doesn’t always go well with publishers or editors, unless you consider these common mistakes authors make in their stories or novels. The sad thing is that your work either is rejected outright by publishers and readers or you end up paying a lot of money for an editor to fix them up.
The best thing then is to be aware and fix them up yourself. To help you on your way, we have compiled them for you. Here is a list according to publishers and editors of the most common mistakes a writer can fix up, before engaging with a professional.
7 Common Mistakes Authors Make, According to Editors!
1. Talking too much
You as the author are telling the story. Of course, you’d like to tell all you know about it. However, like in a normal conversation, you can actually overshare and talk too much! Yes, even if it is on paper. This is the first one of the common mistakes authors make.
People like concise pockets of information. Our brains get tired if we are overwhelmed with endless flows of information. They are wired to be on the lookout for danger or finding ways to keep ourselves and our families well fed. If it doesn’t support those aims, we tend to switch off.
Solution: Make everything purposeful
To help your readers’ brains, make sure to keep your story telling concise and well organized. Highlight the purpose of why certain bits are important to know. Tap into the need for the brain to see how it will help with our survival and journey in journey to thrive in life. Of course, with a novel it is about your character’s journey, but a good story-teller makes his main character as one of our own, who needs to survive with us.
2. Telling, yet not showing
You may have become more concise in your story telling, but you can still become boring. The problem is that your still the one talking to your reader, you keep telling them. The experience is forced on them, no matter how good your story plot, and they will tune out.
Think back to when you were in school, when were you the most bored? Usually when the teacher just shared facts. It was just a listing of information. Even if you knew it was important, you would become bored and slowly tune out. Some of you and your peers quicker than others. (There have been studies done about this!)
Solution: Make them participate in the story
Now, when were you engaged in class? When the teacher made you participate in the learning exercise. Either they showed an experiment, or they asked you for your ideas and observations. Or, they would tell an incredible story where they would take you on a journey showing you the world.
When you tell your story, be like that engaging teacher. Come along side your reader and guide their viewpoint in the story. You could do this simply by having your main character turn their head and following their gaze. Make your reader see, what your character sees and when they see it.
3. Over-description
As an author you like to bring your creation to life. You like to describe your world in such a way that your reader can even smell its flowers or feel the rain drops on their face. But you could give too much detail, that again your reader becomes distracted and tunes out.
They’ll think: “Where is this going? What was it all about again?”
You can be concise and show your reader your story rather than telling them, and still fall in the trap of over-description. The problem is timing of sharing information about your created world.
Solution: Describe it like when you enter a new space yourself
Think about when you enter a new place. At first, you don’t observe the dirty carpet or the wilted plant in the corner. What you do notice first, is any signs that may guide you to where you need to be. You may notice the people pacing down the corridor, but you may not immediately see their facial expressions, whether they are frustrated or have just come from the best party ever.
The key is to spread your descriptions across your story in a natural way. Just think about your character, when would they first notice something? How much would they notice? And, is this information going to stick and therefore becomes important, or will they immediately forget it?
Also, in order to avoid longwinded descriptions, keep descriptive sentences short with only a maximum of one or two dependent clauses. This would help with any sentence in your story.
For example, write like this: “the man walked towards the train station (main clause), where as usual he would first buy his favorite burger (dependent clause 1) before he would purchase his ticket (dependent clause 2). He liked the one with extra cheese and pickles (main clause) that burgerman Joe would specially make for him (dependent clause).”
And don’t write like this: “the man walked to the train station (main clause), where as usual he would first buy his favorite burger (dependent clause 1), which is the one with extra cheese and pickles (dependent clause 2), that burgerman Joe would specially make for him (dependent clause 3), before he would purchase his ticket (dependent clause 4).”
4. Flat characters
Flat characters have the same effect as mistake number 1, where you could be talking too much. They do not engage the readers’ brains. As a result they do not feel as one of their own, one who needs to survive or learn to thrive.
You can also over-describe your character and still keep them flat. This happens when you only discuss superficial details like their hair color, favorite food or ugliest boots.
Solution: Share a character’s pain points, failures and fears
You bring their characters to life and add dimension to them if you share those things that are meaningful to your audience. Share their pain, their struggles, their fears. What has grieved them and how does that still affect them to this point in your story? What are their failures, and how are they trying to cover these up or avoid them?
5. Plot holes
Of all the common mistakes authors make, plot holes are the easiest to pinpoint, but the hardest to fix, especially for editors. If a story doesn’t make sense or a turn of events can’t be reconciled with what you knew before, the story has a plot hole. You feel it, even though you may not understand what is exactly that doesn’t make sense.
Solution: Every event needs to be explained by what was one know before
To avoid plot holes, keep the story’s storyline logical and its reasoning watertight. Every story line consists of a series of choices that authors make. But, just like choices in real life, make sure that they seem logical with the information that is available at the time.
There may be an unexpected twist. One of the characters may all of a sudden turn and side with the enemy, or help appears out of the blue. However, make sure these unexpected turns can still be understood in hindsight. They should make the story clearer, as in “Aha! Now I understand why she didn’t help him earlier on,” or, “I didn’t see it coming, but now I know why that kid was always lurking around.”
Unexpected twists are planned out well from the beginning. If they are not, they are called plot holes.
6. Not having a solid structure
You may have covered all your plot holes and added depth to your characters, still your story can feel like something is missing. Something doesn’t seem to flow well, or feels a bit uncertain. Your story may lack a solid structure. This is the next one of the common mistakes authors make.
Yes, plot holes are a form of lacking a solid structure, but you you don’t necessarily make your structure stronger by fixing those plot holes. Your structure is greater than just that.
Your structure is all about the when, what and who of your story – in that order. When do you introduce a new scene? What is happening in that scene, and how does it develop? Who is active in a scene, or whom does the scene affect?
Solution: Analyze your story like an architect looks at a building
With all the previous points you had to keep the reader in mind and their brain. Now, you actually step away from the reader and you approach your story like a critical builder or architect. You approach your story like a house, but then not what is inside it, but more how it is built.
Readers are like the people wanting to live in a house. They look at how well its outward and interior design looks, whether it suits their taste. They ask themselves the question: “Now, could I see myself living here?”
Builders look at the structure and integrity of the house. They examine the quality of the foundation and whether it can carry the overall building. They see the cracks in the walls, the warped floors and the slanting doors. Are these defects caused by slow degradation over time, but nothing to worry about, or are they caused by a cracked foundation that makes the whole building unlivable in the next few months?
Your plot holes are like doors that are out of place. Flat characters are like missing design elements, or pictures hung upside down. However, introducing elements too early or too late in the story, and developing them too slowly or fast, is like a building that is shaky and may soon collapse.
7. Sticking to one genre
Now, this one of the 7 common mistakes authors make may seem a bit contradictory to any writer’s advice. “Stick to your genre,” you would often hear. However, sticking to only one genre could also tank your story’s chances to ever be picked up by a publisher or your readers.
Every genre has its following. Some like romance, others like adventure and again others historical fiction. Your story will fit in at least one of the many genres out there, so it should.
However, every genre also has a large following. The genre’s audience usually is big, and the books vying for their attention are many. Your work will literally drown in that sea of literary works.
Solution: Guide your story to one or two additional genres to find your audience
The trick to reach your audience is to define who they are exactly and what they like. Most people don’t just like one genre, but have a few favorite ones. The same with your readers, they like this genre but also that.
You then pick one of those genres as your main genre (or your story has picked that already for you). However, you should also guide the story in such a way that it also overlaps with the one or two additional genres that your readers love. Don’t make it overlap with more than two genres, though!
For instance, instead of writing a just another romantic novel, your story could overlap with adventure and science fiction. It then becomes a romantic, adventure, science-fiction novel. Hmm, that sounds interesting! And you have got your readers’ attention.
At least this will help with any marketing effort. Publishers love having clearly defined audiences! Also successful authors will find that they engage the best with a clearly defined niche group of readers.
Once you have fixed the common mistakes authors make
Have looked at your story with a critic’s eyes? Have you fixed all the common mistakes authors make? Then you are still not ready to share it with the world. Sigh. Not yet.
Now it is time to engage the professionals, because they will see what you have missed. As an author you become so familiar with your work, that you may not notice certain errors or issues any longer. An editor can help you with that.
Editing at Cardinia Ranges Publishing Services for any further not so common mistakes authors make
At Cardinia Ranges Publishing House, we have professional editors that can help you with that. We love to make your work shine so that it is ready for you to share it with the world.
What is more, we can even organize the whole publishing process for you. If you want to know more about our publishing services, you can read it here.
For enquiries about our editing services, you can contact us here.
