Written by Sue Schlesman

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Regardless of their chosen genre, new and emerging writers tend to make some common writing mistakes. These errors pepper their blogs, devotionals, stories, and articles, signaling to readers and editors that they have not studied the craft of writing enough to achieve excellence, much less marketability. All writers must tackle these hurdles to succeed.

If you want to catch an editor’s eye, you must discipline yourself in the craft of writing. Even in the age of AI and Spellcheck, grammar, syntax, POV, spelling, and story structure separate the wannabe writers from those who will secure a sizable readership, an agent, and/or a traditional publishing contract.

First, most writers struggle at some point with correct grammar usage. Public schools teach very little grammar beyond elementary school and essentially none in high school or college. Consequently, students’ writing stalls in middle school, relegated to basic sentence structures or gangly sentences with an assortment of incorrect phrases, clauses, and punctuation.

Beginning and evolving writers should focus on—

• Correcting passive voice—“The stabbing was done by Tom” becomes “Tom stabbed Henry.”
• Changing verbs of being into verbs of action—“Sophia was sad” changes to “Sophia refused dinner and wept quietly in her room.”
• Correct pronoun-antecedent problems—Match singular pronouns with singular antecedents, and plural with plural; They, their, and them are often considered singular personal pronouns now to avoid gender identification.
• Correct common apostrophe and comma mistakes—Its is a possessive pronoun and does not have an apostrophe (“The house showed its age.”); it’s = it is, a subject and verb. Also be careful of plural possessives; the apostrophe follows the s.
• Correct runaway clauses and phrases—Understand the difference: phrases are a group of words without a subject and verb (prepositional, gerund, participial, or appositive); clauses have a subject and verb and may or may not be independent (sentences).
• Strong syntax—Syntax is the selection and ordering of words to make a sentence flow well. Read your work out loud. If it sounds clumsy or awkward, it needs to be fixed. Language has rhythm, like music. Sentences and paragraphs should roll easily off the tongue.

Secondly, writers struggle with basic writing methods. Most writers write in the genre they love to read. While mentor texts are important for writing development, new writers can get stuck copying the voice or style of the writing they enjoy. Besides the obvious plot and character cliches that can occur, copycat writing also limits a writer’s creativity and personal style. Common writing mistakes occur when a writer doesn’t read a variety of genres and authors and when a writer has not developed a personal style of writing.

Here are some common mistakes that show up in our writing:

• A changing POV (point of view)—decide the viewpoint of the narrator (you); are you telling the story from an omniscient POV, i.e., multiple scenes and storylines? Is the story from the main character’s POV, limiting the reader to his experience only? (For example, if the whole story is the main character’s experience, he doesn’t know what other characters are thinking.)
• Stereotypical characters, plot, theme, dialogue, resolution
• Narration that tells the reader what’s happening instead of showing the reader what’s happening
• Sensory description that is trite, overly-dramatic, or boring
• Over-use of conversation tags—Stay away from using a lot of “he said/she said” and rely on character movement and personality to show who’s talking. Begin a new paragraph whenever the speaker changes.
• Redundancy—Don’t repeat thoughts, opinions, thesis statements. Don’t narrate what’s happening and then also have the characters tell the reader what’s happening.
• A weak or vague thesis statement in expository writing essays, articles, blogs, devotionals—the thesis statement traditionally appears at the end of the introduction and a restated thesis (different words) at the beginning of the conclusion.

You can learn the craft of writing, regardless of your English background. Here are some suggestions for improving your writer’s IQ:

• Attend a writer’s conference and take workshops that address your areas of weakness.
• Read classic literature and notice the sentence structure and vocabulary.
• Read writing in your genre of choice and take notes from a writer’s perspective—how does the author accomplish his/her goal?
• Read Spark Notes for a book while you read it. Learn to analyze the themes and literary devices.
• Join or form a book club. Read books with people who like breaking down the plot, theme, and characters (fiction) or discuss and debate a topic (nonfiction).
• Take a grammar course at a community college, hire a grammar tutor, or work through a high school grammar textbook.
• Join or form a writer’s critique group and peer edit each other’s work.

Pride is the biggest detriment to improving as a writer. Don’t be too embarrassed to ask for help or too offended to accept critique. Good writing requires time, rewrites, and basic agony.

Get into the habit of having people read your work and give you feedback. When you’ve gotten used to that, ask people who aren’t your family or friends. Blogging provides a good avenue to grow as a writer to strangers. Ask for reactions and take the criticisms.

Whenever someone makes a suggestion, don’t defend yourself. Consider what they’re saying. After all, you’re writing to readers, not to yourself. You need to understand how your writing hits people. Does it make sense? Is your tone harsh or critical? Do you make big leaps in logic? Are you communicating original ideas?

Writers who participate in critique groups are writers who eventually get published. They can handle the criticism, rejection, and self-editing required to move their writing from a personal hobby to a ministry to unknown readers. If you want to reach a broader audience, you must eliminate these common errors from your writing.

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