10 Things Newbie Writers do that Flag them as Newbies

[Brian G Turner]

10 Things that Red-Flag a Newbie Novelist | Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris

Some good observations there. However, before anyone feels offended, here's a somewhat more conciliatory post to offset it:

Beware the “Writing Rules Police” | Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris

 

[Venusian Broon]

I nodded sagely to all these points, recognising them all....

But I think it's because I've read loads of articles like this. I fear my manuscript is guilty of quite a few of them still

Ah well, this next draft, I tell myself, I'll sort it out properly. Honest.

 

[Toby Frost]

For me, the one big giveaway is frontloading the story with information: in effect, trying to force the reader to read a primer of background before the story itself is allowed to start. I think this comes from lack of confidence as much as anything else. When you say something brief like “Bob was a planetary governor in the galactic empire” you give the reader enough information to go on. You don’t need to explain where this galactic empire comes from and why it’s so powerful (such details of world-building are rarely very interesting anyhow). After a while, you get used to drip-feeding the necessary information. This might be linked with the very static openings that some new writers use, where having the hero sitting in a waiting room or in a train carriage is used as an excuse to talk about the setting (the logic presumably being that if he’s not going to move, you might as well discuss the surroundings).

There’s also the very vague opening passage that tries (consciously or not) to imitate the words at the beginning of Star Wars (“For a thousand years, mankind had dreamed of…” etc). It’s incredibly hard to sound awe-inspiring through text alone, where films have effects and music. Best not attempted, I think. I think the writer makes a good point that the influence of older books is not necessarily always good for a modern novelist. The slow, discursive opening, the equivalent of a gradual panning shot across the landscape, is pretty much out. Everything has to be very much tighter these days. Perhaps that limits experimentation, but it does put the emphasis on delivering a good story.

 

[MWagner]

1) Show-offy prose

See, this is why I have a problem with these sorts of lists. What if you, as a reader, sometimes enjoy descriptive passages? What if you appreciate beautiful or stylistically bold prose of the kind that Patricia McKillip or Jim Crace write? Then you're faced with the prospect of writing for people who have dramatically different tastes and expectations than you have yourself. And isn't there something cynical about that approach to writing?

2) Head-hopping

If third-person omniscient requires a masterful writer to pull off, then what does that say about fiction from decades ago, back when third-person omniscient was the norm? That every author back then was a master? It seems to me that modern writers today, especially younger ones, may be ill-equipped to write in third-person omniscient if they've read little of it themselves. But steering new writers way from it altogether seems wrong-headed.


7) Mary Sues

Actually, in the SF/F and YA genres, Mary Sues seem to be the norm. In fact, you don't seem to have much chance of finding popularity in those genres unless the protagonist is an amazing ass-kicking ass-kicker who is amazing at everything.

 

[hopewrites]

Apparently I've been doing my Mary Sue's wrong all this time.

My stand in self has all kinds of debilitating faults, and character development out of or past them.

I guess it comes from starting with D&D rather than fan fiction...

Now I'll have to start over and do them proper...

 

[NbDawn]

Great posts! Thanks for sharing. I think in the past I've fallen into most of these traps. But now I think the only one I fall into once in a while is #3, Episodic Storytelling. Don't get me wrong. Every scene revolves around the plot. But some of those scenes don't have enough action or suspense. It's difficult sometimes to tell the parts of the story that need to be told in such a way that keeps readers interested.

What if you, as a reader, sometimes enjoy descriptive passages?

I've encountered this same problem with my beta readers. One person says "You need more description in your scenes!" and another says, "You don't need to put this much information in your scenes!" It's a matter of taste. I can't please everyone so I'm just going to do it the way I want it done, dammit.

 

[J D Foster]

My stand in self has all kinds of debilitating faults, and character development out of or past them.

Spiderman comes to mind as a good tonic for Mary Sue's, everything he does is riddled with angst and unforeseen negative impacts on his life.

I thought both were good articles and useful to read, it's great that people with experience share these things.

 

[Shyrka]

Mostly I've found these lists reassuring because I think I've avoided the majority of them by and large. Then I get paranoid and decide I must be missing something.

 

[MemoryTale]

That's a good read, thanks for sharing.

#2 is something my betas are always telling me off about - I'm getting better though

 

[Ihe]

Oh, the dogmas we impose on ourselves... good stuff, Bri-Bri (too casual for you, Brian?). Thanks for the links.

 

[Droflet]

Had a good chuckle while reading the list. Yeah, I have, in the past, been guilty of all charges. But it all comes with time. Like I keep saying to the newbs, it's not a dash, it's a marathon.

 

[JJasKelly]

1) Show-offy prose

See, this is why I have a problem with these sorts of lists. What if you, as a reader, sometimes enjoy descriptive passages? What if you appreciate beautiful or stylistically bold prose of the kind that Patricia McKillip or Jim Crace write? Then you're faced with the prospect of writing for people who have dramatically different tastes and expectations than you have yourself. And isn't there something cynical about that approach to writing?

2) Head-hopping

If third-person omniscient requires a masterful writer to pull off, then what does that say about fiction from decades ago, back when third-person omniscient was the norm? That every author back then was a master? It seems to me that modern writers today, especially younger ones, may be ill-equipped to write in third-person omniscient if they've read little of it themselves. But steering new writers way from it altogether seems wrong-headed.


7) Mary Sues

Actually, in the SF/F and YA genres, Mary Sues seem to be the norm. In fact, you don't seem to have much chance of finding popularity in those genres unless the protagonist is an amazing ass-kicking ass-kicker who is amazing at everything.

She didn’t say all writers should avoid these things—only that beginning writers gravitate to them and they are tough to do well. They're observations and tips, not rules(writing has no rules). And you really need to read more if you think Mary Sues are the norm in SF/F novels.

 

[Toby Frost]

A couple more thoughts:

MWagner, I agree with your thoughts about head-hopping. But I personally don’t see this as being the same as 3rd person omniscient. What’s being attacked here feels more like bad close 3rd person, where the perspective isn’t attached tightly enough to the person we are supposed to follow. I am not sure if that is what the writer was suggesting, but to me these aren’t the same things.

As per Mary Sues, I honestly don’t know. What I would say is that the top 1% of books in any genre – the bestsellers that you see advertised everywhere – don’t have to adhere to any of the rules of writing because they have vast marketing budgets behind them. And I’m not just talking about Twilight or frequently-ridiculed things like that: Lizbeth Salander is a Mary Sue: so is Hannibal Lecter, and I’d bet good money that Jack Reacher gets pretty close. Also, in genres where unabashed authorial/reader wish-fulfillment is allowed (romance and porn, basically) this might well be expected. So also at the very pulpy end of the market where readers just want to see Captain Angry killing Communazis the way he did in the previous 50 Captain Angry stories, and having character flaws would turn him into a big girl.

But I think there is a broad range in the middle, where about 90% of modern stories sit – the “good SFF” range, if you like, but not necessarily the most self-consciously highbrow or arty – where these points carry weight. As has been said, they’re not absolute rules, but there are some things in writing where a writer should probably be thinking “I’ll need to do this well if I’m going to do it at all”. I think that’s where articles like this can be useful.

 

[James118]

I've done a few of these in my time, especially overtagging dialogue, not just with unnecessary clauses, but 'said' synonyms and adverbs. So I'm keeping a really close eye on that now, polishing the prequel to something I recently released.

One thing that I don't recall in the article (I may have overlooked it, I'm not feeling too well and finding it hard to concentrate) was keeping a varied sentence structure. It's as important as narrative pacing, and it's what the text actually consists of. Too many long sentences and the reader will feel tired. Too many short, and the writing doesn't feel very natural, instead very abrupt and disjointed, perhaps. I used to do my sentences too long before I realised that, and often I'd have a single paragraph consisting of just two overlong, triple or quadruple clauses. Not good. I suspect I overlooked it because of how long it took me to perfect a sentence, and therefore how long it felt to me. So yeah. I'm trying to make it more varied in aforementioned prequel. Maybe one day I'll apply those two rules to what I recently released as well, do a third edition of that. Maybe for an anniversary in the future, if it ever gets that big.

 

[Martin Gill]

Captain Angry killing Communazis

Can you send me an Amazon link for this book please? I'm in

 

[Martin Gill]

On a mildly more serious note, I think the point that these are guidelines, not dogma, is the key takeaway. You will always be able to find a wildly successful author that breaks the "rules" but for me all these do/don't lists are useful reminders to do things mostly right.

 

[Droflet]

Bottom line. If you want to break the rules, learn them first. But don't try that as a rookie writer.

 

[Toby Frost]

Can you send me an Amazon link for this book please?

Years ago, on the ASOIAF board, there was a thread called "Barbarian snark", where someone would read a pulp novel and post comments as they went along. One of the books was called something like "Ted Rockmore: the Freedom Trooper" and sounded just like this. The person commenting on it said that it was totally stupid but highly enjoyable!

 

[hopewrites]

I think that the difference between the beginning of a brilliant writer's career, and the early middle where they're beginning to get recognition for said brilliance, might just be what they read from the audience they attract.

Certainly reviewers will have their say in about publishing / marketing time, but when an author starts collecting a fan base said fan base will provide the best answers to which literary rules may be bent, battered, or broken. Not by what they say outright (though one should hear that too) but in what they don't say, or how they won't say it.

By reading one's audience one gains a more perfect grasp of what they want, what they'll tolerate to get it, and how best to give it to them. This affords a seasoned author some confidence that their early work may have been better for (I won't say "lacked" because it apparently hasn't suffered a "lack" strong enough to hold it back.) and their later work will glow under.

I've come to this opinion because everyone is happy to give advice to new authors, and the only advice available to seasoned authors appears to be "know your audience" and "don't let you work get sloppy just because you're successfull" variety.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

yea the Mary sue is a preference. Though alot of people voice their distain for it, there IS definately an appeal for it.

I'd also like to add a big mistake that people make is to create a character too flawed that it becomes unlikable. I recently read a book called Control Point, and the main character was so unlikable and flawed I had to put the book down.