The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes

by Jack M. Bickham

  Annie sobbed and buried her face against his chest. "Yes! "

  Her fear was gone. But Joe knew he had won far more than the battle against her past. Still holding her close, he led her back off the cold, windy cliff and into the sea-green shade of the woods....

  I thought then—and still think—that my student Wally might have overdone it a bit with his revision. But he put in some sense impressions and thoughts, as well as intentions and an indication of emotions. As a result, I the reader now saw where we were, could somewhat sense the physical impressions of the place, knew what viewpoint Joe wanted, and why he was acting as he was, understood a little of Annie's plight and emotions—and in general could get involved.

  Sure, student Wally might need to tone it down a bit on final rewrite. But he was now on track, writing dialogue the reader could follow.

  If this episode with Wally rings any kind of bell with you, I urge you to examine your own dialogue in a story. You must not make your readers deaf or blind. You must provide them with sense impressions from the viewpoint character. And you must tell them some of what the viewpoint character wants, thinks and feels emotionally, too. Otherwise the dialogue will get as meaningless—and float in as abstract a space—as Wally's did in first draft.

  Of course there will be times when the dialogue transaction, or other story action, is very simple and straightforward, and the challenge to you the writer will be easy because you won't have to put down very much to keep the reader oriented. But there will be other situations where the movement of the characters, the complexity of the setting, or the depth of the viewpoint character's thoughts, feelings and changing motives may require considerably more author interpretation than Wally's did. In other words, how much you put in, in addition to the dialogue, may depend on how complicated the transaction becomes.

  In any case, however, you can't ask your reader to play blind man's bluff. Just because you see and hear details in your imagination as you write the scene does not mean that the reader will by some magic guess the same details. You have to give her enough hints to go on.

  Perhaps you will want to check some of your own recent fiction copy at this point to see if you have provided enough sense-emotion-thought detail to keep readers oriented during the flow of the dialogue.

  19. DON'T BE AFRAID TO SAY "SAID"

  THERE WAS ANOTHER POINT to be made about student Wally's dialogue as shown in the preceding chapter. It's such a basic point—but one so often misunderstood—that it deserves a chapter of its own.

  "How do I say somebody in my story said something?" students ask again and again.

  "Use the word 'said,'" I usually tell them, "and for heaven's sake put the noun or pronoun first."

  In the example in Chapter Eighteen, Wally violated both rules. He used every word but "said" as an attribution verb, and for some unknown reason he turned his syntax around so he was writing things like "quoth Annie"—the verb first.

  Reverse order attribution is not a biggie; some fine authors do it a lot. I have known editors, however, who got very irritated with "said he" and "replied she" rather than the more straightforward way of ordering the words; they say the reverse order sounds old-fashioned to them, and is distracting.

  Sometimes, of course, reverse order is almost mandatory, as when you have to get a long title or description in with the name. You may find yourself confronted with something like:

  "I'm tired of arguing," Joe Smith, aging family patriarch and president of the First Mercantile Bank of Lake City, Colorado, said.

  In such a case, to get away from that "said" yipping along a block behind the quote, you'll probably use reverse order, and rightfully so, getting the "said" in right behind the quoted words and in front of everything else. But most transactions are simpler, and standard order seems to be the norm.

  As to the other matter—use of synonyms for the simple attribution word "said"—I really believe things are more serious. "Said" is a transparent word—a pointer to a who who said something. Any other attribution word will stick out and perhaps distract the reader without need, unless the situation really does demand a "scream" or a "sigh" or a "shout." You should use the invisible word "said" about 90 percent of the time. Of course you will use other words like "asked," "replied," "told," etc.—when the context makes such a word obviously appropriate. But you should use even these only when it really does seem natural in context.

  If you've been guilty of using every synonym in the thesaurus, using the simple "said" will worry you to death for a while. It's one of those "author worries" that readers just don't think about. Believe me: If you use stage action and thoughts, and the simple verb "said," readers will be totally happy. Why distract them and wear out your thesaurus when it's not required or even smart?

  Take some time to think about this one. Examine your copy critically. Are you sure the reader is going to be oriented in the ways we've discussed here? And have you fine-checked your dialogue to make sure it doesn't sound old-fashioned or eccentric? From such distinctions good writers are made; care for the reader, along with standard usages, free you to concentrate on characters and plots—the really good stuff of fiction.

  20. DON'T ASSUME YOU KNOW; LOOK IT UP

  ALL OF US GO THROUGH LIFE assuming we understand some things that we really don't. You may think you know how to change a tire, but until you've had to do it on the side of a narrow road in a driving rainstorm, you can't be sure. Similarly, you may think you know all about some factual material that you're putting in your story, but—again—maybe you really don't.

  "Gee, but I want to write fiction so I don't have to mess with facts!" you may say.

  Nope. Wrong motivation. If you get a fact wrong in your story, somebody is going to notice it. Maybe the editor considering your story—maybe a thousand readers who notice it and complain to your editor after the yarn is published.

  In either case, the end result will be similar to what can happen when you don't know how to change a tire beside the road: you might end up feeling like you've been run over by a truck.

  Take it from one who learned the hard way. Once, long ago, in the earliest days of my writing career, I was writing a western novel. I gave my cowboy a Colt single-action revolver, a "Peacemaker" model, which he referred to as a thumb-buster.

  The novel was set in 1868.

  The Colt single-action model I described was not patented until 1872.

  My editor missed it. You should have seen some of the irate letters I got from western history buffs—some of whom probably never bought another novel written by me.

  An error of fact can not only make you look foolish. It can destroy your readership and your relationship with an editor. You simply cannot guess or assume you know. Even when you are 99 percent sure, look it up!

  In one of my writing classes, I hand out a sheet with actions listed, and ask the students to tell me what would happen immediately following each action I've listed, stimulus-response fashion. One of the actions reads as follows:

  He shoved the throttle of the plane to the fire wall.

  Now, I ask them, what happens next?

  Some blithely assume that a throttle on an airplane works like a throttle control on a tractor, or as it did on old automobiles, i. e., that pushing the throttle in will cut the engine to idle. (They may not know what the fire wall is, either, but they usually guess correctly that that's an airplane term for the instrument panel.) Anyway, not asking me for factual input, they guess—and write something like: The plane's engine slowed.

  Which would make the plane slow down if on the roll, or its nose dip sharply if it was in the air.

  Unfortunately, that's 100 percent wrong. When you shove the throttle forward on a plane, you speed the engine. What would happen (assuming the engine was running and it didn't backfire or something awful): The engine roared to full power.

  Which would make the plane start rolling or speed up if already rolling on the ground, or its nose rise and/or speed increase i
f in the air.

  So guessing in this case—trusting to analogous experience—often leads careless student—takers of this exercise to put down absolutely the opposite of what is accurate. And if you put something dumb like this in your story, you can be sure a lot of people will notice the error, think it's dumb, and assume everything else in the story might be wrong, too. And there goes your readership, and maybe your future as a writer.

  Even if factual errors weren't this dangerous, you ought to have more professional pride than to guess. Few people live out of range of a public library. Most librarians will bend over backwards to help you research a point; the harder the search, the more they're likely to get challenged and work with you. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

  Research can be fun. It's necessary. And—although until you experience this you may find it hard to believe—it can help you come up with lots of great new plot and character ideas.

  Here's an example. Once, while writing a novel called The Winemakers, I made several trips to California for firsthand interviews and on-site research in the Napa Valley. During my writing of the third draft of the book, I went back once more to interview a particularly colorful vintner I had missed on earlier visits. At the same time, in the back of my mind was the fact that I wasn't satisfied with the opening of my novel; it lacked tension.

  Touring the winemaker's facility, I walked with him behind some large stainless steel tanks where white wine was being fermented at a cool temperature. There were electrical cables on the floor, and the owner cautioned me to step over them carefully. "Those go to a computer that baby-sits the wine and controls the cooling," he told me. "If those get pulled out, we could be in real trouble."

  Bingo! Instantly—because I was there researching something else entirely—I had the opening of the novel as it was later published: a scene where a winemaker enters the winery early one morning, and finds that a saboteur has pulled out the wires.

  As you continue your writing career, you may find that there are books or maps or whatever that you go back to again and again. You may decide to begin building a modest research library. Mine includes a huge book of maps of countries around the world; many Michelin and Fodor's travel guides; gun catalogues and blueprints; everything I've ever seen on the KGB, CIA, FBI and similar organizations; two encyclopedias of world history, a guide to popular songs, plays, movies and books on a year-by-year basis since early in the century, and many others. Your needs may be radically different. Whatever they may be, and whether you build your own little library or not, never guess. Take the time to look it up!

  21. DON'T EVER STOP OBSERVING AND MAKING NOTES

  YOU MUST NEVER STOP working on your keenness of observation. Honing your ability to observe accurately—and to write down what you've noticed—must be part of your lifelong commitment to fiction.

  If you've been writing any time at all, of course, I'm sure you feel that you are an accurate observer, and a skillful writer of whatever you observe. Most of us, however, need to stand back from ourselves occasionally to make sure we haven't become lazy or passive in how we relate to the real world which is our story material.

  Let me suggest a couple of simple exercises you should do carefully from time to time—not only to check up on yourself for continuing keenness of observation, but to keep your skills polished.

  Look at that tree in your backyard, or in the nearby park. Really look at it. What color is it? Green? What shade of green? How is its color different from the elm nearby, or that blue spruce across the way? What shape is it? Round? Tall and graceful in the breeze, like a young ballerina, or bent with age and disease, like an old crone broken by life in the streets? How does it stand out in its surroundings? Is it tall and stark black against the eye-hurting brilliance of a summer sun? Gently fuzzy and soft in the evening twilight? Dark and frightening, casting black shadows of fear from the corner street lamp? How would you describe it in a few words, to make a picture of it leap to life in your reader's mind?

  Or suppose you meet a new person today, or happen to pass a stranger on the street. Instantly you form some impression of that person. Immediately you begin to draw conclusions about what kind of person he or she is. In real life, casually, you make perhaps dozens of observations in an instant then you draw conclusions from them. For a nonwriter, such a process is automatic and unexamined. But for you the fiction writer the process must be made conscious, then examined and related to your work.

  Look at that new person. Force yourself to note details actively and consciously, rather than passively and unconsciously. What details are you looking at first? Second? Only later? What details are you using as a basis for assumptions about what kind of person this is? Note body conformation, height, weight, clothing, hair, facial expression, stance, skin coloration, movement of eyes, gestures, speed of movement, age, tone of voice, loudness of voice, accent if any, intonation, speed of speaking, vocabulary. When the person begins speaking, note too what his topic may be; his characteristic attitude—whether happy, sad, angry, frightened, bitter, cynical, hopeful, trusting, whatever; note his speaking cadence, pitch and rhythms.

  As soon as you can, make notes of everything you have observed. Do you note some "hole" in your observations, some detail you didn't pick up that you now wish you had? Do you find yourself wishing you could go back and look again? Do you find that your notes might describe some other tree or some other vague and ordinary person? If you experience any of these reactions, you probably need to observe more consciously. Just knowing that you need to do this—and remembering not to fall back into routine, passive experiencing—will make you more alert and better as an observer.

  Having made your observations and notes, however, you as a writer of fiction must always take another step, that of relating your observations to the writing process.

  Here is what I mean. Suppose you just met a new person, and found her interesting, striking or unusual in some way. (If you observed keenly enough, you always will find a new acquaintance to be one of the above.) Now ask yourself: "How can I write down my description in such a way that it becomes even more vivid and striking than what I just observed?"

  Then write it!

  As discussed in Chapter Seven, you won't ever take a real person literally from life and put her in your fiction; real people, no matter how well portrayed, just aren't big and unusual enough for good fiction. But your work in observing and writing real people or places as vividly as possible will make you a far better writer, and even more interesting when you fictionalize your observations.

  One additional point it will be instructive for you to write down everything you notice, in as much detail as possible, in your note-taking phase. "Looking for more words" (as one of my students once put it) prods you to look broader and deeper sometimes. When you practice your final writing of this information, however, you should ask yourself what few details might stand out for the whole—how briefly you can write your description or data, and still provide the reader with a vivid picture.

  In this process of distilling the impressions into final written form, you should watch out for adjectives and adverbs. Some will be necessary, but if you find yourself stringing them together like sausages, you must realize that you are no longer writing vivid copy. Good writing of this kind is lean and terse. It thrives on brevity, directness, simplicity, concreteness, contrast—precise, specific nouns and strong verbs. If you string out adjectives in an attempt to get the job done, your reader will go to sleep. Adjectives, like adverbs, are lazy words, slowpokes, tranquilizers. Watch out for them!

  The more you force yourself consciously to observe and note details you can use—and the more you practice actually writing descriptions and factual passages so that they are as striking and evocative as possible—the keener you will become in picking up data, and the better you will become in learning to use it to improve your writing.

  It's a multi-step process, you see:

  • First, you stop being passive and ac
tively examine your environment.

  • Second, you seek out what makes this tree... this person... unique.

  • Third, you go through the formal process of recording your observations so you won't lose them.

  • Fourth, you practice translating your observations into deft, brief, evocative writing.

  This whole process is a great deal of fun. Writers who practice it—and that includes all professionals—find that it makes them feel more alive, more in touch with everything and everyone, more excited about living. The job of recording observations, then writing them as brilliantly as possible, keeps them constantly alert and challenged—stimulated by new ideas and associations—and improving in the clarity and impact of their style.

  Many fiction writers put much of this kind of work in their journals. A journal can include many kinds of writing and information. But often this sort of thing dominates such a volume.

  Try working on your own skills in this way. Make it a lifetime habit. You will never be bored, you will always be challenged, and you are sure to grow.

  22. DON'T IGNORE SCENE STRUCTURE

  THE TENSE, CONFLICTFUL sections of your story are the parts that most excite and intrigue your readers. For that reason, you should play out those parts of your story for all they're worth.

  How do you do that? You put it onstage in the story now, and you develop the action between the characters moment by moment, with nothing left out you follow the rules of cause and effect, stimulus and response. To put this another way: you make sure that you never summarize during a high point of conflict in your story.

  The result of moment-by-moment handling is a segment of your story which is just like life; there's no summary there, obviously.

  Most professionals call such a part of their story a scene. However they may differ in defining how a scene works, they tend to agree on the major point just emphasized: you must never summarize while writing a scene. Not only does moment-by-moment development make the scene seem most lifelike; it should also be noted that it's in a scene where your reader gets most of his excitement. If you summarize, your reader will feel cheated—shortchanged of what he reads for—without quite knowing why.