One of the surest ways to educate yourself about common writing pitfalls is to read other people's drafts, and then try to find the same infractions in your own work. Whether through workshops or private critique groups, you may find that you're more adept at recognizing structural problems in other people's work than in your own, especially when you begin. 

Don't waste time trying to figure out why. I've been guilty of all of the things I'm about to discuss, and probably will be again. Just try your best to apply what you learn.  

The writer who cares more about words than about story – characters, action, setting, atmosphere – is unlikely to create a vivid and continuous dream; he gets in his own way too much; in his poetic drunkenness, he can't tell the cart – and its cargo – from the horse. (John Gardner)

You're reading an interesting scene, a good one. The characters' stakes are high, and you're anxious to see who gets shot. And then you read something like, "But Dorothy wasn't the type of woman to liked having a gun pointed at her; in fact, her blood came to an urgent, trembling boil." 

Bang. The gun goes off, but it's the reader's concentration that's shot.  

Unless you're writing a spoof, try to avoid interrupting your story's action with an editorial or an internal monologue. It's analogous to a sword-wielding actor suddenly turning to the camera to explain his fencing strategy. When this happens on the page, it's just as obvious and unwanted -- an author intrusion that indicates no trust for the reader's sensibilities, a conviction that the reader must be told what's going on instead of shown.  Worse, it indicates a lack of confidence on the writer's part in allowing dialogue or action to convey the same sentiment in a way that advances a deeper understanding of the character, and in a way that will actually interest the reader.   

It's hard as a writer to relinquish that control, but these interruptions are easy to recognize once you know to look for them. Try to focus instead on what the character does or what she is feeling -- not what physiologically happens to her. Remember Dwight Swain's concept of scene and sequel. Focus your scene on the action, and the sequel on reflection and character development. Both should advance your story, and not state the obvious. Don't disturb the dream.   

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. (E.L. Doctorow) 

You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different. (Neil Gaiman)

The same holds true for describing physical -- or physiological -- actions or reactions. Analyze your writing for scenes in which your characters are "whirling around" or "turning their heads from side to side" or "hopping on one foot" or "dodging first one car and then another." Similarly, too much blood boiling, guts roiling, hearts pounding, sweats breaking, and knees shaking makes your characters sound like marionettes -- cartoonish and unrealistic, even freakish.

What your reader wants to know is what your characters are thinking and feeling and doing. The physiological expression of their emotion is a copout. We know what we feel like when we break a sweat, or the conditions that would make this happen to us. But in that respect it is a cliched human response. It's a stage direction, like waving ones arms in the air or pulling one's hair. 

We know what this means in cartoons. These kinds of descriptions come easily to us because there is a common understanding of what they generally mean within the human experience. But they are caricatures. They disrupt the flow of writing, and are used frequently because the writer doesn't know what else to say. This may be an indicator that the writer is not in complete touch with the characters. But what do they mean uniquely for your characters? What is it you're really trying to say? What is most important about the cartoonish action for your readers to understand? 

Eliminating these physical descriptions from the page will rejuvenate your writing and give your story's pacing a sense of immediacy. By all means, use these expressions as placeholders if you can't think of anything else in the frenzy of composition. But when you revise, eliminate them with a vengeance.  


...a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude to cut out even the most brilliant passage so long as it doesn't advance the story. (Frank Yerby)

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector. (Ernest Hemingway)

I was reading a draft novel written by a friend and I was struck by the sudden reappearance of a character from the protagonist's past. I wrote in the margin, "This better go somewhere."

It didn't. But my friend -- transparently -- wanted the reader to think it would.

Hey, look over there! Something shiny!

Red herrings -- the tactic of introducing a person or activity that goes nowhere relative to your main plot -- is a device that most readers recognize because their built-in shit detectors are better than yours. Its sudden appearance is suspect, and if you later take it away or have it come to a dead end, especially with no explanation, there goes your credibility as a storyteller    

Ask yourself if it would be better to suggest -- or actually involve -- another character in a deception. Ask yourself how, from the beginning of your story, you can establish ambiguity or tension in a non-contrived manner. Rather than sudden appearances or re-appearances, can your red herring have a more constant or frequent presence on the page? Can he be suspiciously or conveniently "around" at critical moments? After key actions? Readers will suspect things, even if -- perhaps especially if -- you don't state them.

Try to establish these predicaments with the idea that you want your reader to return to your novel to see if you slipped up, or if they can "spot" the hint that things are not as they were led to suspect by your plotting. 

The movie The Sixth Sense provides a good example of this. Remember watching it the second time to see if you could spot the bullet hole in the shirt? 

The same holds true for unlikely lapses on the part of a character in an effort to allow certain things to happen. A detective doesn't notice that the light bulb outside his door is out before he's stabbed. As in Michael Clayton, Clayton doesn't notice that a bomber is getting out of his car when he's only several feet away -- no matter how engrossing the phonecall. These are easily resolved -- the detective can sense an unfamiliar darkness a split second before he's hit; Clayton could have been about to turn a corner onto the street where his car was parked, in full view of the accomplice.

These characters are smart, savvy people who are good at their jobs and deserve to be respected. They would notice things like this, and can simultaneously be jumped unawares.


When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip. (Elmore Leonard)

In one draft of a novel I read, each chapter was written from a particular character's point of view. With each subsequent chapter, the writer would restate, in exposition, some of the key actions or points that had been conveyed in the last point-of-view chapter for that same character.

Trust your readers. They will remember. Always move your story forward, not backward. If you think of a better way to say something, go back to the original spot and change it. 

This principle can also apply to writing that contains technical information. As with SHAKEDOWN, a balance must be struck between including too much technical information that doesn't matter, and enough such that people with your same subject knowledge or background will find the story's technical machinations believable. If your reader can skip this information without losing anything critical, and if your technically-minded readers believe in its plausibility, then everyone's happy and you've done the job.     

All quotes can be found on the following website. Attribution is assumed to be correct. 
koti.mbnet.fi/pasenka/quotes/q-writ.htm 

"The secret of all good writing is sound judgment." (Horace, ARS POETICA (13-8 B.C.))

Don't rush your manuscript to agents and editors. Put them aside and forget them for a week or two, or a month or two, as you turn to other matters or other stories. When you pick them up again, you'll be reading with fresh eyes, and a different perspective. Your ability to do gain some distance from your work will improve over time. As you learn your writing "flaws," you'll learn to look for them as you write and as you read. Your familiarity with your work will deepen, and you will be able to make plot and character decisions faster as well. Your writing becomes efficient without destroying your muse.   

During the four years it took to write SHAKEDOWN, I took two six-month breaks, and several smaller ones. Sound like a lot? It was. But the novel was much better for it. I gained a lot of objectivity, for one. But more importantly, all that 'think time" allowed me to know the characters better and, consequently, what they should do, how they would behave in different circumstances. It's through this distance that their voices finally eclipsed mine -- exactly what should happen.    

Don't try to fit a round peg into a square hole. If a plot line or character seems out of place or isn't fitting into the story, look at it closely. For me, the problem always went back to motivation -- what character trait or desire or goal was necessary to show? Why were their actions and feelings central to the plot, and why were they important? What was really at stake for them? If your answers are uncertain, take another direction. If you feel sure you're already on the right track, look at what you're actually conveying on the page, line by line -- and whose voice you are using to convey it.   

Go to workshops, and get constructive, objective feedback from people who are not close friends or family members. Friends and family may not be as objective as they need to be -- but it's also an issue of qualification. Most workshops are taught by writers -- they may be gifted writers, but they usually aren't editors, and their feedback will be different. You need professional editorial feedback and direction if you expect to submit a manuscript professionally, and you should get it before you submit the manuscript to anyone. 

If your story is giving you trouble or you're not sure where to go next, don't underestimate the technique of considering really major blowout changes, even writing them up in draft form. Ask yourself what happens to the story if a major character is eliminated, if a major action changes, or if part of the action is executed by or told through the eyes of another character. You will gain insight to your work that will surprise you. If I look back at my first draft, there is a different cast of characters, different actions, and different reasons for why things happened. In the first draft, the protagonist -- oddly, I realize now -- was more removed from the action than he should have been, and had little at stake. Even more odd, he wasn't a likeable guy. My editor put it best in those early days: "No woman is going to read this book."  


"Art is never finished, only abandoned." (Leonardo da Vinci)

If you've taken your manuscript through major revisions, there will come a point when you feel, absolutely, that you've done your best and the heavy lifting is done. You'll be sure that your manuscript is ready, and you'll be right. For me, part of that feeling was the certainty that no more changes were necessary, even though I knew I could tinker with it forever. I did tinker, through the copyediting phase before publication, but there came a point when the changes I made were only discernible to me. Few readers would have noticed them. 

Your timeline may be less than four years, or more. When I compare this "done" feeling to what I felt with that third draft that was prematurely submitted to agents, it's like night and day. With the last draft, there was no nagging doubt, no suspicion that I had gotten off easy. Did I just get to the end of my rope? It doesn't feel that way, but I also know that other writers and editors can still criticize my choices. They can still suggest a change that would suit the story well, maybe even make it better. But I'm not doing a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, either.  

When all is said and done, you have to be satisfied with your work, satisfied that you've told a good story whose artistic truth others will feel.  


Remember the concept of a self-imposed apprenticeship. Look at these borrowed quotes and realize that many writers have been down the same road ahead of you and cleared their own brambles, just as you will clear yours. Writing looks easy when an author is reading his work at a signing; it sounds easy when a bestselling author tells you he can write 600 pages in thirty days, or that the words just "flew" onto the page. It's all noise. At the end of the day, it's just you and your pen. It doesn't come easy for anyone.


Quotes from THE INTERNATIONAL THESAURUS OF QUOTATIONS (compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall De Bruhl).