5 Fatal Mistakes that New Writers Make
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Today I discuss five common mistakes that new (and veteran) writers make--with solutions for each!
***Links to Books/Websites Mentioned in this video***
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
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FREE Myers-Briggs Test
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Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey
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Critters
critters.org/
Submission Grinder
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Credit to SkyDilen for my video intro.
A huge mistake I made early on was explaining how the characters felt.
My friend criticized thrle shit outta it, and he was right. I was so focused on the complexities of the mind that I forgot to make it readable 😂
I've done this in my first draft. I'm on my second draft now and I'm scrapping a lot of it as it's completely unnecessary.
Fatal Mistake No 6: Having ideas but no clue, how to implement them in a story
No.7: Using commas, improperly.
@@smorsnbread1002
No. 8: Correcting foreigners in the internet, because they are wrong. #xkcd386
@@Buchnerd_Souly
No. 9: Adding a comment just to be a part of the conversation
And forgetting to add an improper comma
Fan-Fictions in a nutshell.
Stephen King said, the first draft shoukd be written with closed door. And to give the manuscript only after the first revision.
QotD: What writing-related mistakes have you learned from? Let me know!
I need you as a coche
@@cynthiachidimma3901 Haha thanks! I post new videos every Thursday, so that much should help!
Rushing the plot without giving the story room to breathe.
read harry potter
Fatal writing mistakes (not mentioned in the video):
1 - Drinking the super glue instead of using it to repair your ballpoint pen.
2 - Cutting your wrist with scissors instead of the newspaper clippings you got for your mystery novel cover art.
3 - Insulting your editor in the first chapter and getting stabbed in the heart with a #2 pencil.
4 - Accidentally doxxing yourself by ordering food over the phone and giving them your house address when your voice dictation software is still running.
5 - Writing down misremembered pharmaceutical emergency instructions.
I would have thought these kind of mistakes were less common, but I guess not. I had to get children’s safety scissors last week. Now, does anyone know how to remove a suppository from your ear?
I laughed. You could be a comedy writer.
Thanks for the awesome videos. I've been enjoying them thoroughly and they've been very helpful in improving my craft. I cannot emphasize how important point #3 of writing every day is. Last year I made a resolution to do that since I had gotten serious about writing again and was invigorated by getting finished with my first rough draft of a novel in November of 2021. More specifically, I resolved to write a page a day. This was a major success in one area in that it was the first New Year's Resolution that I made that didn't fizzle out by mid-February at the latest, but the first one that I kept through the year. Also, in tallying up the results at the end of the year, I didn't just manage 365 pages in 2022, but just over a thousand. A little bit over a long time adds up more quickly than a person might think. And in writing that little bit, a person will probably find that the ideas are flowing freely and it's much easier to keep going. And that's how you manage two, three, or even ten pages in a day without it being overwhelming.
Another common mistake : spoiler in chapter title
Don't rule them out completely. Simple numbering to too boring.
Chapter titles, if done correctly, can foreshadow, spell out character traits, setting, or plot points, or can even be used as a double entendre or inside joke to the reader.
They also act as a memory jog should you lose your place (or bookmark).
I made mistake #4 in reverse. I showed my work to two people and they proceeded to tear it apart. I put the book away for more than 10 years. I have a rule I will NOT break. Show your work to NO ONE. Years later one of the two denied they said anything negative. The other one said, "What happened to that book you were writing. I really liked it." IF YOU'RE GOING TO SHOW YOUR WRITING TO OTHER PEOPLE, YOU BETTER HAVE THICK SKIN. Love this channel, but I disagree with this one point. Glad I found this channel.
I personally suggest writing your FIRST DRAFT by hand, pencil and paper so you can always carry it with you and not have to worry about needing to let a battery recharge because you got yourself hooked by your own story and wrote for hours 📝 that’s what I do because I’m not comfortable typing… I’m paying a friend to simply type exactly what I wrote, page by page, and all editing well be done exclusively with the typed versions of my books because I don’t want to change the hand written ones…
@emeraldqueen1991 I write the first draft by hand. I feel more life and feeling for the story as it comes out the pen and onto the paper ✍ 📖
Funny thing, although MBTI is perceived as pseudoscience among the science crowd, writing is probably the single medium where this thing can actually be useful. Indeed, making different characters can be greatly supported by thinking, about how exactly the characters can be different. But I would also suggest this: every personality typification is flawed because a real person is a dynamic and sometimes chaotic construct. That's why people with critical thinking (specifically free of confirmation bias) have a hard time answering those questionnaires - it's always very hard to choose one or the other option because you can easily think of situations where a particular answer doesn't make sense. So, when forging your character it's also useful to try to imagine how your logical character can act impulsively, what would drive a plan-everything-oriented person to chase a sudden opportunity, und so weiter.
The other thing is that it doesn’t deal with motivation at all. I tend to test INXP, but this is only a picture of how I tend to see the world. It has nothing to do with motivation, which I why I’d recommend adding Enneagram ideas to the mix as well. A type 6 is motivated by worry about safety. A 4 feels the need to be unique. A nine is motivated by altruism. Those don’t produce the same actions.
Fantastic advice about the personality types! Thank you.
Does planning in my head count as writing?
Nope, I don't think so) You should write it down
I also often wished for a computer where I can write telepathically.
I often have good stuff in my mind but when I try to right it down, there is suddenly a great emptiness in my head.
@@ofmine7583 you might be what is called an intuitive writer. You're feeling/sensing great story ideas but need the engage your logical brain to translate the ideas to paper and thereby translate them to other people.
Only writing is writing. Plotting is plotting--which *can* be done in your head.
@@5Gburn writing is easy to me once I get the plot down!
One thing I did when I was starting out was I took the Myers-Briggs personality test as each of my major characters
Same! It helped a lot haha
Interviewing your characters is also a great excercise.
@@rexclamation9649 Something I can't do anymore (cuz I need privacy to do it for fear of being caught having conversations with myself)
Me: "oh that thumbnail looks pretty cool" clicks the video "OH MY GOSH WHY IS HE SO CLOSE
Bro is staring into my soul 😂
Similar to writing groups, I suggest aspiring writers take paid workshops if any are available in the area. I’ve taken five workshops over the past few years with bestselling authors. Something about having a real author reading your stuff not only motivates you to write but to write your best, since a roomful of people are going to be judging your work. Just remember to have a thick skin and listen carefully to the criticism. And remember that when readers point out issues in your work, they’re usually right. But when they make suggestions for fixing the issues, they’re usually wrong.
This is great, thanks for helping me! Do you have a video on character building?
Okay, penalty flag.
Yes, writers should consider different personalities and yes, Meyers-Briggs may be a useful tool for conceptualizing them, but PLEASE don’t call it psychology. Meyers-Briggs is nothing but flattery and Barnum statements, there is ZERO science behind it. There is massive evidence that the dichotomies it tries to establish aren’t remotely innate and depend on situation and mood. Meyers-Briggs has all the validity and scientific merit of a horoscope.
Came here to say this. MB is pseudoscience bullshit
Isn't Myers-Briggs based on Jungian psychology? I guess it's debatable if psychology is science per se, but maybe that's what he meant.
On number 2, even if you don't study the exact personality types, you should at the very least have a grasp on how to write characters who aren't too similar to each other. Having an entire cast of extroverted jokesters doesn't even work in almost any comedies, so if that's your cast for a more serious story because it's the only character you know how to write... You have to see the problem with that, right???
On number 3, I think the part of, "Write every day." Peope don't understand is that it doesn't have to be writing your current story or the magnus opum. I write reviews and for D&D when I'm not feeling the book I'm trying to write if only to keep both my abilities and creativity flowing for when I do get back into what I'm currently writing.
On number 4, even if not another writer, you should have someone who you can shoe things and get honest and potentially even harsh criticisms of what you're writing to read what you have.
On number 5, What is this supposed to mean? Who am I supposed to be submitting my work to??? I'm confused on this one.
So, the first one is good advice, but I'd add a caviat: reading Save the Cat! Writes a Novel absolutely changed my writing, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me as a writer, but it is NOT the only way to plot a book. Imo, what you should do is not to force it - if it doesn't work for your story, it just doesn't. Not all stories need Save the Cat. But imo, every _author_ does, because understanding how the most common story structure works will 100% help you understand stories better, which you can then apply everywhere.
I've read plenty of books that I loved that did not follow Save the Cat - or even the 3 Act story structure at all. Most of my favorite do not follow that structure, actually (I fell for the segmented style of The Bluest Eye pretty hard). But the reasons that it works will work on most stories anyway.
Learn what works, _then_ choose to step off the path _willingly_. Just like writing in second person can absolutely be the right thing for a story, but it will not fit most stories. You need to understand why you are choosing a story structure over another - and hence understand story structure. And this book is the n1 ressource I would recommend for that, because it explains extremely well.
I highly recommend it. It's not a rule book, but it _is_ one of the best references for writing anatomy that I know
when i write witchy old ladies i always remember my grandma
I think the mistake that I learned from the most is: don't be a perfectionist. Don't try to write that big epic drama from day one.
Editing should be the majority of your work unless you get it right immediately.
I used to do that. Then the pandemic happened and how everyone has a disorder of some kind, I go with disorders. They are the core of the MB test. I have PTSD and NSD.
In complete contrast to almost everything in the video, my biggest mistake, and I made it for years, was planning out my novels. As a discovery writer, if I already know the story, it bores me, and I'll never write it. Now I start with a character and a setting, and go. In the last 5 years, I've finished five novels.
How do you fix Disney live action remakes?
No one sends rejection letters nowdays and this is even more frustrating.
5:47: The things I've lerned from writing is to show, not tell, and there's no need to correct every single little mistake, just do it later when you're done.
I was writing a third book on my series and there was three different verisons of book three The Future, The Search, and The Mall Then I got my fourth one it was good, The Schism is the forth
(Edit: Clicking off at this point bc I'm getting myself uoset tbh)
2:50 Why every single day? If you try to force yourself to write too often can trigger writer's block, even if it's just 15 minutes. Especially if you have a routine around that can take a while (like going tk café to write like I do)
My personal ideal pace is 3-4 days a week, but imo, by telling people to write every day you also risk making them feel like they failed in advance if they miss a day or two. They might give up too early, when developing a writing habit can take a lot of work. I do recommend making time for it - actually picking times and places to write, as if they were appointments. But every day is NOT necessary
Also, hard to break habits, eh? I've already gotten stuck in loops of not writing as much as I wanted _despite having the time_ because I considered 5 minutes "enough". If it's not enough to make actual progress, then it doesn't count for me, because otherwise I can go _weeks_ sitting there five minutes and then running out of time because I put it off for half an hour because "5 minutes is enough anyway". Yeah, no thank you. 5 minutes checks off the task in my mind despite not actually having the time to get anything done in 5 minutes. (Sorry, my personal experiences mean I have pretty strong opinions about this)
It's true, at least in my experience, that you do not need to write for hours though. I usually work on my writing half an hour at a time, and it works out good
TLDR : I've smoked a f***ton of meth and here's what i want you to write right now.
Hehe -- Nobody ever talks about us INFP guys!
With all due respect I think the personality tests are a whole load of BS. No way there are only 16 personality types in this world. And they aren’t very narrowed down either. So calling it a mistake to not study it is horse poop.
Also not to mention, you can write about characters who are nothing like you are. You don’t need some nonsense sigma male gigachad personality type list to tell you how to make a fictional character. Also if you're writing about serial killers why would you make a killer who is just like you are?
i despise the kill the cat garbage. those 15 things are hardly plot points. the 5 plot points as long as there have been storytelling are setting, conflict, rising action, climax, and falling action. these other useless things arranged as they are become nothing but a formula. a writer shouldn't have to shoehorn in something just because kill the cat says you need to do this here. and how am i to now when i'm 34% into a story? it's ridiculous. people read this stuff and think they've studied how to write, when it is much more than this. this formula is useless and needs to be tied up in a sack and thrown in the river
Just write the story. For goodness sake.
They ignore senpaku eyes...
Yet more nonsense.