Okay guys. Welcome to another blog post of writing information. I will be writing on Common Misconceptions of Writing. There are a few misconceptions that I will mention but near the end of the post I will tweak the post to be about the Common MISTAKES of Writing. Because I am also an aspiring author and therefore have never been published I don’t have a really good idea of what are the common writing mistakes. I know what MY writing mistakes are but I’m not sure what the most common ones are. I don’t often have people asking me to review their books. (I wish). So first I’m going to talk about the most common misconceptions and make some things clear and then I will be talking about the common mistakes and I will constantly reference a book which I will introduce in a later paragraph.
So first of all, as someone who (even though I haven’t been published) has been editing her books even when I don’t like I can attest to the fact that when you are first coming around as a writer you are not completely aware of how much work it actually takes to write a book. Lots of non-writers think that writing a book it just as simple as that. Write it and then it will be published. There will be a little editing just like in class when you write an essay but that’s about it. In truth writing a book is more work than that. You write it. You re write it. You rewrite it again. You rewrite it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. You edit and edit and edit and edit and edit and edit and edit that first draft. Sometimes when you are done the book doesn’t even look the same as when you first wrote it. But that’s what real writing it. Sometimes a lot of the actual writing process is loving your book so much but also wishing you had never started it. My favorite writer meme most clearly explains this misconception.
Another common misconception is how many words are what classification of story. When I was a couple years into writing I decided to do some research into the classifications of novels. Let me tell you….
THERE ARE HUNDREDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Its kind of a terrifying concept as a writer. You could think you are writing a novel and actually you are writing a novelette. Maybe you thought you were writing a short story but really your writing flash fiction. The classifications however, are easy to know once you find them. They are almost always defined by the number of words. Depending on who you ask though the number is different. Some numbers are not that far of. Two different classification by length websites list short stories as having a max of 7,500 words or 8,000 words. That difference in classification is not so bad. A difference of 500 words. However, some classifications such as the classification for what a novella is, are off by 4,000 – 10,000 words. That’s a crazy difference! Generally, the only way to decide what you are writing is to decide which classification you follow and stick to it. Or make sure you watch the word count when entering contests. Personally, I tend to stick with a picture I found years ago. It currently hangs on my wall.
A third writing misconception that I find among a lot of younger writers or new writers is the feeling that you always need to use writer slang when talking to other writers. I will tell you that you don’t always need to use your cool new-found writer slang. It is kind of cool to know and some of it is really handy on writing websites, but you don’t always have to use it. Some slang that I actually use when talking to other writers is plotter vs pantser, the typical plot devices like rising action and resolution, and some other simpler slang that anyone can pick up if you follow the conversation like character arc. Typically, there is writer slang that it only used in the virtual world. You would never say FMC (Female Main Character) in a typical spoken conversation but its faster to type FMC in a virtual conversation.
There are a whole bunch of other misconceptions that I could write about but this post is already getting pretty long so lets talk about the most Common Mistakes of Writing. Here I am going to almost exclusively refer to the book The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (and how to avoid them) by Jack M. Bickham. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this in my first year at a writers conference form the author Julie Wright. (I still love her name. What writer doesn’t want Wright as a last name?). This book does exactly what the title says and I am going to share a few of my favorite examples.
#6 in the book is titled Don’t Describe Sunsets. Don’t take the title of the chapter to literally. Do describe things. Description is how your reader knows what is going on around you character. Without description your colorful character is running around in a white world with occasional splashes of objects only when the character comes into contact with them. To much description however is like coloring in ever little tiny line on the page with a fine colored pencil. Even the human eye blocks out things that are not necessary to your vision at the moment. And humans can not see behind them. This gets rid of half of the distracting stimulus surrounding a person. Jack says, “[writers] stop too often to describe such things as sunsets, thinking that pretty prose is and end in itself – and forgetting that when they stop to describe something at length, the story movement also stops.” Writing a fiction story is about the movement of someone else’s life. Not the excessive description of it.
#10 is Don’t Have Things Happen for No Reason. Bickham uses the story of one of his writing students who had things happen for no reason in his stories all the time. When his student got frustrated with his proffesors constant push for a reason he blurted out, ‘I don’t have to be logical! I’m writing Fiction!’. Bickham continues with the chapter to explain that just because coincidences exist in real life doesn’t mean that they can happen in fiction. In real life a random bellboy at the hotel you are staying at could accidentally drop the next clue to your unsolved mystery. But in fiction is the bellboy drops this clue then he couldn’t simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Readers question where he got the clue, how he knew the character was the one who needed said clue. All of these things are to much of a coincidence in fiction. I’ve said it before and I will say it again that fiction is different from reality because fiction has to make sense. Bickham puts it this way, “In real life [coincidences] are good enough. In fiction [they aren’t].”
#19 is titled Don’t Be Afraid to Say ‘Said’. The same student from chapter 10 brought Jack a story. There was almost no description (which we already talked about) and there was a lot of dialogue. But the dialogue sounded like this (a direct quote from the book)
“Don’t make me go any closer!” Annie cried.
“There’s nothing to fear,” Joe soothed. “See?”
“That’s easy for you to say!” quoth Annie.
“Is that better?” asked Joe.
“Oh, yes!” murmured Annie. “Much!”
“Annie, you do love me, after all!”
“Yes.”
I don’t know about you guys but that dialogue hurt my brain. First of all, who says quoth in a book? That is not the right word to use in my opinion. Secondly, the student didn’t use the word ‘said’ even once. Said is the word we are always told all throughout public education to avoid. However, if you NEVER use the word said then your dialogue sounds like the one above. A little too full. The word said gives the reader a break, if only for a moment, to read a word that isn’t forcing them to imagine the scene. Sometimes you don’t need a word like shout or sighed because the action in the scene or the tone of the words imply it. If that is so use the word said. Jack says this, “[not using said is] one of those ‘author worries’ that readers just don’t think about. Believe me: if you use stage action and thoughts, and the simple verb ‘said,’ readers will be totally happy.”
There are so many other sections in this book that I love! I would suggest that every writer read this book at least once. My copy is sticky tabbed, dog eared, and highlighted in multiple different colors from the multiple reads it has had. But I will leave you with #38: Don’t Just Sit There. Today is the day to be a writer. The aspiring authors who remain aspiring authors for the rest of their lives are the ones who said they would write it tomorrow. Keep writing. Even after your published once, keep writing. Even if your waiting for a mailed in manuscript to turn up good, keep writing. Even if you haven’t even started a full length novel and you only write short little scenes, keep writing. As Jack says, “[you can’t simply] sit around waiting to see what happens to the last story… waiting for inspiration… waiting for anything. Whatever happens tomorrow, you need to be writing when it does. So continue your current project now, today. Or start a new one. Now. Today. Don’t sit around another moment.”
Alright guys! What did you think of this weeks post. I personally love all of these. Eve the misconceptions are interesting to think about. Just make sure that you don’t fall into their traps! I’ve decided that I need a real signature to sign off with so here we go.
Get up, Get writing, and Get published. See you next week!