Biggest Issues for Novice Writers
I tried to have some fun with the titles. Please don’t make fun of me lol.
You Had Me at “Hello”… You Lost Me at the Second “Hello”
Unless there is subtext or fragments of important exposition in your small talk, no one wants to read the mundane small talk of the characters. The only small talk– or any conversation, really– should be for a purpose. Are you showing your readers there is underlying tension? Are you sprinkling in the fact that two characters used to date? What is the purpose not only of the conversation but of every single line spoken?
Even important dialogue shouldn’t drag on forever. Reading two characters ask each other how they are, only for both of them to say “good”, and have no subtext of exposition, is boring. Have them speak with purpose. You don’t have to include the niceties if they unfold over more than two lines.
Inconsistent characterization is a big problem that I see in amateur writing and bad novels. You need to have a clear idea of who these people are, where they come from, and what they want. It’s also important to nail down their voice (both as speakers and narrators) and keep it consistent. Inconsistent characters lead to readers losing their investment in them– and ultimately, the story. Know these characters.
This is most common in fanfiction, but I’ve read it in original fiction, too. The teenage MC will have absent, neglectful, or abusive guardians SOLELY for the purpose of giving the MC free range to do whatever they want without parental repercussions.
If your story is about kids that come from these households, I don’t have a problem with you. Let’s be clear. It’s the stories where the only effect we see of these guardians is that the MC is allowed to do whatever they want– run away, break rules, spend nights outs, etc.
If your story isn’t about the other effects of neglect, absence, or abuse from guardians, then you should use present guardians for the MC for conflict in other places. They can still be dysfunctional or antagonistic people, but you don’t have to invoke the seriousness of abuse, neglect, and absence that you would otherwise (wherein you have to give the seriousness the attention it deserves, or end up falling into this trope).
If your MC has guardians who are “normal” people and notice when they’re gone, then you still have the option for conflict. Just in different ways.
Please stop including criminally-bad parents for the sole purpose of giving the teenage MC free run of the world. It’s disrespectful to those who actually went through this situation. Give the emotional trauma the actual attention it deserves in a narrative, or give them different parents.
This applies to dead parents, too. Webeen knew about the overuse of the orphan cliche.
Wow! This is Hard to Read!
Stilted syntax. This is when your actual writing, the words and sentences on the paper, don’t sound natural or become too much effort to read. Very long, winding sentences can do this, as can unvaried sentence length. Not only should a reader be able to say the sentence aloud without taking another breath, but they should also feel a melody to the sentences.
Imagine I write like this. I only use single-subject sentences. No commas or conjunctions in sight. Every paragraph is like this. Every sentence is like this. There is no melody here. There is rhythm. No melody. It’s boring. It’s repetitive. The reader is getting anxious.
But now, imagine that I write sentences that are very long and flowy, without a real sense of particular direction, or narrative purpose. It’s not just that these sentences usually break grammar rules, because let’s be honest, grammar doesn’t always matter when you have your own writing style, but it’s because there’s too much winding for these sentences and they require too much work from the reader in terms of reading- and literary-comprehension.
But what if we shorten those sentences and vary our sentence length? It has a melody. We’re here, we’re engaged, and we’re getting a melodic story. Right? The story doesn’t have to be beautiful in words, but it should be beautiful as a collection of sentences. Giving readers breaks. And breaths. The easiest way to accomplish this is not while you write. Though it is good to keep in mind as you write. However, it is best to just write and then come back during editing. Sentences are easy to rearrange to make it more varied. Word choice will also help. Some words are longer than others. Some words flow better. It’s all. about your gut-feeling.
It doesn’t matter if you believe in love at first sight. Two characters who meet and immediately fall in love isn’t a super interesting trope to read on its own. There are two routes of fixing this.
First option, you avoid the L-O-V-E and start with more realistic feelings. Lust, infatuation, and attraction are all normal things for someone with romantic/sexual orientations to experience upon first meet. And those can grow into love. But it doesn’t start with the L-word.
Second option, you keep the insta-love and subvert the trope. Two characters meet and feel like they’ve fallen in love. But instead of growing stronger, it deteriorates. They start in love and gradually fall out of love. Instead of the build up from Option 1, it’s a break down. Sad, but a subversion nonetheless.
I Can Practically See the Characters. But Where the Hell am I?
White Room Syndrome is a problem. You give beautiful, deep descriptions of the characters and the action, but you don’t describe the room they’re in enough. They could be practically anywhere and no one would be able to tell. Again, there are two easy ways to fix this.
A) You give a static description of the room. This is the basic description. What it looks like, what’s there, what feeling it invokes, etc.
B) You let the setting be an active character. Active settings are intrusive. They continually affect the people in them. A very hot or very cold place that worsens a character’s comfort again and again is active. Being outside at night with a bunch of pesky mosquitoes is active. In comparison, a static setting would be a bedroom that doesn’t continually become invasive of the main storyline. If the bedroom has striped wallpaper that goes all different directions and makes a character nauseous (a la I Lovy Lucy), then it becomes active.
Either option you take per setting is up to you, but hopefully it will aleviate the White Room Syndrome.
This mostly applies to YA, sci-fi, fantasy, and romance/erotica novels, but it’s worth thinking about no matter your genre. So often, I see either a whole plot or subplot that revolves around a heterosexual female character who is, obviously, a naive virgin. Maybe she’s not worldly naive, but she’s naive when it comes to romance, sex, and practically everything men do around her.
It’s annoying. I’ve read it a million times. And their first partner is nearly ALWAYS an experienced dude. And some of these women have never even masturbated or felt arousal or thought about sex.
It’s a tired trope that dismisses a female character’s agency. Especially when the man is NOT in the same boat. Are female virgin characters bad? No. But for God’s sake, their romantic plot does NOT need to revolve around the repeated detail that she is a virgin.
And not all virgins need to be naive about romance or sex. And… it’s definitely okay to have a good romantic subplot with a non-virgin female character. There can still be new feelings of intimacy! Gasp! Yes! There are different kinds of sexual encounters! Even if this isn’t the first man she’s slept with, this could still be the first man she’s felt intimate with.
Food for thought. And again, for clarity, I have nothing against (naive) female virgin characters. But I do think there is more ground to cover.
Please add conflict to your story at every chance you get. Is there such thing as TOO much conflict? Yes. But that shouldn’t stop you from experimenting with more conflict. It can be found anywhere. And it raises stakes, which increases suspense and reader investment.
If you need brainstorming ideas, work backward from what they might lose (i.e. the stakes). This character is most afraid to lose _________. This character would be a wreck if they lost ________. Here is a list of things a character could have at stake. Say, in the middle of your big plot, your character is relying upon their mentor. What if that mentor will move cities if the character doesn’t _________? What if that mentor will die unless the character ________. While knee-deep in the main conflict, they have to solve this or risk the main goal. Boom! More conflict, more stakes, more reader investment and suspense.
People… Don’t Talk Like This?
Bad dialogue is a plague to read and plague for writers to figure out. Here’s the thing: good dialogue in books and films ISN’T 100% realistic. It just isn’t. Human speech is messy, unscripted, meandering, and confusing. We don’t say the perfect closing line for a scene because there are no scenes in life. We live continuously.
However, it isn’t about realism. It’s about what sounds natural to us. Natural dialogue borrows from realism, but it doesn’t rely upon realism. It relies upon what carries the narrative along, what the FICTIONAL characters with FICTIONAl backgrounds would say, and what sounds natural to readers/viewers and writers alike.
Think about the movie you think has the best dialogue. Now think about if it was a real story with real people. Would it be as articulate or well-paced or smooth? Chances are, you’d lose a lot of clarity and eloquence.
Good dialogue isn’t necessarily about taking real words and putting them in. It’s about taking the natural feel and applying it to your fictional situations.
Can there be good dialogue that is as true to realistic dialogue as possible? Yes, but my point is that it isn’t necessary or always the best option.
When in doubt, go au naturel.
Tokens are for Arcades, Not People
Don’t put all of your diverse traits into one character. You can have a character with multiple diverse traits, but they shouldn’t be the only diverse character. Especially within the pantheon of important main characters.
Continue to include your deaf, lesbian Asian character, but you might want to check to see if they are the only important character that is part of the LGBTQ+ community, a person of color, or not completely able-bodied. They shouldn’t be a unicorn.
This isn’t a call-out post for people who are against including diversity for some odd reason. I’m not here to argue with you on that. Because why argue with a rock? This is just food for thought. If you think including ONE diverse character is enough, then ask yourself why you’re including them at all. You should want diverse characters because it mirrors real life, not because you think it’s a modern-day quota. If you think it’s a quota, write your monolithic cast and do what you will. Don’t tokenize people.
And don’t beat yourself up if you ACCIDENTALLY only included one diverse main character. It can happen. But if you want diversity and it was just an accident, then be mindful when planning later projects. It’s a learning curve, which no one wants to tell you. We consciously and unconsciously write stories about what we know and if we only know our little slice of the world, it can be hard to naturally cast characters unlike us. You’re probably not doing it maliciously, which means all you need is a little more mindfulness.
Hope this was insightful!
Please don’t be mean if you disagree. This is just from my own perspective and I’d really like to not have nasty replies and reblogs. Civil disagreement is fine. But please don’t be mean! Let’s keep the writeblrcommunity friendly.
