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Eight Amateur Writing Mistakes to Avoid – A Brief Guide for Aspiring Writers

It doesn’t matter whether you are just about to start your writing journey, whether you are halfway through the first rough draft, or whether you have just completed the first rough draft of your manuscript – there are several mistakes that you cannot make.

Otherwise, when your readers detect the mistakes, they can think of you as an amateur writer. Here are eight of the worst mistakes that you might make if you are an amateur writer. 

Keep reading. 

Shifting Tense

This is a classic mistake that many newbie writers make. Usually, this happens when you are writing a paragraph, and you start to wildly jump between past and present tense. Also, you might keep switching between the first-person and third-person narrative.

Every time you shift tenses in a paragraph or page, basically, what you do is that you create cognitive dissonance for your readers. Shifting tense is also confusing and frustrating, which means that you are not consistent. And if you are not consistent with your tenses, it will scream that you are an amateur writer, which will also make your readers stop reading your book. 

Here is the thing: once you select a tense, you are going to stick with it and nail grammar.

Excessive Dialogue Tags

This mistake is the problem where every single time you have someone from your character list say something or speak. And when they say something, you add a dialogue tag. For instance, you might write from the first-person narrative in the following manner:

“Hello. How are you,” I asked.

“I am fine,” William replied.

“How is the weather,” I asked.

“A bit hot,” William replied. 

You get the point – if you write in a way where every single line is a dialogue tag, you certainly want to get enrolled in creative writing classes so you know how to get this right. If you live in Los Angeles, you might want to sign up with creative writing classes in Los Angeles and understand what makes a good creative writer so that you can avoid mistakes like these that will definitely label you as an amateur writer. 

Dumping Info

Another classic mistake that amateur writers make is info-dumping. This is the aspect where the readers get paragraphs and paragraphs of explanations of backstory and context. If you are the one making the mistake, it can happen for you to decide that on the second page of your novel, you will give your readers four paragraphs about your character’s relationship with their family. 

If you dump info onto your readers, it will trip them up and pull them out of the present action of the story. This kind of long pause is not good, and it also bores your readers. 

Repetitive Sentence Structure

When it comes to effective writing, you must avoid clinging to a repetitive writing structure, especially for your sentences. This aspect is about when the majority of your sentences start in the same way, which is essentially a noun followed by a verb construction.

Usually, amateur writers make this mistake when they are writing in the first person. For instance, if you incorporate a repetitive sentence structure in your first draft while writing in first-person, you might write in the following manner:

“I go. I eat. I feel. I sleep.”

You get the point – repetitive sentence structures in writing are dull and boring. Besides, these sentence structures scream that you are indeed an amateur writer who needs some good polishing. 

Redundant Writing

Next on the list, we have the mistake of redundant or convoluted writing style. If you are guilty of this, you might throw in a few or tons of extra words, descriptions, or phrases into a sentence where it is nothing but redundant.

When you make this mistake, you throw extra things into your sentence in the hope of improving things. In reality though – you are only watering your sentence down as opposed to making it stronger. To avoid redundancy, you can use direct and simple language. 

Inclusion of Melodrama

It doesn’t matter whether or not you are a drama queen; you should never make the mistake of adding melodrama to your writing. Here is what we are talking about: suppose you are writing in a way where you take your characters and certain scenes way over the top, then you are essentially adding melodrama to the story.

Usually, amateur writers make this mistake when they write fanfiction, where out of nowhere, they have this big dramatic scene where the characters are crying, screaming, and making bold declarations. The problem with this is that such melodramatic scenes are usually not supported in the rest of the writing, which is why it is a tell-tale sign that this scene is written by an amateur writer. 

Consistent Grammar Mistakes 

Now, this mistake is a pretty basic one – still – it needs to be said. We are talking about the mistake of persistent grammar issues, which can include misuse of punctuation, spelling errors, tense issues, etc. The thing is that persistent grammar mistakes are incredibly bad amateur mistakes, and these mistakes will certainly get in the way of reading.

We don’t imply that you have to be perfect with grammar because the thing is that even though English might be your native language – you, like everyone else, will be on kind of a learning curve. Nonetheless, the truth is that loads of people cannot proceed to read a book that has tons of grammar mistakes in it.

So, if grammar is a sphere that you are struggling with, then we recommend you take classes and improve your skills before you embark on your writing journey. 

Poor Description

Last on the list of writing mistakes that you must avoid at all costs is a poor description that you do for the sake of filling the pages. This mistake is about the writing you do when you have tons of scenes – often – early in the book where your characters might end up in random places and have random conversations that don’t contribute much to the plot of the story.

Make sure to only include things that contribute to the plot and unraveling of the story.

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