Even the most seasoned of writers make mistakes. Fortunately, they also have good editors who can catch them before they make it to print. Most of the time. As a self-published writer myself, I do sometimes take comfort in recalling the errors I have seen in traditionally published books. Even so, too many rookie mistakes can cost us. Especially when starting out as a new writer, or self-publishing, the prospect of judgement looms large.
From spelling and grammar to structure and narrative voice, writing is a constant learning curve that factors in not only what is most correct, but what is current and popular among your target audience. Honing your craft requires practice, and learning from your mistakes.
This week I am taking a look at some of the most common mistakes I pick up on in my editing work (and in the published books I occasionally find the time to read). This is a start of a series on this blog that will examine common writing problems and the ways you can go about overcoming them.
1) Inconsistent tense
Flitting from past tense to present, or vice-versa can really throw a reader out of the story, forcing them to put on their editor hat and get out the red pen. Pick the tense that best suits the story you are telling and the narrator telling it, and keep to it.
There is an exception to this rule: If you are writing something that contains multiple perspectives from different points in time, you might want to change tense for some chapters. As long as you are keeping these two narrative points of view distinctly within their own chapters, there is nothing wrong with this. The problem comes when the tenses bleed together within the same chapter, from sentence to sentence, one paragraph to the next. A change in tense mid-scene will sew confusion and chaos among your readers. As with anything in writing, your changes to tense and perspective need to be purposeful. If you are going to do it, make sure it does not unintentionally interrupt the flow of the narrative, and give space for those alternate points of view within their own chapters.
2) Head Hopping
What is head hopping? I have seen this question abound in writing forums, usually after someone has found out, after the fact, that readers and reviewers aren't big fans of it.
Head hopping is a phrase used to describe the way a writer changes points of view from one character to another. If a chapter (or entire book) is written from the perspective of one central character, you will expect to see the scene/s coloured by this character's emotions, and to be limited by what information is available to this character. Head hopping comes in when the emotions or limited perspectives of another character suddenly interrupt this perspective. Doing this can throw a reader out of a scene, especially if the narrative has already been established as having a close or limited perspective.
This is not the same as using third-person omniscient narration—a difficult style to pull off, but one used by many a beloved writer; Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, to name a few. The third-person omniscient narration takes the perspective of a fly on the wall, so to speak, someone who appears to know the inner thoughts and emotions of all the characters in the room and can zoom in or out at will. While this narrative style has fallen out of fashion, there is not necessarily anything wrong with using it, if you can do it well.
3) Info-dumping
What is wrong with info-dumping? The cardinal rule of good fiction writing is 'show, don't tell'. Info-dumping breaks this rule with the sheer weight of its front-loaded background information, dumped right at the start of the scene, forcing the reader to wade through mounds of dry prose before they get to the action. It can often be found at the start of a less-than-effectively structured fantasy or science-fiction novel, but can rear its head at any point in a narrative where the writer deems it necessary to explain in advance the mechanics or background of something that is about to happen. This is a problem because it will most likely bore your reader before they get to the good parts.
I have heard it said that info-dumping is a staple of fantasy and sci-fi, that it is inevitable, a necessity for the conveyance of the intricate world-building that makes a novel of these genres great. In reality, the most successful writers of these genres have faith in their readers to infer much of the world-building from what is shown, rather than what is told. The background information, the complex magic systems, or scientific discoveries that underpin the work are interwoven with the narrative, not interrupting the flow, but enriching it.
4) Adverbs, adverbs everywhere
Okay, I want to preface this with a disclaimer: I don't hate adverbs (#notalladverbs). Adverbs become a problem when they are used as a crutch, or add absolutely nothing to the imagery already created. They should be used as a light seasoning, to add depth. Not as a main ingredient. If you are using adverbs in every sentence, or tagging each bit of dialogue with them, like too much black pepper, it will only leave behind a bad taste.
5) Wooden dialogue
Dialogue should always reflect the mood of your characters. It should also reflect their individuality and differing perspectives. Dialogue should also be purposeful—to move the plot forward or to add depth to characterisation. Dialogue tends to get a bit wooden when writers start trying to covertly info-dump through conversations between characters, or use it as filler without much thought as to its purpose in the scene and overarching narrative.
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