Mistakes to Avoid When Writing: Part 1

Aspiring writer, we need to talk.

Not The Talk. Not the birds and bees—the one where I lovingly talk in all caps into your face about the ways you are silently (and spectacularly) tanking your project before it’s even crawling out of the draft stage. 

 

Writing is a rigorous journey full of pitfalls, rewarding learning experiences, and everything in between. (Literally: despair, joy, weeping, staying awake for three days and nights, failing to shower, triumph, inspiration, voices in your head, you name it). 

 

Writers have a lot of liberty when writing fiction (it is made up after all), and rules are often bent, beat up, blasphemed, and broken. And no one minds because it’s fiction (unless it’s not, but that’s a different essay).

 

All to say: you’re talented, you’ve got the vibes, that's great; but “following The Muse” doesn’t mean you should abandon grammar, good writing and compelling storytelling altogether. Don't do that. I thank you in advance. You'll be saving my life. Because if I read one more story where the main character “lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding” while “the sun slants like gold syrup over the city,” I am going to walk directly into the sea with my laptop.

 

But don't feel timid or embarrassed or all shame-y. I have made every single writing mistake there is (and some that aren’t even on this list because they’re too humiliating to put in writing—you’re welcome), and I am here, like the Ghost of Drafts Past, to stop you from making them too. This isn’t about shaming! The opposite! It’s about belief in you! Belief in the form of taking you by the shoulders, shaking you gently (but firmly) and saying: CUT THAT OUT. 

So. Here’s your anti-disaster checklist: the most common mistakes to avoid when writing your novel. (Or Screenplay. Or short story. Or one-act. Or whatever. But I’ll be using “novel” as a catch all.)
Use it. Love it. Tattoo it on your forehead.

 

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1. Writing Unrealistic Characters
 

There are many mistakes to avoid when writing a novel, but creating weak and unbelievable characters is the most detrimental. A story is nothing without its characters. All characters, both big, small, main, and secondary must be believable and REAL. Perfect characters are boring. Real people are contradictory, flawed, and dynamic—so your characters should be too. Embodied. Full-realized. Truthful. Many writers become lazy with their characters and don’t flesh them out enough.

 

Characters shouldn’t just exist to move the story along like chess pieces. They should want things, make mistakes, act out of fear or love or ego. They should have weird urges and panic attacks and make bad decisions. Not every single character that shows up in the story needs a full history and comprehensive backstory, but the main ones certainly do. And if you ask me (and if you’re reading this, you literally are)— “more is more” when it comes to fleshing out a character’s reality. If a character is not well thought out, or deep enough; if your character is doing something “because it needs to happen” for the plot, then Houston: we have a problem. Those are characters who read like cardboard in a wig and serve plot, not truth.

 

The best books, regardless of genre, are the ones that draw tears, laughter, empathy, derision, loathing, desire, pathos and everything that real human beings evoke, from the readers. People are awkward and insecure and say the wrong thing constantly. They cry in CVS. They ghost their friends. They overthink text messages for three hours. You want your readers so invested in your characters that they feel real emotions when things (true things, messy things, unattractive and humiliating things) happen to them. Nobody wants to read about perfect people doing nothing wrong. Give me mess. Give me someone who texts their ex after two drinks, or panics at the self-checkout.

 

As a writer who is also an actor, and has acting training, I find the creation of characters comes more naturally than some of the other aspects of story-writing because the toolkits overlap perfectly. If I am interpreting a character someone else wrote, I ask questions like:

• Who is this person?
• Where are they from?
• What do they want?
• What is their greatest obstacle?
• What do the do to get what they want?
• Why are they the way they are?
• What happened to make them this way?
• How will they change by the end of the story?
• If they do not change, why not? 
• What are they longing for?
• Do they have big dreams?
• What are they afraid of?
• Who do they hate the most? 

Or anything else you don’t already know about them, big or small. Do this for your protagonist and antagonist. Then, start on the secondary characters. It won’t be long before you feel a renewed desire to tell their story.

Start there. Hopefully each answer will propel you forward to ask hundreds more, and before long you are in a dialogue with a chattier that feels like a new, very intimate friend. All the answers your character reveals lead the action and thus, the plot. 

 

Let your characters lead sometimes — they often know better than you do.  Let them fight you. Let them screw up. That’s what makes them compelling.

 

2. No Conflict = No Story (sorry, I don’t make The Rules)

 
This is one of the most important mistakes beginners make in writing. Stories need tension. A story is not a story without conflict. Conflict isn’t just physical fights; it’s tough decisions, emotional stakes, internal battles. Without it, readers drift. A central conflict is what drives the entire plot and moves the story forward. Something needs to disrupt the life of your protagonist. It can be a physical circumstance or an internal redirection, but it must be something life-changing. 

Haven't you screamed at protagonists as they hacked blithely in to their husband's email, waltzed off to Mordor, The Room of Requirement or drunk Facetimed their ex despite all evidence that not doing precisely that would be much more pragmatic? Exactly. Conflict gives the story purpose. 

So don’t be afraid to give me characters in a pickle or three that’s where the story lives. Otherwise, it’s just vibes and no plot, and we already have Instagram for that. Something has to go wrong. Someone has to want something and not be able to get it. If your book doesn’t have a little chaos, betrayal, or at least one ill-advised decision, what are we even doing here?

3. Creating a Confusing Point of View
 

While the point of view is flexible, head-hopping (jumping between multiple characters' thoughts in one scene) is jarring and often confusing unless handled masterfully. 

Aspiring authors often gloss over this detail and write wherever their brain takes them. This is okay for a first draft but you must rectify it in the editing process. If I have to read three paragraphs to figure out whose head I’m in, I’m calling the police.

Being consistent in your POV means that the narrator and POV must remaining consistently inside the POV of one character, or at the very least, one character at a time. (i.e. no head-hopping mid-paragraph). One simple rule? Only one point of view per chapter.

Additionally, a crucial way to remain consistently in the head of your character— is to remember to stay within the consciousness/time period/age/intelligence of your character as well. 

That means that the character (and the narrator describing them) should avoid using language unfamiliar or inaccessible to the character at the time of the chapter being read. (As an example: if the character is going to make a huge discovery in the next chapter, they cannot betray or scribe knowledge of the discovery before the event occurs. 

Another way this manifests is if the character is from the 1800s, it is incongruous and inconsistent with their reality to use metaphors and/or descriptions from the digital era (such as “she didn’t have the bandwidth” or “she was channeling; surfing in her mind.”) 

Not every novel will have this problem as some revolve around one point of view in totality. (This could be a form of the third person or the first person from the same character’s perspective throughout.) But many novels change perspective at times, and this can easily become confusing and give your reader POV whiplash. You can switch later, but not mid-paragraph like some kind of literary magician with no audience. 

 

Know who’s telling the story, what they know, and what they don’t. Your reader will thank you with their attention span.
 

 

Final Remarks
There are many mistakes to avoid when writing a novel, and all deserve your attention. So now that I’ve pointed out a few your literary potholes in the prose version of ALL CAPS, I want you to go hydrate, stretch your neck, and go back to that messy draft like the brave, chaotic genius you are.
Will you still make mistakes? Absolutely. And it’s okay to make them – that’s what editing is for! But now you’ll proceed with awareness, and that’s basically halfway to a Pulitzer. 

Go forth. Write recklessly. And for the love of all that is holy, stop naming your love interest “Blaze.” 

We’re done here.
For now. 

Until Part 2.
    ...and okay, Part 3.