Common Writing Mistakes

Most books arent rejected because the stories are "bad." Theyre rejected because theyre not "ready to read." In short, minor stuff like typos, grammar, spelling, etc.

I dont mean places where we, as authors, deliberately break the rules. Those are fine. Thats part of our job. Language always changes with use, and we can help it on its way. No, Im referring to places where someone just plain didnt learn the rule or got confused or overlooked it during the self-edits.

Ive been editing novels for over three years. Looking back at my experiences, I feel like sharing the most common mistakes Ive seen. If youll go through your manuscript and fix these before you submit it to a publisher, your odds of publication will increase dramatically.

Once youve found a publisher who publishes what you write, you want to present yourself in the best way possible. Submitting an unedited manuscript is a bit like going to a job interview wearing a purple Mohawk, no shoes, torn jeans, and a dirty T-shirt. Your resume may be perfect, and your qualifications impeccable, but something tells me you wont get the job.

The publisher is investing a lot in every book it accepts. E-publishers tend to invest loads of time, and print publishers tend to invest an advertising budget and the cost of carrying a large inventory. Why ask them to invest hours and days of editing time as well If the publisher gets two or three or ten nearly identical books, you want yours to be the one requiring the least editing.

The first thing you need to do, and I hope youve already done it, is use the spelling and grammar checkers in your word processor. This will catch many of the "common mistakes" on my list. But Ive been asked to edit many books where the author obviously didnt do this, and I confess that I may well have been lazy and let a couple of mine get to my editors unchecked. Bad Michael!

There are some other valuable lists at the following websites:

Common Errors in English http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors

Words That Are Often Confused http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/words.html

Heres a list of the mistakes I see most often.

* Dialogue where everyone speaks in perfect English and never violates any of the bullet points below. Okay, I made that up. Thats not really a common problem at all. But I have seen it, and its a terrible thing.

* Its is a contraction for "it is" and its is possessive.

* Whos is a contraction for "who is" and whose is possessive.

* Youre is a contraction for "you are" and your is possessive.

* Theyre is a contraction for "they are," there is a place, their is possessive.

* Theres is a contraction for "there is" and theirs is possessive.

* If youve been paying attention to the above examples, youve noticed that possessive pronouns never use apostrophes. Its, whose, your, yours, their, theirs...

* Lets is a contraction for "let us."

* When making a word plural by adding an s, dont use an apostrophe. The cats are asleep.

* When making a word possessive by adding an s, use an apostrophe. The cats bowl is empty.

* A bath is a noun, what you take. Bathe is a verb, the action you do when taking or giving a bath.

* A breath is a noun, what you take. Breathe is a verb, the action you do when taking a breath.

* You wear clothes. When you put them on, you clothe yourself. They are made of cloth.

* Whenever you read a sentence with the word "that," ask yourself if you can delete that word and still achieve clarity. If so, kill it. The same can be said of all sentences. If you can delete a word without changing the meaning or sacrificing clarity, do it. "And then" is a phrase worth using your word processors search feature to look for.

* Keep an eye on verb tenses. "He pulled the pin and throws the grenade" is not a good sentence.

* Keep an eye on making everything agree regarding singular and plural. "My cat and my wife is sleeping," "My cat sleep on the sofa," and "My wife is a beautiful women" are not good sentences. I exaggerate in these examples, but you know what I mean.

* I and me, he and him, etc. I hope no editor is rejecting any novels for this one, because I suspect that most people get confused at times. In dialogue, do whatever the heck you want because it sounds more "natural." But for the sake of your narrative, Ill try to explain the rule and the cheat. The rule involves knowing whether your pronoun is the subject or object. When Jim Morrison of The Doors sings, "til the stars fall from the sky for you and I," hes making a good rhyme but hes using bad grammar. According to the rule, "you and I" is the object of the preposition "for," thus it should be "for you and me." The cheat involves pretending "you and" isnt there, and just instinctively knowing "for I" just doesnt sound right. I think only native English speakers can use my cheat. For the record, I have great admiration for authors writing in languages that arent their native tongues.

* Should of, would of, could of. This one can make me throw things. Its wrong! What you mean is should have, would have, could have. Or maybe you mean the contractions. Shouldve, wouldve, couldve. And maybe ve sounds a bit like of. But its not! Of is not a verb. Not now, not ever.

* More, shorter sentences are better. Always. Dont ask a single sentence to do too much work or advance the action too much, because then youve got lots of words scattered about like "that" and "however" and "because" and "or" and "as" and "and" and "while," much like this rather pathetic excuse for a sentence right here.

* On a similar exaggerated note: "He laughed a wicked laugh as he kicked Ralphie in the face while he aimed the gun at Lerod and pulled the trigger and then laughed maniacally as Lerod twisted in agony because of the bullet that burned through his face and splattered his brains against the wall and made the wall look like an overcooked lasagne or an abstract painting." Now tell me this sentence isnt trying to do too much.

* Too means also, two is a number, to is a preposition.

* He said/she said. Use those only when necessary to establish whos speaking. They distract the reader, pulling him out of the story and saying, "Hey look, youre reading a book." Ideally, within the context of the dialogue, we know whos talking just by the style or the ideas. When a new speaker arrives on the scene, identify him or her immediately. Beyond that, keep it to a minimum. Oh yeah, and give every speaker his/her own paragraph.

* Billy-Bob smiled his most winning smile and said, "Whats a nice girl like you doing in a place like this" I dont like this. Use two shorter sentences in the same paragraph. Billy-Bob smiled his most winning smile. "Whats a nice girl like you doing in a place like this" Same effect, fewer words, no dialogue tag he said.

* In the previous example, I dont like "smiled his most winning smile," because its redundant and also cliched. Please, if you find yourself writing something like that, try to find a better way to express it before you just give up and leave it like it is. During the self-edit, I mean, not during the initial writing.

* "The glow-in-the-dark poster of Jesus glowed in the dark." This editor wont let that one go. Much too redundant, and it appeared in a published novel.

* Lie is what you do when you lie down on the bed, lay is what you do to another object that you lay on the table. Just to confuse matters, the past tense of lie is lay. Whenever I hit a lay/lie word in reading, I stop and think. Do that when you self-edit. Note: Dont fix this one in dialogue unless your character is quite well-educated, because most people say it wrong. I do.

* Beware of the dangling modifier. "Rushing into the room, the exploding bombs dropped seven of the soldiers." Wait a minute! The bombs didnt rush into the room. The soldiers did. To get all technical about it, the first part is the "dependent clause," and it must have the same subject as the "independent clause" which follows. Otherwise its amateur, distracting, and a real pain for your poor overworked editor.

* If you are able many readers are not, keep an eye out for missing periods, weird commas, closing quotes, opening quotes, etc. When I read a book, be it an ebook or a printed book, I cant help but spot every single one thats missing. They slap me upside the head, which makes me a great editor but a lousy reader. If youre like me, use that to your advantage. If not, thats what editors are for!

Michael LaRoccas website at http://freereads.topcities.com was chosen by WRITERS DIGEST as one of The 101 Best Websites For Writers in 2001 and 2002. He published two novels in 2002 and has two more scheduled for publication in 2004. He also works as an editor for an e-publisher. He teaches English at a university in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China, and publishes the free weekly newsletter Mad About Books.

Copyright 2004, Michael LaRocca