So I’ve now received feedback from most of the alpha readers. I have a list of about forty things to change or keep in mind while rewriting and editing. During my preparation to start rewriting and editing, I found a blog with this list of common writing mistakes. I am reposting the list here as I will be keeping all these points in mind as I rewrite and edit.
In order to not overload my mind, I’ve limited myself to reading only twenty of these blog posts a day. I’m sure I’ll be referring to them a lot once I start rewriting and even more once I’m editing.
1. Telling not showing
2. Using “there” as a crutch
3. Poor cause and effect
4. Vague writing
5. Not using speaker tags or action beats correctly
6. Overpowering first person narrator
7. Opening line lying to the reader
8. Stylistic mistakes
9. Nothing happening in a scene
10. Character overload
11. Giving readers the wrong impression of your characters
12. Flabby flashbacks
13. Too much explanation
14. Vanishing setting syndrome
15. Non-reactive or Over-reactive
16. Not enough tension
17. Characters who lack purpose
18. Skipping the best parts of the Story
19. Overusing “suddenly.”
20. Poor use of dialect in dialogue
21. Over-explaining
22. Scenes that focus on what isn’t happening
23. Overly complex prose
24. Animate body parts
25. Characters who lack solid story goals
26. Under-explaining
27. Weak Character voice
28. Choppy prose
29. Stories that begin too early
30. Nonsensical character choreography
31. One-dimensional conflict
32. Boring opening lines
33. Telling important scenes instead of showing
34. Repetitive dialogue
35. Random story elements
36. Too much introspection, not enough interaction
37. Unnecessary filler
38. Irrelevant book endings
39. Referencing characters by title rather than name
40. Unnecessary scenes
41. Inferring non-pov characters’ thoughts
42. When your story stakes aren’t high enough
43. Too many exclamation points
44. Too many participle phrases
45. Avoiding “said”
46. Anticlimactic endings
47. Ineffective setting descriptions
48. No conflict between characters
49. Weak conjunctions
50. Info dumps
51. One-dimensional characters
52. Stagnant story conflict
53. No contractions in dialogue
54. Story events that don’t move the plot
55. Beginning your story too late
56. Unfulfilled foreshadowing
57. Dead-end relationships
58. Too much description
59. Overly complex plots
60. Flat plots
61. Clunky dialogue
62. Head-hopping
63. Purple prose
64. POV problems
If you want to see a detailed explanation of what each point contains, head over to https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/most-common-writing-mistakes/
Feedback from alpha readers has been mostly positive. The greater part enjoyed the story, which is the most important though one alpha reader did call it trite. Well we can’t all write political manifestos. One alpha reader even dreamed about it and thought it was a Netflix series only to be disappointed to remember it was just one book. A few have even asked about the sequel. I do have some ideas for that but have to get through the rewrite first. A big thank you to everyone who participated in the alpha read and sent in their questionnaires. I will probably try to finish the short story I’m working on before diving into the rewrite.
Dear immortals, I need some wow gold inspiration to create.