3 Common Mistakes New Writers Make
A person writing on paper with a pen.
From my experience working with writers across all different stages of life and experience, here are the most common pitfalls I see from new and beginning writers.
Let’s start with the most prevalent issue I come across:
NOT FINISHING A FIRST DRAFT!
Yes, I’m calling it out—bear with me.
So many writers stop before they’ve even really started! Sometimes, the first draft is such an unwieldy, overwhelming thing that writers will spend days and weeks and months rewriting their first chapter, or agonizing over certain word choices (hot or warm?? beautiful or handsome?? exuberant or overjoyed??), or even just sitting, staring at the screen, sipping coffee every two minutes, and despairing.
I am in no way judging authors who have this experience—I’ve been there. I’m there right now, even! But beauty can’t come from nothing.
Encouragement: Your first draft will be beautiful simply because it is finished, and for no other reason. I don’t care if your prose is illustrative and imagistic. I don’t care if your plot is the best thing I’ve ever seen. All I care about is that your first draft is finished—and I’ll be incredibly excited for you.
Worrying too much over what you “should” do instead of focusing on what you are doing.
Value judgments help no one. This is therapy speak that I think transfers well to writing too. There is no such thing as “should” when it comes to writing! Let me say it again: There is NO SUCH THING as “should” when it comes to writing!!
The craft of writing has seen it all. Dialogue without quotation marks? Yep. Intentional dialect with nontraditional spellings? Check. No plot, all vibes? Hell yeah.
All I care about is what you are doing, because there is value in every new and used addition to the writing world. You have the ability to bring yourself to your craft and your readership, and in fact, this is what makes your book your book. Don’t let your own perceptions of what makes something “good” or “readable” get in the way of your own personal style.
Encouragement: What do you write and how can you lean into it? I want to see it all: the good, the bad, the fugly.
Not reading other books alongside your writing.
Your writing practice is informed by what you’ve read—and what you haven’t! Reading is the biggest help you can give yourself to level up your writing. Exposure to the wide range of possibility in literature can jumpstart your creativity, reinvent your plots (in the good way!), and educate you on the genre expectations that you might be unaware of otherwise. How can you know which genre expectations to meet or break without knowing the genre you’re writing in? How can you write plots that are unique without knowing what has come before you? How can you tap into your creativity effectively without knowing where the sky is and how you can exceed it?
Reading is the pinnacle of writing. And not only that, but it’s a joy in and of itself. Please: Read, read, read!
Encouragement: Find your niche, and dive in! You will immediately see an improvement in your writing—and in your life.
TL;DR:
Finish your first draft!
Embrace what you do write, not what you should write!
Read, read, read!
