I’ve been trolling the blogs, the last few days, reading fiction from new/unpublished writers. I see the same thing, over and over, the same mistakes, repeated.
I don’t know why writers continue to make these mistakes. Read any article or book on modern writing and you’ll see these problems called out. Perhaps it’s that some new writers don’t read books about writing, don’t analyze their own work. I don’t know.
What I do know, is that there are some new writers who read this blog (we’re up to 80+ followers, now, with slow but steady growth), so I thought I’d go over these basic problem areas in a series of posts. I hope it starts a conversation with some of the apprentice writers out there.
From here, I see two basic classes of flaws: large and small. Sounds facile, but it’s true.
Large flaws have to do with basic, “macro” level problems. Mostly they concern the logic of the plot, structure, and characterization. For character-driven pieces, does the motivation of your characters make sense? For event-driven plots, do the events and the response-action logically follow? If the story’s structure is other than a straight-timeline narrative, is it necessary? Is the voice you’ve chosen (i.e., 1st person, 3rd person, etc.) proper to the tale? Do the characters have a backstory, or were they “born on the page?”
I may discuss these in general, but large problems are unique to the story they inhabit, and generalizations can only get us so far before they fail to be instructive.
Small flaws, however, categorize themselves pretty easily, and I’ll tackle these each in a post of their own. Anyone who has pet peeves or topics they want covered, let me know.
Of course, I’m not an Oracle of All Things Literary. I’m not a best-selling author or a professor of English. However, I do think I have some talent for writing, and thus my opinion is not without value.
Hopefully, you’ve read this blog and a few of the stories contained on these pages. If you have, you’ve formed an opinion of my capabilities as a writer and you can judge the value of my advice accordingly.
So, that’s the plan. I’ll start to wade into these dark waters in my next post.
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[…] has been a very educational trip, for me. Back when I started this series, I was writing down things that I’ve learned but never put into words. And, coming […]
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[…] of those “macro” level problems of the type I mentioned way back when I started this series. Problems like, say what? a new character halfway through a short story? Problems like, it’s […]
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This is even more interesting now. Perhaps you will even be motivated enough to make some of the changes you suggest.
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I prefer to take the lessons forward. One error new writers make is to continually rewrite to no good effect. Should I rewrite a 10-year old story that _might_ earn me $20? Or should I take the lessons learned and apply them to the next project? Keep looking forward. Keep learning. Keep improving.
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Having read a couple of your short stories, I’m interested in your upcoming posts.
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Some of those stories, especially the early ones, have many of the errors I plan to discuss. Which leads me to the idea of using my own work, warts and all, as examples. I know I’d rewrite every last one of them, given the chance (and a good reason).
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