by Phoebe Quinn
7 rookie writing mistakes:
- Writing about writers. The adage write what you know is all well and good (and somewhat debatable), but writing about a writer that needs inspiration to write – well, unless you’ve managed to put an original twist on it, you may as well just type I’VE RUN OUT OF IDEAS until your fingertips bleed.
- The friendship group. Why did all my protagonists have to have #squadgoals? Always a perfect mix of perky, peculiar, and pretty, it was straight out of every ‘90s romcom and rarely added anything interesting to the story. Most of my protagonists now are not very nice people so by rights they shouldn’t have many friends, but the friends they do have are, at least, realistic.
- Going meta, poorly. “If this was a book or a play or a film…” translates to look how edgy I’m being: my narrator doesn’t seem to be aware they’re a work of fiction! This is amazing! Actually, it’s kind of annoying. Done well, meta references can add an interesting perspective. Done poorly, they are self-indulgent and messy.
- Describing everything. Adverbs, adjectives, every piece of dialogue or action qualified and quantified. Describing what the narrator is wearing, if written in first person, is usually clunky and unnecessary. No one needs to know about your character’s love of double denim. Or what they’re eating. Or what their favourite colour is. That kind of stuff goes in your character plan and it staysthere unless it somehow advances the plot or reveals appropriate information about your character.
- Hackneyed stereotypes. I wrote the sassy, promiscuous gay male flatmate well before I had even met any man who was gay, and way way way before I lived with my own gay male friend, so naturally I resorted to the stereotype. Other tropes I worked my way through include: campy, waspish fashion photographer; shrill, leopard print-wearing vodka-drinking female friend; faintly homophobic, twee, middle-class parents offering tea in floral china; and the bunny boiler who clings onto my protagonist after a one-night stand. Not all of these are from different stories…
- Lack of realism. This mostly came from sheer inexperience of life. Example: one supporting character didn’t use his English degree ‘much’ except ‘writing a column for The Times’ before becoming an insurance salesman. I’d count a column in a national paper as using your English degree a fair bit.
- Weird, unnatural language. “You were rather chaste on our date,” said no one in the history of humankind, except the person in my abandoned novel with the terrible dialogue. (“Bloody wench,” also appears in the same chapter and has the added bonus of being a touch misogynistic.)
7 ways I have improved since then, to much relief:
- Planning. I was a full-on panster until a few years ago. Now I plan obsessively, with spidergrams being my preferred method. I also do a two-page numbered summary of the plot, draw out a story arc (more of a squiggle than an arc), and set out my characters’ current situation, goals, obstacles, and backgrounds. If you don’t plan, you end up with something like the TV show Lost. And no one wants that.
- Observation. I tend not to write on public transport these days because this is where I get some of my best material. I don’t mean seeing someone on a train and thinking you will be the main character of my next story, Man In A Funny Hat, but more seeing how people interact with each other and trying to build a story from that. Recently I watched a man helping a woman negotiate the train with a broken foot, which gave me an idea of how to start the short story I’d been working on that week.
- Considering every word. I don’t write first drafts willy-nilly, as that would make a lot of work for me later, but I do make a note of things I might want to change later. It might be small details, like the number of adverbs I’ve allowed myself to use (while not the most sophisticated device, they do have their place on occasion), or part of the bigger picture, such as trying to find better ways of including essential exposition.
- Reading in my genre. I’m a short story writer, primarily, so at the moment I am reading short stories. When I start a novel, I’ll be back to reading novels. Now is not the time to begin book one of a multi-part Norwegian thriller if what I am writing is a somewhat-science fiction short story collection (try saying that after you’ve had a couple of drinks) set in London.
- Taking lessons from the writing community. I’m watching a lot of YouTube videos and reading a lot of writing blogs in the vain hope it will influence my writing in some small way. Even if it doesn’t, it’s comforting to know there’s other people doing the same things I’m doing in far more difficult circumstances, and still managing. It’s a glorious kick up the backside, especially if I’m not really feeling the writing vibe that day – a few YouTube videos later and I’m good to go.
- Knowing that I am not at my best, and knowing that’s a good thing. When I was younger, I would write a short story and think yes, this is a beast of a tale, and I am its tamer! I am fantastic! …And this is why my early writing was awful. I used to not bother editing my first drafts. Whatever spewed from my brain the first time was the finished product. Yikes. These days, I edit.
- Life experience. It’s a boring, long-winded way of becoming a better writer, but it’s true. I am 27 now, and I started writing when I was six. Those twenty-one years have been filled with all sorts of stuff – some great, some not so great, but all of it enriching and useful. As much as I would love to stay in and be a writing hermit forever, sometimes I venture out into the real world if only to see other people in their natural habitat.
Guest post contributed by Phoebe Quinn. Phoebe is a writer of fiction with a collection of short stories to be released in 2016.
Would love to have a reblog button and hoping one will appear after this comment (they sometimes do). I’ve been looking for good shares and not finding many, but the 7 mistakes ring true!
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Reblogged this on Just Can't Help Writing and commented:
The “7 Rookie Mistakes” from Pheobe Quinn over at The Writer’s Path ring true. For example, I agree we tend to recycle cliched characters from other things we’ve read or TV we’ve seen. It’s because we do this that literature in all its forms has such a profound effect on our values. We think “heroes” MUST behave like the hero in a popular book or that people who behave like the villain we just saw on Netflix are also villainous. It’s tough in writing to catch yourself scribbling in these “types.”
What do you think of Quinn’s fixes? I’m still a pantser, and I do pay the price—but I want to be surprised by my own writing, and outlines take that surprise away.
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What YouTube channels do you watch to help improve your writing? I’d love to see some of them.
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It’s not a YouTube channel, but Writing Excuses podcast is a rich resource.
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Awesome! Thanks!
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Reblogged this on saintcwrites.
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I have found there are no rookie mistakes. There are mistakes in perception and communication – how to advance story and characters and setting. A primary mistake is trying to mirror someone else’s writing e.g. Virginia Woolf. If a writer can assemble 250 words of a run-on sentence, indicate some mental illness and make absolutely no sense, then that writer may be on her way. But to do it right, every writer wants her own means of communication and will stick with that voice.
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I definitely agree that you should be careful about stereotyping certain groups!
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Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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Am going to reblog this on mine…it’s a very useful and great help to the rookie author like me…
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Reblogged this on adaratrosclair.
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Reblogged this on When Angels Fly.
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Reblogged this on Books and More.
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Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Here are some great tips for avoiding rookie writing mistakes from Phoebe Quinn via Ryan Lanz’s blog
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Reblogged this on Stevie Turner, Indie Author. and commented:
Some good info here from Phoebe Quinn at ‘A Writer’s Path’.
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Great advice! Number 4 was, and still is, hard for me… I grew up reading too many of the classics… and detail was the thing. It took a long time to let go… (and I still haven’t completely, lol)
Now… it’s kind of freeing to know that you can allude to things and allow the reader to make up their own images… even YA novels… like 5th wave… the images are similar in the movies to what I saw while reading… but really, when I went back and looked, descriptions were sparse.
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Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
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Reblogged this on VERONICA.
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We’ve all been there (although I draw the line at wearing the T shirt!). But I can’t get the image of the train with a broken foot from my head! Subject/Object reversal, I think that’s called.
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Those are some fantastic points. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you Phoebe for this wonderful post. I personally consider planning and editing to be valuable things that most rookies don’t dwell on. Great post. 🙂
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Reblogged this on Flynn Gray and commented:
Some great advice from Phoebe Quinn, via ryanlanz.com.
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Reblogged this on The Owl Lady.
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This was so good, thank you!
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Reblogged this on WILDsound Writing and Film Festival Review.
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Reblogged this on Socially Anxious Writer.
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Thanks for sharing!
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