THE 38 MOST
COMMON
FICTION WRITING
MISTAKES
(And How To Avoid Them)
by Jack M. Bickham
The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them).
Copyright © 1992 by Jack M. Bickham. Printed and bound in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Writer's Digest Books, an imprint of F+W Publications, Inc., 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45236. (800) 289-0963. First Paperback Printing 1997.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bickham. Jack M.
The 38 most common fiction writing mistakes and how to avoid them / Jack M. Bickham.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-89879-821-0 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-89879-821-3 (pbk.)
1. Fiction—Technique. 2. Authorship I. Title. II. Title: The thirty-eight most common fiction writing mistakes and how to avoid them.
PN3355.B47 1992
808.3—dc20 91-32293
CIP
Edited by Bill Brohaugh
Designed by Sandy Kent
FORWARD
THE PRELIMINARY SECTION of a book is often labeled a "foreword." But in a book involving fiction technique, the word ought to be "Forward."
Why?... To emphasize two vital points: All good fiction moves forward; all good fiction writers look ahead.
In more than twenty years of teaching courses in professional writing at the University of Oklahoma, I think I've encountered almost every difficulty an aspiring writer might face. (Once, I had a young male student who was both deaf and blind. He required a companion in the classroom to tap her fingers against his hand during my lectures to spell out my words.) But by far the most common—and crippling—problem for students over the years was the tendency to write static copy that didn't have forward movement. And the second most common problem was the habit of looking backwards—at past mistakes and disappointments, or at worries about the part of the story already written—rather than ahead, where all the potential... all the challenge... all the excitement and triumph... have to be.
So, despite the fact that I've chosen to write this book from what seems a negative stance, telling you what you shouldn't do, please don't fall into the trap of thinking negatively, or backwards, about your writing. My hope is that by seeing a common error stated boldly in the section heading, you will look harder at your own copy to see if you might be committing the same mistake. But my message is positive—always. In every section you'll find a common mistake described, but you'll also find how to avoid that error, or build in a strength as a replacement for a previous weakness.
Nothing can erode your powers more than a negative attitude.
Nothing can cripple your fiction more than looking at it backwards, as a static artifact or "done deal" rather than a living, forward-moving, dynamic series of inventions.
So you'll be reading a lot of "don't" statements in the following pages. But that's partly just to get your attention. Remember, behind every negative is a positive.
Just as behind every rejection there's a triumphant sale—if you'll just persevere.
So let's move on, now... forward.
—J. M. B.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Don't Make Excuses ...when you can avoid procrastination and delays with these ideas to get your project started.
2. Don't Consider Yourself Too Smart ...when you can bring your writing down to earth—where your readers are.
3. Don't Show Off When You Write ...when you can give your writing power by putting complex ideas into simple language.
4. Don't Expect Miracles ...when you can achieve your writing goals through hard work, patience and perseverance.
5. Don't Warm Up Your Engines ...when you can write a captivating story from the very start.
6. Don't Describe Sunsets ...when you can keep your story moving by avoiding flowery description.
7. Don't Use Real People in Your Story ...when you can create vivid, compelling characters through exaggeration.
8. Don't Write About Wimps ...when you can build strong, active characters by employing "story goals."
9. Don't Duck Trouble ...when you can fill your writing with true conflict.
10. Don't Have Things Happen for No Reason ...when you can use background and motivation to instill logic and credibility in your fiction.
11. Don't Forget Stimulus and Response ...when you can strengthen your writing through cause and effect.
12. Don't Forget Whose Story It Is ...when you can avoid confusion by using the viewpoint character's thoughts and perceptions to dominate the story.
13. Don't Fail to Make the Viewpoint Clear ...when you can keep your readers riveted on a single character and his or her problem.
14. Don't Lecture Your Reader ...when you can convey story information through more innovative and creative means.
15. Don't Let Characters Lecture, Either ...when you can keep your dialogue from stumbling over clumsy research and background information.
16. Don't Let Them Be Windbags ...when you can keep characters' dialogue sleek and direct by creating a conversational goal.
17. Don't Mangle Characters' Speech ...when you can write realistic dialogue without using dialect, slang, colloquialisms and foul language.
18. Don't Forget Sense Impressions ...when you can create understanding for characters by fully using thoughts, feelings and the senses.
19. Don't Be Afraid to Say "Said" ...when you can keep your dialogue strong by avoiding these examples of distracting synonyms.
20. Don't Assume You Know; Look It Up ...because one tiny error can rob you of your readers' credibility.
21. Don't Ever Stop Observing and Making Notes ...when you can hone your description skills by constantly practicing on the world around you.
22. Don't Ignore Scene Structure ...when you can use these seven steps to create an exciting scene that will build tension.
23. Don't Drop Alligators Through the Transom ...when you can create interesting complications directly related to the story.
24. Don't Forget to Let Your Characters Think ...when you can employ the power of "emotion-thought-decision" to fulfill story goals.
25. Don't Wander Around in a Fog ...when you can define your story's direction, and stick to it.
26. Don't Worry About Being Obvious ...when you can be confident your writing is clear and powerful enough to keep readers out of the dark.
27. Don't Criticize Yourself to Death ...when you should just let your creative juices flow.
28. Don't Worry What Mother Will Think ...when you can write freely, without outside burdens.
29. Don't Hide From Your Feelings ...when you can fill your writing with the passion and emotion that readers crave.
30. Don't Take It to the Club Meeting ...when you can avoid the sting of unnecessary, incorrect and irrelevant advice.
31. Don't Ignore
Professional Advice ...when you can benefit from the experience of a published writer.
32. Don't Chase the Market ...when you can write solid, publishable fiction without getting hung up on "sure thing" trends.
33. Don't Pose and Posture ...when you can remove plot-stopping pretentions and cynicism from your writing.
34. Don't Waste Your Plot Ideas ...when you can use these idea-sparkers to make them work for you over and over again.
35. Don't Stop Too Soon ...when you can hold a truly finished project in your hands after completing this twelve-step revision plan.
36. Don't Prejudice Your Editor ...when you can use these eight tips for putting together a manuscript package.
37. Don't Give Up ...when you can remain optimistic and persistent in your career as a fiction writer.
38. Don't Just Sit There ...when you could start writing, and keep writing—successfully.
1. DON'T MAKE EXCUSES
WRITERS ARE A FAVORITE subject for cartoonists, from Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame to those who contribute to The New Yorker. (You can't blame them for picking on writers; we are sort of weird.) Over the years I've haphazardly collected such cartoons, and some of my favorites are taped to the door of my office.
One of these shows a nonwriter telling a weary novelist at an autograph party, "Gosh! I know I could write a novel too, but I've just never found the time!"
Another, in two panels, is titled, "Writer's Block." The first panel shows the writer standing idle in his writing room; that panel is captioned "Temporary." In the second panel, the erstwhile writer is standing in the doorway of his fish store; that panel is captioned "Permanent."
A third cartoon shows a writer at his typewriter, telling his wife, "I just can't start until inspiration strikes." Subsequent panels show him in the same position—nothing done—and getting older... and older... and older.
I don't know how funny these cartoons really are, but I like them because they illustrate the primary habit that separates the writers from the pretenders. The world is brimming over with people good enough to make a living as writers. Thank goodness—for those of us who are working, and don't need any more competition—most such talented people spend their creative energies making excuses, and never quite get around to the job at hand.
If you are serious about the craft of fiction, you must never make excuses for yourself You simply cannot allow yourself to:
• Say you're too tired.
• Postpone work until "later."
• Fail to work because you're too busy right now.
• Wait for inspiration.
• Plan to get right at it "tomorrow."
• Give up because (editors) (agents) (readers) (critics) are unfair. (Fill in as many as you want.)
• Tell yourself you're too old (or too young) to start.
• Blame others in your family for your lack of free time.
• Say your job is too demanding to allow you any other activity.
• Tell yourself that your story idea isn't good enough.
Or any of a host of other excuses you may dream up for yourself.
No. Let's get this straight right away: Writers write; everyone else makes excuses.
Nothing short of a genuine tragedy in your life should be allowed to intrude into your regular work as a writer of fiction. Do you really think successful writers have unlimited time, face no other demands on them, are always peppy and eager to face the keyboard? Of course not! Writing can be tremendous fun, and wonderfully rewarding. But writing is hard work.
Let me repeat.
Writing is hard work.
Nobody really enjoys hard work day after day, week after week. Everybody wants sometimes to get away and play, or just be lazy. When a project such as a novel is going badly, the writer never wants to face her day's stint at the keyboard. At such times, excuses come easily. But the professional simply does not let herself off so easily. All the excuses, all the complaints, all the alternatives to work, must be fought through; the real writer will work. And regularly.
Consider: If you write only one page a day, by the end of one year you will have a 365-page novel. Take the next year to rewrite it at the same pace, and you will have a finished novel to show to an agent or editor, which is about the same output that many best-selling novelists have.
If, on the other hand, you make excuses for yourself half the time, then at best it will take you four years to have a book ready. That's too long.
And if you make excuses for yourself three-fourths of the time, you will probably lose so much momentum that you'll never finish your project at all.
Consistent, persistent, even dogged work, day in and day out, is the professional's way. And if at the end of a long period of dogged work, your story happens to be rejected, you can't afford to use the rejection as an excuse to quit producing, either. All writers produce some unassailable work. All writers get discouraged, tired and worn down. The good ones don't make excuses. They keep going.
Let me suggest a simple device that may help you avoid the trap of falling into excuse-making. Go find a cheap calendar, the type that has a small open block for each day of the month. At the end of each day, write down in the day's block two things: 1. the number of hours you spent at the typewriter or word processor, working on your fiction project; and 2. how many pages you produced (rough draft or finished, makes no difference) in that working day.
For those days when you don't have anything in terms of work to report, type one double-spaced page of excuses, date it carefully, and file it in a special place. Make sure your excuses fill at least one page, about 250 words. You must do this without fail every time you don't work.
I guarantee you one thing: If you follow this system religiously, you'll soon get so sick of writing down your flimsy excuses that you'll either start investing your time in writing that's more creative, or you'll quit.
In either case you'll have stopped kidding yourself.
No excuse is good enough. Think back to that young man I mentioned in the "Forward." Blind and deaf, yet he wrote everyday! You can do no less if you really want to succeed.
2. DON'T CONSIDER YOURSELF TOO SMART
IT'S POSSIBLE TO SABOTAGE your fiction by being too smart for your own good—by being a smart aleck. Even before you begin writing your next story, you should examine your attitudes toward yourself, your readers, your own work and contemporary fiction. It could be that these attitudes are damaging your work without your realizing it. Ask yourself:
• Do you consider yourself more intelligent than most of the stories and novels you read?
• Do you believe contemporary fiction is sort of beneath you in terms of intellectual attainment?
• Do you figure your readers—when you get them—will be dumb compared to you?
• Do you revel in Proust, adore T. S. Eliot, think there has never been a really great American novelist, and sneer at everything in the popular magazines and the best-sellers lists?
If so, I congratulate you on your self-satisfaction, but warn you that such smug condescension will be the death of you as a writer; at best you'll one day publish obscure little short stories in giveaway magazines for other small-college English teachers like yourself, at worst, on your death bed, you'll whisper to your sister the location of your hidden treasure trove of unpublished fiction, and breathe your last in the vain hope that future generations will revere you like they now do Emily Dickinson.
Wouldn't it be a lot better not to consider yourself so smart? To try to figure out what contemporary readers like—then to work to give them the best stories of that type they ever read?
Condescension is a terrible thing. Readers sense it and are turned off by it. The good writer writes humbly, never in a condescending manner, as if to lesser mortals. As the sign said on many a newsroom wall in the olden days, "Don't write down to your readers; the ones dumber than you can't read."
And in terms of fiction, that statement is absolutely true, be
cause fiction does not come from the head; it comes from the heart. The job of the fiction writer is to plumb the depths of human emotions, and then to portray them... re-create them... stir them. Bigness of heart—compassion—is far more important than bigness of IQ.
If you consider the public a great unwashed that's somehow beneath you, then, I beg you to work on changing your attitudes. You can't write down to your readers. They will catch your insincerity in an instant and hate you for it.
To put all this another way, consider this:
If you're extremely smart, you're lucky. But if you are that intelligent, one of your hardest jobs may be to keep a snobbish attitude out of your work. And you don't have to be that smart to write wonderful fiction... if you're sensitive and caring enough.
You might even consider putting the following reminders on the bulletin board in your writing room:
• Never write down to your readers.
• Don't assume your reader is dumber than you.
• Never—ever—sneer at published work.
• Think you're too smart to sell? baloney!
• Come down to earth! That's where the readers are.
3. DON'T SHOW OFF WHEN YOU WRITE
IF YOU HAVE A SPECIAL area of expertise—if you're a nurse, for example, or a lawyer—your specialized knowledge may be a gold mine you can use as background for your stories. Fiction readers love learning about new things as they read a good stow.
If you have a rich and extensive vocabulary, that may also prove to be a useful tool. Or if you happen to be a widely read person, or more cultured and schooled in the arts than the average citizen, this too may help you when you write your fiction.
But just as a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, too much erudition may be fatal to your fiction if you succumb to the temptation to show it off.
Good fiction writers never show off dump in abstruse knowledge for its own sake, or purposely use big words when simpler ones would do. They constantly seek ways to work in necessary background information in as unobtrusive a way as possible, and they remember that readers get irritated quickly if a writer's style sends them to the dictionary once or twice every paragraph.
The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes Page 1
