Holt Uncensored - Pat Holt on Books, the Book Industry and the Revolution. Like many editorial consultants, I’ve been concerned about the amount of time I’ve been spending on easy fixes that the author shouldn’t have to pay for.
Sometimes the question of where to put a comma, how to use a verb or why not to repeat a word can be important, even strategic. But most of the time the author either missed that day’s grammar lesson in elementary school or is too close to the manuscript to make corrections before I see it. So the following is a list I’ll be referring to people *before* they submit anything in writing to anybody (me, agent, publisher, your mom, your boss). From email messages and front-page news in the New York Times to published books and magazine articles, the 10 ouchies listed here crop up everywhere. Mistakes In Writing. Some years ago, I had a chat with a man who repaired high-end fax machines for a living, back when fax machines were still a bit of a mystery to most people.
He reported the appalling statistic that fully 95 percent of the service calls he made were unneeded, because the consumers could have fixed their problems with no help from him. Nineteen out of twenty calls involved such technical challenges as machines out of paper, machines not plugged in, machines not hooked up to a phone line, and machines not turned on. In short, if these folks had used their plain common sense and been willing to read and follow instructions, they would not have needed to call for repairs. The bad news, of course, was that the legitimate service calls only received five percent of the available time and attention of the repair technicians.
The folks who needed the help most were denied it thanks to the people who did NOT need help and yet screwed up anyway. Read over this list. Errors Of Style Passive voice. Common mistakes to avoid when writing fantasy - Mithril Wisdom. This is what I tell writers: “Make your fantasy a reality.”
Most of them fail miserably at doing just that. You need to create a reality that your reader can believe exists and functions the way it does with characters and a plot that your reader can believe makes sense within that world. If you can’t make your reader believe it, you have no hope in hell. You don’t need to have a pretty female elf. Or a hunky male warrior who didn’t know he was destined for greater things. Delayed starts Start the story with some action or something interesting. Plotholes. The 4 Most Common Mistakes Fiction Editors See. Wouldn’t it be great if nobody ever needed an editor?
If all of our stories and novels appeared in readers’ minds just as beautifully and vividly and succinctly they do in our own? Wouldn’t it be great if the story we think we’ve told were, in fact, the story we’ve told? There are more aspiring writers producing more manuscripts now than ever before history, and the writing-advice industry is keeping stride with totally conflicting instructions. Avoid These Common Fiction Writing Mistakes Like The Plague. Well, no more excuses.
Here is a list of the most common mistakes in fiction writing and how you can avoid them all. Where's the Hook? Ever read a book that makes you yawn by the end of page one? Yeah, me too. The decline of writing, part 1 – Bad advice for stupid writers. An actual professional editor called Pat Holt posted a big pile of crap on her blog purporting to be the inside scoop on what editors look for in manuscripts.
The Top Ten Mistakes New Fiction Authors Make. By Sally Zigmond Are you wondering why your short stories keep coming back with polite rejection letters?
It could be that one of these ten "fatal errors" is standing between you and publication! Lack of Editing. The best writers re-write and re-write. New writers tend to think that editing merely means a brief read through for typos and spelling errors. Dull Writing. Too Much Irrelevant Detail. No Attention to Language. Absence of Imagery and Reliance on Cliches. No Sense of Place. No Shape or Structure. Poor Dialogue Skills. Lack of Technical Knowledge. My Top Tip. Copyright © 2002 Sally ZigmondThis article may not be reprinted without the author's written permission.
Sally Zigmond has had nonfiction and fiction published in several magazines, as well as anthologies, and has won several major short story competitions. Five Fiction Mistakes that Spell Rejection. By Moira Allen Ask most fiction editors how to avoid rejection, and you'll hear the same thing: Read the guidelines.
Review the publication. Don't send a science fiction story to a literary magazine, and vice versa. Don't send a 10,000-word manuscript to a magazine that never publishes anything longer than 5,000 words. Spell check. But what if you've done all that, and your stories are still coming back with polite, form rejection letters? Bad Beginnings "A story needs a beginning that grabs the reader and pulls him into the story," says Lida Quillen of Twilight Times.