It’s easy to write and even easier to make simple common writing mistakes while you’re writing. Creating checklists is a good way to make our musings effective and efficient.
Writing is fun but sometimes it can be daunting to know where to start.
Making a checklist can be useful.
Use this checklist to help think through fictional characters you are writing.
When writing fictional characters it’s easy to get lost and end up making similar writing mistakes as other authors that didn’t do as well with characterization.
Use this checklist to watch for some common yet potentially grievous writing mistakes.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
1. Stereotypical
Writing mistakes come in all shapes and sizes and writing a stereotypical character is one of them.
It’s easy to say “write original characters” but to actually do it can be tough.
So many characters exist and it is hard to break the mold.
To avoid writing stereotypical characters think about who your character is, if you can think of five other famous fictional characters just like them you may be in the stereotypical realm.
Maybe don’t ditch the character altogether at that point, but do have them do some surprising things.
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Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
2. Falls short of interesting
Another one of the common writing mistakes is that a character falls short of interesting.
Not every character has to be eccentric to be interesting.
Each character needs to bring something to the table though.
Think about people you know personally.
What makes them interesting or not interesting?
Maybe someone you know just goes to work and watches TV and nothing else.
That might make them disinteresting.
One day you come home and they are asleep in their lazy-boy chair and they start to float?
Find ways to make even uninteresting characters have interesting things happen to them.
Sometimes the most boring characters with the most common lives make for the most fun writing.
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Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
3. Character isn’t useful in any way
Some writers would say every character has to be very useful and usable in more than one way.
We disagree.
I for one have enjoyed immensely certain characters that show up for short cameo blips and only have one use in the entirety of the story.
Think about when Stan Lee would show up in a Marvel movie for a cameo.
His Character wasn’t always useful in many ways but it was enjoyable to see.
So make some characters show up unexpectedly that maybe only one use. This might be just the thing to make the story more dynamic and less predictable.
Sometimes a character shows up just to help accomplish one small piece of the puzzle for the protagonist and then leaves disappears or dies.
Use this type of character strategically.
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Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
4. Does too much stuff out of character
Just like the humans we know and see every day our fictional characters need to have m.o.’s.
M.O. stands for Modus Operandi which just means someone’s habits or methods.
Everyone seems to have an m.o. a way that they do things.
Your character’s m.o. might be too get coffee at 7, read the news at 8, be at work by 8:30 and to be home by 6.
If they get honked at in traffic they honk back.
If someone says hi to them they usually say hi back.
Things like these are considered someone’s M.O. The way they do things.
The mistake to watch out for here is to have your character not have a consistent character.
One day they say hello the next day they scream and run for no apparent reason. The next day they randomly have a different accent and say “Howdy!” for no explained reason.
For most characters, they will keep the same personality over long periods of time just like your friends and family, but for other characters, they will go on a learning journey where habits and other things in their life will change. They may talk a little different or choose to be a better person or a worse person.
They will still be the same person but they can always try to change habits just like normal people do.
Habits people often try to change normally:
Eating
Sleeping
Caffeine
Smoking
Drinking
Drugs
Cell phone use
Etc
Things like these are acceptable for a person to try to change, but remember that readers like the character to be consistent, especially if they have been for a long time and if they change dramatically or too much too quickly a reader might find that hard to believe.
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Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
5. Assuming nobody likes an underdog anymore
This is a tragedy because it just isn’t true. Some critics feel that people are sick of the underdog sorry and we just have to say that they aren’t true yet.
It could happen.
It just hasn’t happened yet.
Don’t be deterred from writing a less lined character that rises above everything that’s stood against them:
Authority
Bullies
Teachers
Enemies
Dictators
Tyrants
Mean spirited people
Etc
People still live to root for the underdog because most of us feel a little bit like an underdog on the inside just trying to succeed.
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If you enjoy Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
6. No direction
Our characters must have goals or else our reader will just stop caring at some point in their surmisable pointless journey.
It’s fine t start them out with no seeming point or reason, but the reader is on the lookout for the BIG WHY.
Our BIG WHY is why is our character being written about and talked about.
If the reader never finds a good reason they are likely to put our story down and NEVER pick it up again. They might remember it though…as being horribly boring. 🙁
So don’t do that to yourself or your reader. Give your characters goals 🙂 .
They don’t all have to have the same goals. In fact, it is more interesting if they don’t have the same goals and are against each other is some goals and with each other in others.
For instance, they could be rivals. This means they have the same goal, but against each other.
They could be rivals but have a common enemy. This still makes them have the same goal against each other but for the moment they could benefit from taming up. Very fun.
They could have the same goal and decide to be allies in that goal and work together as partners or friends.
They could have a group of people that become their allies.
They could be secretly pretending to be partners, but scheming to betray each other at the last second when it really counts.
There are many fun and interesting options we can use when it comes to giving characters goals and what that means the conflicts and resolutions of our stories.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
7. Thinking they have to earn everything
Fictional characters don’t have to earn everything we see them have or get.
A prince is a prince and with that we expect them to have certain privileges above other characters.
Nice clothes
Meals
Beds
Hair
Makeup
Weapons
Armor
Etc
If it is a person who is down and out and struggling, we expect to see them struggle through and earn things along the way.
It is okay for us to write some characters having honor, fame, glory and other notions before our reader meets them.
In Harry Potter, he had notoriety he didn’t even earn himself and we as readers accepted this. Ron had less, we also accepted this. This is how the world works, so your reader won’t be expecting you to take them through every event the character has gone through before they started to read about them.
They want to go through the interesting parts of their life journey. That’s why they are reading.
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Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
8. No flowing storyline to follow
This seems like a no brainer, but we will cover it briefly and move on.
A story must have a coherent plot.
If it goes off into random tangents our reader may lose interest when they realize there was no point to some side plot in the story. OR worse they’ll get to the end and feel gipped. Then they won’t pick up book two.
A plot skeleton should be kept fairly simple and expand as necessary:
Introduction
Hook
Conflict
Climax
Resolution
This plot skeleton is extremely simple on purpose.
There may be multiple mini conflicts with mini resolutions along the way, but one main conflict and one main resolution make for most great stories.
Don’t run off into meaningless side stories that don’t have anything to do with either creating interest for the main character or the main antagonist or characterization.
Our story is like a river it may bend and it may have reservoirs but in there somewhere it needs to come to a raging waterfall for our reader to plunge down in order to find out where the river ultimately leads.
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If you enjoy Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
9. Not giving secondary characters any depth
Your reader doesn’t need to know the in-depth background of every character that steps onto the page, but for some sidekicks and some secondary characters, a little depth and back story can be quite interesting.
Their backstory doesn’t need to be revealed all at once. In fact, it can be more enjoyable if it doesn’t happen all at once but over many chapters.
A little revealing here and a little revealing there. Keep the reader curious about the right characters. Create questions in their minds. And answer those questions in time.
Be purposeful about what you reveal about any character especially secondary characters. Make sure that it is important to a key point in the plot.
Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
If you enjoy Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
10. Unconvincing villain.
Nothing ruins a story more than an evil diabolical no-good…boring villain.
An unconvincing villain can ruin an otherwise extremely good story with a great plotline. We could have all the characters and the best storyline and plot, but if the villain or antagonist falls flat it’ll make for a very disappointing reveal sometime in the story.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
11. Writing mistakes: forcing a part of the story that doesn’t quite fit.
We’ve all been there. You’re thinking through this amazing idea for a storyline. You write a really amazing introduction and some killer plot points. One day you write a scene that is amazing and that you love personally.
As time goes on you keep writing, but that awesome scene that you wrote doesn’t really seem to fit in anywhere.
But it’s an awesome scene and you love it. What happens to it? It can’t just die and never be remembered, can it?
Unfortunately, I think it can. It is sad, but it’s important to just let some things go in the editing process.
If you wrote something you love that doesn’t seem to make sense anymore, don’t try to draw lines to it and from it only to leave the reader scratching their head about it, just put it down in your “I loved you once” scenes journal and let it be.
Don’t make your reader question whether you can put together a coherent storyline all for one scene. It’s not worth it in the long run.
If it makes you feel better you can add a section at the end of your book called “deleted scenes.”
Don’t let writing mistakes get the best of you.
I hope this helps!
Happy Writing!
Other Popular Posts you might just love to dig through:
5 Tricks How to Hide Your Villain Right Before Their Eyes
How To Write 4 Scenes That Reveal Who Your Character Is Seamlessly
4 Tips How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom
Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
If you enjoy Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For
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Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
If you enjoy Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
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