Most Common Writing Errors ✔️

The Hardest Pill To Swallow

Read the disclaimer if you haven't already.

UGGGH PARK JIMIN THAT PICTURE IS SO-

Sorry, intrusive thoughts. That wasn't Raven, that was my alter ego, Crow. My b I'm putting her back in the cage now-

Alright, this is gonna sound mean, and I apologize. This is probably the single hardest to swallow pill in the writing world. You ready? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Just because you saw it in a published book doesn't mean it's right when you do it.

For example, the other day I read a book with 30+ characters, and the author justified it by saying there are real books with 100+ characters. While this is true, this is a misguided comparison.

Every. Single. Story. Is. Different.

Just because it works for another story doesn't mean it works for yours. And also, just because it's done by published writers doesn't mean it's right. If Stephen King misspells you as yuo, that doesn't mean the correct spelling is now yuo, it means Stephen King either made a typo that somehow made it past editors, or it was a style choice.

Note: I do not like Stephen King, so that is not me endorsing him in any way, please do not take it as that.

We are not talking about other stories, we are talking about yours, so if I point something out in your book and your answer is "Well *insert author here* did it so it's fine," that's not a strong defense. 

*Insert author here* wrote a completely different book than you, and you likely have a completely different style than the author. It's one thing to take inspiration from writers and incorporate some of their style into your work, it's another to pass off blame to the author and try to make it look like it works because "real" authors do it.

Everyone knows how influential Shakespeare is, but many modern audiences hate him (me included). Why? It's not even because of the English, no, it's because there are a million characters. So if you're saying "Oh well Shakespeare has a bunch of character-" guess what, people don't like it, so what's your point?

I'm in a Shakespeare class and one of the things we complain about most is how many characters there are, so this point about *insert author here* writes a lot of characters doesn't change that A) people might not like it when *insert author here* does it either, and B) we're talking about your story, not someone else's story.

Even the Greats have made mistakes and made work that is generally disliked, or made decisions within their works that are generally disliked. You shouldn't be latching onto another writer to justify why you did what you did in your story. You should be making decisions that benefit your story, not decisions that stem from wanting to do things like another writer.

It's one thing if it's grammatical and someone is trying to say your grammar is wrong, so you decide to pull real life examples of your grammar being used. For example, the multiple paragraph dialogue technique. If you don't know what this is, it's a technique where you take a single line of dialogue and separate it into more than one paragraph. You often do this with speeches or long dialogue so it doesn't become a wall of text.

For example:

"I don't know, John. Last night, she seemed so different, y'know? It's like I was talking to some alternate universe version of her or something. Should I just break up with her? I don't see this relationship working out.

"I can't decide. It's eating me up from the inside. I love her, but she can't keep doing this to me. It's tearing me apart."

*Note: this is not real dialogue, just an example of the technique*