Most Common Writing Errors ✔️

IMPORTANT: Showing Over Telling

The reason is because adverbs are often substitutes for stronger verbs.

For example: He ran quickly toward the door.

Instead of relying on quickly to give the sentence more weight, why not use a stronger verb? Sprinted works, doesn't it? It's stronger and more direct, and it makes "quickly" redundant since sprinted already implies that.

Tbh, "ran" already implies you're going fast.

And that leads me to my next point: many of them are redundant anyway.

It's a common mistake, but many writers will write a verb, then use an adverb that means something similar.

I have a personal vendetta against the adverbs "audibly" and "visibly."

While they are fine in some cases (mostly if you're showing contrasts), I don't quite understand why writers can't just stick with the verb.

For example: "What's going on?" she asked audibly.

What is audibly doing for that sentence??????

The verb "asked" and the quotation marks already imply the "she" is talking audibly. You don't need to repeat it.

Another example is this: She visibly frowned.

Again: what is visibly doing for this sentence? The action of frowning already implies that the person is doing it visibly.

Do you see why many adverbs are redundant now?

In isolation, some of these are fine. I'm not saying don't use adverbs; I'm not even saying don't use "visibly" or "audibly." What I am saying is to make sure it adds to the story. But again, while some of these are fine in isolation, if this becomes a habit, it hurts the pacing.

The Ahsoka show example works here. One or two shots of ships landing or people looking around places is fine since it can establish atmosphere and world and other things like that. However, if you're doing it too often (like the show does), it makes the pacing incredibly slow.

Moving on...

I'm guilty of doing this in the past, but another common thing I see is this: "I'm scared," she whispered quietly.

According to Cambridge:

Whisper (n.) - to speak very quietly, using the breath but not the voice, so that only the person close to you can hear you.

AKA: Whisper means to speak quietly. Why do you need to put quietly after that when whisper literally means quietly?

Long story short, that's why I hate adverbs. Many writers use them redundantly instead of using them to enhance the sentence.

I also believe they are big telling over showing tactics because of what I mentioned before: adverbs are a substitute for stronger verbs.

How To Improve Word Choice

While some of it is highlighting words and putting them into a thesaurus, strong writers go above and beyond that.

Having strong word choice is a great way to improve the engagement of your story. If you're using the same words over and over again, the story can feel dull.

Word choice isn't just having strong vocabulary, especially since if the vocab is too much, you risk losing readers. Many readers don't want to read overly formal or flowery vocabulary. The reason is because we don't want to have to have Google open to understand your sentences.

And just so you know, I'm talking about sentences that have multiple formal or flowery words in them all the time, not just one or two words or lots of words every once in a while. So, authors that overuse them, essentially.

Context clues help readers understand what "bigger" (for lack of a better word) words mean. If you're going to use less known words, I would suggest adding context clues to help the reader figure them out without having to open Google.

Moving on, I mentioned that word choice isn't just about having strong vocab. It's also about where you place your words, and what words you don't use.

There are certain filler words in fiction. Words like that, just, and still are all examples of filler words that aren't needed most of the time.

Sometimes, for dramatic effect or to show comparison, words like just or still are needed. For obvious reasons, sometimes 'that' is needed too.

I feel like I've talked about this before in a previous chapter, but there are many cases where 'that' can be taken out of a sentence.

If you have a sentence with one or more uses of the word 'that,' I recommend reading the sentence out loud with and without them. See which one flows better.

The reason we take out 'that' is to tighten pacing and help sentences flow better. The same applies to words like 'still' and 'just.'

Still and just can be used to show comparison/contrast or deliver an emotional beat. However, if you overuse them, the comparisons/contrasts and emotional beats won't hit as hard since the reader is so used to seeing those two words.

The same applies to most other words. If you're overusing verbs, it will make the sentences lose their intensity, especially if you're writing something like an action fic, sci fi, fantasy, etc. where there are going to be very intense scenes.

There are ways to have better word choice without having to pull out a thesaurus. You can also rearrange the sentence so you can avoid using the word you're overusing (run, for example).

There's a lot that goes into word choice, so I'll make an individual chapter about it later, but that's a small overview.

Words that often get overused:

- Run

- Look (most overused I've ever seen)

- Walk (second most overused I've ever seen)

- Breathe and breath (bonus points since many people use the two incorrectly)

- Sigh

- Now

- Take

- Go (or went)

Examples Of Telling

- She was sad

- He felt excited

- After hearing the bad news, Jungkook became depressed.

- It was very difficult to do.

Upcoming Topics: UK and US English, How To Criticize A Story, Subjectivity Versus Objectivity, and Prologues.

I cannot tell you how many people don't know what a prologue is. It is not chapter one. I will explain more in a future chapter.

I will also be giving basic grammar tips in the future.

~End~

Remember to follow for more tips like this. Vote and comment, leave requests for future topics if you'd like!