7 Common Mistakes New Writers Make
May 6, 2024
Too Much Backstory
Everyone falls in love with their characters and their entire history. We want everyone to know everything about them so they can fall in love with them too. But what teen writers don’t realize is that you don’t have to tell a character’s entire history or backstory for the reader to be interested in your character. In fact, the less you tell up front, the more intrigued your reader will be about your character and the motivation behind their actions.
If you have a bunch of backstory, that’s okay. In fact, writers sometimes have to get to know their characters really well before than can tell their story. If you don’t know your character’s story you can start by journaling about their life. Just let the words flow. But once you know their story, ask yourself “What is the most important thing about my character the reader needs to know NOW to understand my character’s action?” Include that piece of information and then later look for ways to weave in your character’s history instead of explaining it all at once in narrative. How do you do that? You can show your character’s history through her present actions. Did something happen in her past to make her angry or cynical? Did something happen to cause her to have a bad relationship with a friend or family member? Resist the Urge to explain (RUE) why a character is acting the way she’s acting and just show it. Then as the story progresses you can drop little nuggets of information, one liners, or subtle comments through dialogue or internal thought to give the reader a HINT at her backstory. If you drop all the information about your character up front, the mystery and intrigue will be gone, and your reader will be bored and not want to turn the page.Not Starting in the Middle of the Action
This mistake goes along with too much backstory. Teen writers often feel the need to explain or show all the actions that lead up to the important action that starts the book, but it’s much more interesting to drop the reader in during the action! If your story is about high school bullying, it’s not necessary to show the reader everything that happens before your main character gets to school. Just drop your reader into the scene where the action is starting…when the bully is getting in the face of the main character or maybe is doing the bullying herself!
Head Hopping and Wrong Use of POV
Many teen writers like to get inside of every character’s head in their story, but this can be confusing to the reader. The basic rule is to tell the story through the eyes of one character during a certain scene or chapter. The character whose eyes you see through is called the POV character and when you write action or description, you only write what that character sees and feels. Think of it like looking through a camera lens. Whatever your character sees through the lens is what you have them see. That means they can’t see when someone sneaks up behind them, BUT they may be able to hear footsteps or smell a distinct odor as the person approaches. This also applies to emotions. You can’t know what every character thinks or feels. Just the thoughts and feelings of your POV character.
The exception to this rule is when you end a scene or chapter and start a new scene or chapter, then you can choose a different POV to tell the story. But I don’t recommend this unless you’re writing a romance or thriller which needs the POV change. Staying in one POV may seem more difficult, but the challenge will make you a better writer and it will help solidify that deep POV connection with the reader.Telling Emotions instead of Showing
Though teen writers have a good grasp of showing the actions of a scene instead of telling like younger writers, they still have difficultyshowing emotions. They often use adverbs at the end of their dialogue. For example, she said, angrily. Or he said, shyly. A better way to write the dialogue would be to use an action beat to show the emotion. Instead of she said angrily, after the dialogue you can say, She hit the desk with her fist. No one likes to be told how to feel. The same is true with the reader. If you learn to allow the reader to feel your character’s emotions instead of telling them, it will make for a richer reading experience.
No Goals
Teen writers tend to write about what they know. Which is a good place to start, but if you just write about fun people, school, annoying parents, and boys without giving your main character a goal, then your story will be boring. Every character needs to have a goal (or dream) and a greatest fear that they must face. That goal should be hinted to in the beginning of the story. But remember not to tell simply tell the reader the goal, but to show it.
Let’s take a look at the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is a typical teenager who doesn’t like her family or authority. She wants to escape. To run away somewhere over the rainbow. That is her goal in the beginning, but it’s not her story goal! That comes later when she is in Oz and wants to get back home to Auntie Em. But that’s another post for another day about story structure. The point is, don’t just have interesting characters on the page. Have them want something…something big and then send them on their journey. Which brings me to the next common mistake.
Not Enough Conflict
Once your character starts her journey toward her goal, there has to be conflict, preferably on every page. Yes, every page. But remember conflict comes in many forms. There’s internal conflict that is inside the character and stems from opposing goals, dreams, fears, insecurities, and past mistakes. There’s relational conflict where another character causes problems (external or internal) for the main character. And there is external conflict that comes from outside the character. Conflict is anything that slows the journey of your character and makes it more difficult (yet not impossible) for them to reach the end of their journey.
Now I know you love your characters and throwing problems at them is hard, but it’s necessary for a good story. Our job as authors, whether you’re a preteen, teen or adult, is to torture our characters so they can learn their lessons. Kind of sounds like a parent-child relationship, huh!
No Story Structure
I was twenty-three and newly married when I started my first novel. I had an idea I couldn’t get out of my head, so I just started writing. How hard could writing a novel be? Four kids later in my thirties, I wrote THE END. Then I tried to sell it, and soon realized there was more to writing then just putting words on a page. There was something called story structure, and I needed to learn it to be a good writer. Needless to say, that first story never sold.
Now some of you might be thinking, oh great, story structure. {insert eye roll} A bunch of writing rules I have to follow. Instead of thinking of story structure as a bunch of rules, think of it as destination stops on the way to where you want to go. If you were taking a cross country trip, there would be certain places you’d stop. This is the basis of story structure. But HOW you get to those different places has endless possibilities. For example, you can start in New York and drive to Philadelphia. Then you can take a plane to Dallas, take a bus to Oklahoma city and maybe rent a motorcycle for the rest of your journey. Not so structured, now is it.
Whether you’re young or old, a new writer is a new writer, and we all need to learn the “rules” to great writing. The best thing about being a teen writer is you’re going to learn and master them way before most people. So go write! And help make these 7 common mistakes not so common!
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