5 Common Writing Mistakes that Annoy Readers

Have you ever read a story that just made you groan because it was so cheesy? Or perhaps you’ve re-read your favorite books and realized that the author slipped up by using forced, unrealistic dialogue to spice up a scene? This article shares some common things I’ve seen in works of fiction that would be best to avoid.

It takes some real dexterity to do this one right. An author inserts a small child (usually about five, but sometimes older) into the scene, then makes a great effort to show the readers how young he or she really is.

Example:

For one thing, in this example, the boy’s speech impediment is prominent throughout the last line of text, and the author spells what he says exactly the way he says it. This provides the reader an idea of what his voice sounds like, but can also be potentially very distracting. The writer is trying desperately to make the reader believe that this child is adorable, but since we can’t really see them, on paper the child comes across as rather annoying and babyish.

I’ve found that a great way to write small children is to write from their perspective. Beverly Cleary, author of several books for young audiences (and still alive although she passed her hundredth birthday quite a while ago, I might add) is a prime example of a writer who successfully captured the thought patterns of children in her stories. 

For example, in Emily’s Runaway Imagination, the main character Emily is a young country girl who oftentimes finds herself getting into scrapes. She is expecting her horse-obsessed, Black Beauty-loving cousin to come over. Emily wants to be able to impress her because she knows that her cousin is expecting to go horseback riding during her visit, but the horse that Emily’s family owns just isn’t a show horse. So, in order to make the horse look better, the idea to clorox the poor horse pops into Emily’s young and imaginative head. 

Think about it...would an adult have done that? We all had times when we were younger where we had crazy ideas or misunderstood something. 

Beverly Cleary is able to weave those sorts of childlike thoughts into her writing, which brings more depth to a child’s perspective than having him or her simply mispronounce words. I’d recommend reading through some of Beverly’s other books to get an idea of how she does it. But for now, let’s move on to the second point.

We’ve all read books following the first one in the series that go out of their way to explain what happened previously to the readers. This constantly pulls us, as the readers, out of the story and back into the previous one. Not only is it distracting, but it also gives us information that most of us already know.

How many of us actually read the second book before the first one? Sometimes, at the library, we may accidentally pick up the second in the series, only to bring it home and discover this. But we just need to order the right one from our library’s website to really experience the story as it was meant to be. 

Additionally, sometimes the constant flashbacks or references to the past are unnecessary. Take this example:

In the above example, the dialogue seems rather pointless. If I were to fall off of a horse and be taken to the hospital, it’s pretty self-explanatory that I would remember it. The story doesn’t really seem to go anywhere, and it’s just a page filler. When having a character mention something that happened in the past is crucial to the overall storyline, make sure that only the information needed is communicated. 

In the above example, the fact that Millie said last summer that she was glad that her sister and the horse were okay doesn’t need to be said, and most people won’t necessarily remember such a commonplace statement. If Millie had said that she had hoped the horse would be lame, that would be memorable.

Have you ever read a joke in a novel that made you inwardly cringe? Observe:

At this point, we, as the readers, are shaking our heads. But then the writer makes it even worse by continuing:

Not only was the joke cheesy, but the characters we are reading about apparently think it’s humorous. That makes us more annoyed with the characters, and possibly even makes some of us close the book entirely.

 If you think of a funny joke that you want your character to say but aren’t sure if it is cheesy or not, try it on some of your family and friends and see if they laugh. And remember, it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.

Sometimes, the main character in a book we’re reading is struggling through hardships. However, rather than putting on a brave face, he or she can’t stop complaining and bemoaning about what has happened. Hence, the wimpy character:

Okay, most of us haven’t read a scene quite like this. But you get the point. If readers repeatedly come across parts of a book where the MC is over-sensitive to pain and suffering, many of them will become disgusted and possibly put down the book. To avoid writing situations like these, give your character some backbone. 

Think of Jaron in the Ascendance series (one I am actually reading through for the first time). Jaron goes through immense pain for someone of his years, and yet he is willing to rush right back into danger and push himself again for a cause he believes in. His character is not shown as cowardly, and people reading about him root for him because he pushes through obstacles and overcomes challenges, rather than giving up.

However, there are some main characters who just are weak. If you decide to write about one, to avoid making them appear wimpy to the point of annoying the readers, use the weakness as a character flaw and have him or her learn from it.

Also, try to have the suffering come in the wake of an understandably hard situation (a death, a fear coming true, etc.) In the story of Oliver Twist, Fagin, who is a rather nervous character, is intent on keeping his thieving operations safe from any outsiders. In the end of the story, his hideout is overrun, which is an example of a fear coming true.

And finally, we come to the last mistake, which is the writer trying to shroud the villain’s obvious plan in mystery by making the protagonist(s) completely oblivious.

Wow, Marla and Doncan are in for the surprise of their lives. Or their deaths. Don’t worry, since I’m the author of that story I’ll just say that the F.B.I. showed up in the nick of time. But see what I mean? If Marla and Doncan are that clueless, are they really proficient choices for MCs? 

A way to avoid this is to make your character brilliant, noticing things that even the reader did not. An example of this would be Encyclopedia Brown. The author of those stories throws in several details, and it is up to the reader to figure out the one that is relevant to the solution of the mystery. However, if the reader fails in doing this, he or she can always turn to the back of the book and see how Encyclopedia solved it.

So, that about wraps it up, although there are many more mistakes writers can make. Once we are aware of these issues, we can learn to avoid them in our own writing.

 

Please add your thoughts in the comments below!