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What’s the biggest mistake you made when you first started writing?
One word.
MacGuffins.
Mc·Guf·fin
/məˈɡəfin/
noun
an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.For example of what a MacGuffin might look like in a story, “The hero must find the sacred diamond Keys of the Ancient King Pluggin-Ploggin to unlock the hidden chest that contains the super-important orb that will save the world from the evil guy with a totally-wicked cape.”
The diamond keys that the hero would be searching for throughout the story would be a MacGuffin.
One of my earliest novels had a plot around MacGuffins. I know it might not sound like much of a mistake, but it really messed up my story, and it took me a while to find out what was causing me so much headache.
I think the worst thing about MacGuffins is not that they are cliche, which isn’t inherently bad, but that MacGuffins interfere your plot that could otherwise be so much more interesting. As soon as I ditched the Macguffins in my story and replaced them with another plot thread, the story instantly became so much more interesting and creative.
So now I know never to put MacGuffins in a story. XD Because, whatever you replace them with is SO much more intriguing.
What was the biggest mistake you made when you first started writing?
@kathleenramm Probably thinking that my writing was good, lol. My child brain had no concept of what good writing actually was. Gotta say nowadays I feel like I’m falling into the same trap. I have to constantly remind myself to keep the pride down and be humble.
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into days- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
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@kathleenramm Probably something similar to @devastate-lasting’s problem. I just jumped right into writing (not that I regret it, certainly not) with nothing but a shelf full of my favorite books to guide me. I did no research, and I barely knew how to spell, let alone punctuate and format paragraphs. Trying to write a full-length novel with no knowledge at all probably stunted my growth, so to speak. And I didn’t know any better.
Then, with my first novel, since I had only a year or so of writing experience before I jumped right into writing and publishing with very little editing (or thought) going into it. I thought, at the time, that it was terrific, but now I see that I should have waited and gotten better before I put myself out there.
Man, I could use some of your confidence. XD I usually have the opposite problem. I sometimes get so down about my writing abilities that it discourages me from writing.
@gracie-j
Well, out of all the mistakes to make, jumping into to writing super early isn’t a bad one to do! At least starting before ready is better than not starting at all which a lot of people unfortunately do.
First of all, I completely agree about MacGuffins. They’re not bad, after all, I would argue that LOTR is a reverse-MacGuffin-quest-thing, but they’re often lazy.
Secondly! My worst mistake? I don’t know exactly, but a lot of my early stories and novels suffered from far too many main characters and subplots connected to those characters. It took me ages to work out how to focus on two or three characters (three is the most main characters I’ve had in anything I’ve written in the past four or so years) and how to keep the subplots to a compelling minimum. I’m hoping to rewrite my very first novel, which I wrote when I was thirteen and still love very much, next year and I’ve got to decide on which of the six (seven? Eight?) main characters I’m going to keep.
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
I think that one of mine was who was/wasn’t emotional in my story. I knew very little of how to portray guys and girls, so I had weepy men and stolid women. Also, I did (and struggle with doing) a lot of too-polished dialogue. It is so bad. I still have some scattered drafts haunting my phone.
I also struggle with thinking I’m better at something than I am, or being proud because I know I’m good at something. But I did think I was better at writing than I actually was.
We crazy people are the normal ones.
Oooh, yes. Characters and subplots. Those can so quickly get out of hand. XD It’s cool that your planning on rewriting one of your first novels! What’s the premise?
Haha. I’m pretty sure that I too have some very cringey dialogue haunting my laptop as well. Dialogue is still something that I struggle with today. Never knowing how much is too much or too little.
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@kathleenramm Same problem! I love writing love, drawn-out, detailed, totally unrealistic paragraphs of dialogue…but I hate reading them, so it’s difficult to find the proper balance. I can’t write small talk or realistic passing remarks. But I can write a speech… 😆
@scoutfinch180 I feel ya. I used to think that I had hung the moon with my debut novel (which I’m going to rewrite as well), but, going back, I cringe at pretty much every sentence. I still wonder if I’m as good as I think I am. Well, confidence is key, they say. (Or maybe that’s just me…)@kathleenramm my biggest mistake was probably having no clue where I was going with the plot. And the characters had no motivation besides “I want to solve this mystery. Okay let’s solve it.” I actually wrote the tiny 15,000 word thing over a couple of years and where the first part of it is like… legit terrible, a ton of dialogue, and plays into every stereotype in a teenage book (Also- 15-17 felt so very old to 12-year-old me) the second part is all action. I couldn’t find a balance.
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