Ever turned to the last page of a great fiction novel and wondered if you could one day write like that too? Being an excellent fiction writer is a dream for many of us, but it is not as easy as it seems. Great fiction is about more than just a dream; it involves a slew of considerations you may be unaware of. So, how do you write great fiction, and what are some of the common mistakes fiction writers make?
There are a range of mistakes new fiction writers make, including switching point of view, unrealistic characters, fluffy dialog, explaining instead of showing, and creating structureless stories. With a little knowledge, your writing can improve.
Learning how to write better is not just about being a writing success. It is also about creating the best manuscript you can for your vision to succeed and readers to connect with and enjoy your work.
Basic Errors and Consistency Failures
While you may think that writing fiction is about capturing your dream creations and characters on paper, there are certain writing errors and consistencies in style that, when you step in them, you completely destroy your story.
Fuzzy Writing
Your readers won’t necessarily miss a poorly placed or missing comma, but they will begin to notice when your characters speak like Yoda, and quite unintentionally so. As a writer, it is really easy to focus on your plot so intensely that you mess up the basic small talk that is required for characters.
This small talk needs to flow naturally, which includes correct punctuation, accurate use of apostrophes, and prepositions that make sense. Avoid long-winded sentences and don’t use an all-knowing narrator to tell the story either. Show, don’t tell.
Great writing is about letting the reader draw their own conclusions and reach that aha moment, which is why they are reading your 350-something pages.
Fuzzy language and unclear writing can stop the pages from turning when the reader is trying to figure out what you’re trying to say instead of following your story and character development.
A good writer will be able to improve on their writing when they receive criticism, while bad writers will stop writing or stubbornly insist on their precious manuscript being perfect (when it clearly is terrible).
Inconsistencies
The main character starts out as a tall Asian dude with dark black hair in Chapter 1, and by Chapter 4, the man has become blonde and Cacausian … Ever read a book like that?
Inconsistencies can be confusing, and this applies to the type of language your characters use, the protagonist’s point of view, and lack of planning too.
Be sure to maintain a constant thread throughout your story that helps your reader connect, become intrigued, and fall in love with your world and characters. Don’t suddenly kill off half your characters by the middle of the book and have an entirely different cast by the end. A book with fuzzy writing and inconsistencies is likely to produce an equally confusing plot and characters that make no sense.
Make sure your character names are always spelled the same throughout your manuscript, and be consistent in what they are capable of in their abilities should you be writing a fantasy story. Don’t surprise your reader with sudden abilities that appear in the last chapter without laying the breadcrumbs to lead up to this moment.
Should you lack the language facility to use appropriate grammar rules, you may need to enlist outside help as no reader wants to wade through run-on sentences, incorrect verb usage, and awkward sentence structures. Grammarly and other editing software offer ways to avoid these errors that can make your writing so unreadable that even editors will weep.
| Grammarly’s Grammar Gremlins Hit List | |
| Kind of error | Percentage of average error occurrence |
| Incorrect verb forms | 51% |
| Subject-verb disagreement | 20% |
| Run-on sentences | 10% |
| Comma splices | 6% |
| Other | 13% |
While language errors are not the most glaring problem in fiction writing, there are other errors that are worth looking at too if you want your precious manuscript to get turned past Chapter 1.
A Look At Fiction Writing [t]Errors
For every book that is published and becomes a success, there are hundreds of thousands of other books that will probably never be read or sold. This is a reality.
Not everyone has what it takes to write their own book. Writing is a skill, and if you don’t invest in your natural talent (regardless of how much or little of it you have), you will not succeed in writing a compelling story.
Dos in Writing Fiction
While this article is about mistakes in fiction writing, we can often learn from our mistakes, so a do list can guide you towards seeing where you have lost the plot. Here are some things you should be doing, but probably aren’t:
- Do Describe Your World, But Don’t Tell
As a fiction writer, you will be creating a world that should gobble up your reader, fully absorbing them in details and wonderful sensations for hours. This is what makes for a page-turner. Remember, the reader isn’t in your head. They are in your book, so you need to write sufficient detail to draw them in and help them think about your world.
However, you shouldn’t tell your reader what to think. Describe and let them draw conclusions. Use words that stimulate the senses, but don’t tell the reader what to feel. Many writers fail because they impose their interpretation on their readers.
- Grab Your Reader With a Great Introduction
When your reader can’t get past your introduction, they will certainly never reach your conclusion. Use your introduction to create an emotional reaction with your reader. Mystify them, create tension, cultivate humor, or relate to the reader’s own life in some way.
Write your introduction, rewrite it, and rewrite it again. This is not about checking language but about seeing if your introduction still opens the door to the rest of your book as your book progresses.
- Write Your Idea, But Remember Your Reader
There is a reason why your reader is reading your book. Do you know what it is? If you can’t answer this question, you have not thought of your reader. People have a need that becomes the reason for reading. They may be bored, sad, lonely, angry, or need to feel empowered or motivated. Fill that need or stop writing.
It may sound harsh, but if your book is about love, then your reader needs to feel and experience love while reading the story. If you promise but don’t deliver, you are failing at your craft. Don’t let your good idea cost you the reader’s confidence.
Don’ts in Writing Fiction
There are some serious booboos fiction writers make that can cause their readers to lose interest or become disillusioned in the writer’s ability. You need to earn and keep the trust of your readers if your story is to be successful.
The following mistakes are easy to make, but they can cause the reader to slam down their tablet or e-reader or throw their paperback across the room. Don’t make them!
- Technical Jargon
While readers don’t like to strain their minds with large industry-specific terms, they are not going to favor incorrect descriptions of procedures or techniques for specific characters. If your protagonist is a medical doctor, then make sure you write accurately about their work.
Writing that Jim quickly sliced open the man’s jugular to insert a tube will not earn you any acclaim. Before that sentence is even punctuated correctly, your reader has already seen a spray of blood six feet high, and they have lost all respect for you and Jim, who clearly is an incompetent doctor.
As a writer, doing the research required for your characters’ worlds and abilities is not negotiable. Chances are that if you write about special ops officers, your readers are familiar with similar books and can spot a fake a mile away.
- Hi, I’m Small Talk, Nice to Meet You
Real life may have a bunch of small talk that happens, and we spend hours talking about the weather, politics, asking about past injuries, or just talking about nonsense to pass the time; however, your readers have no interest in these topics. Capture their interest with real and focused dialog.
Characters should not spend pages rambling on about nonsense that doesn’t add to the plot. That being said, a clever bit of humor can help move things along and create character building. Yet, when you read each line of dialog in your manuscript, ask yourself what is the point of it.
Any dialog that serves no purpose should be cut away immediately. Good fiction is detailed, but there is no fat on the bone.
- Economy of Words
While you may be seeking to write a mammoth 100K book, this is something that should be achieved with an exceptional story, not with excessive descriptions and unnecessary fluff or verbosity. Use words economically.
Each word or description you use should be planned. Long and overly descriptive sentences are difficult to read. Remember, while the reader may read in their head, their mind is still saying the words aloud, and a long sentence will drain their brain of all interest.
You should read each description of people, places, or actions to decide what creates an image in the reader’s mind and what is merely a sentence that bores their brain. Anything that becomes nothing more than words should be removed, focusing on visual language and not necessarily on literary description. Metaphors work; use them!
- Randomly Switching Point of View
The reader follows the point of view of the character you choose to tell your story through. You may choose to use a dog who sees the adventure unfold around him, or you may choose to write from the perspective of a child who is struggling through his parents’ divorce. Whichever you choose, your reader will identify with that character and start to think from this point of view.
Suddenly changing point of view will cause the reader to feel confused. If you started with the point of view of a dog and suddenly changed to that of the boy, the reader will wonder if the boy is treated like a dog or if the dog was really a child all along. Don’t confuse your reader.
Staying within one point of view is also essential to giving your book structure. If you write from the point of view of Bob the pirate, then you can only write how Bob sees the world. Suddenly writing about how Lucy the duchess feels will not work unless Bob is a mind reader.
Remember, in real life, we don’t know exactly what someone else is thinking and feeling, and this should be respected in your writing. Only change the point of view if it moves the story along. For instance, changing to Lucy’s point of view may help the readers see the flaws that Bob is unaware of in himself. Character development can help motivate this change.
Mortal Mistakes Magnified
While the above mistakes are quite awful and can ruin a good storyline, the following mistakes are sure-fire ways to kill your plot before it even reaches conclusion:
- Bulging Backstories
Your reader will need information about the world, characters, and their histories to help them understand what and how people tie together. The temptation can be great to write an essay detailing every last bit of information on a character when they first appear in the story. DON’T.
When you meet someone for the first time, they usually don’t spend hours telling you all about their every last detail, do they? So, why have your characters or narrator behave like this?
Backstories should be cleverly integrated into the writing. Dribble little nuggets of information at the right moments and your readers will soon have a clear picture forming naturally in their minds. They will want details and this is what makes them continue devouring your writing.
- Perfect Princes
The temptation may be great to create a main character who is perfect in every way, and while this could seem awesome in your mind, it will be incredibly boring to your reader. Nobody is perfect. We read books to see how “real” people deal with conflict and to feel inspired.
Avoid characters who are perfect, and instead, give your readers someone they can relate to, someone real, someone who struggles and overcomes. This is how you create inspirational stories.
- Dialog Dramas
When writing fiction dialog, you should not use this as an opportunity to regurgitate that handy thesaurus you bought back in high school. Most of your dialog tags should use simple words like “said” or “asked.” These are functional and don’t distract the reader from what is actually being said.
However, when you get overly creative and use words like “banshee-howled” or “postulate” or “voiced,” you detract attention from the words. These dialog tags can be used to make a certain section of dialog really pop, but overusing them can lead to your book feeling like a dictionary on steroids. Keep it simple and successful.
So, About Mistakes in Fiction Writing … What Did You Ask?
- What should you not do when writing fiction?
You should not procrastinate, give up, or second guess yourself without considering the story structure. Don’t have your prose tell your story. Show what happened or is happening, and don’t tell your reader what to think.
- Why is writing fiction so hard?
For successful fiction, you need to combine three complicated elements: believable characters, a compelling story, and using words that matter and add meaning. All of your writing efforts are about these three things, so use them.
The Last Page
Oh, how tempting it is to use the conclusion of your book like a high school essay where you briefly summarize the book, remind the reader of what they have read and then leave with some horribly clichéd comment or event? Again, don’t.
Fiction writing is not the same as articles, non-fiction, autobiographies, or other fact-based writing. It is totally free, and it follows its own rules. Don’t try to cage the wonderful dragon your character has just freed by trying to fit some constructed end.
A fatal flaw in fiction writing is leaving an obvious link to a sequel, which is probably not necessary or creating a fake attempt at the classic “and they lived happily ever after.” Life isn’t like that, and good fiction imitates life.
As a writer of fiction, you should ensure your writing is clear, lean and consistent, follows the rule of “show, don’t tell,” and well-researched enough to answer questions while raising more interesting debates with your readers.
You may hope you don’t have a habit of stepping into any of the errors listed here, but in reality, we all fall short of our fiction writing goals. The important thing is to try, keep revising, and become more skilled by using techniques such as creating a great introduction, using an outline, and writing until it flows.
Fiction writing isn’t easy, nor should it be. In the words of Ernest Hemmingway, when asked if writing was easy: All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.