Most Common Writing Errors ✔️

Style Over Substance

Good grammar and a complex vocabulary will not write the substance for you. I find it far more impressive when an author writes an interesting character, a thought-provoking theme, or a unique plot.

I also also understand some people love reading stories that are very pretty, and even reading stories that are just pretty words without a plot. I have no problem with that. If those are the types of stories you like, that's fine! I'm happy for you. From my perspective, I spent the past three years of my life watching avant-garde films with no plots, characters, or themes and just pretty shots for the sake of pretty shots, so I hope you understand why I'm a little tired of "pretty stuff" without the substance.

I'm not kidding. That is the film department at my school. Narrative film is like Voldemort here, we never speak its name. That could be why I'm tired of style over substance, so please keep that in mind while reading this chapter.

Here are common ways writers make their stories too complex:

- Constantly using words literally no one will know, and most of the time this is done back-to-back so there are just like five words in a row readers will have to Google

- Overusing the more "sophisticated" punctuation (dashes and semicolons, but particularly semicolons)

- Consistently writing very long sentences

- Spending too much time describing environments/characters (which is also a pacing problem)

Let's cover those things one at a time.

1) Complex Vocab

Again, there's nothing wrong with having complex vocabulary in your story. You're a writer. You should be good with words and have great word choice; however, there is a difference between having good word choice and throwing "big" words in there for the sake of sounding pretty.

I know what you're thinking: "But Raven, what about stories that have that style of world, like a high fantasy?"

This is why I don't read high fantasy. I don't like that writing style.

This is why I always say in almost every chapter there is an exception to everything. The tips I am giving are general writing tips and not rules, which is why you should always take everything I say with a grain of salt because my words may not apply for the type of story you're writing.

Stories with that ancient feel get away with the fancier sentences and words since it fits the era. I don't like them, but they are an exception to what I'm talking about. 

At the same time, there are still areas where authors will go way too overboard with the flowery language to the point where no one in their right mind can understand what a sentence is saying.

Remember, there's a difference between having a good vocabulary and throwing complex vocab words in there because you think they'll sound cool.

I think almost every author is guilty of changing words for the sole reason that they think it'll sound cooler, and that's fine. I'm not trying to demonize people who do that because, the truth is, how do you improve your vocab if you don't experiment with new words?

I'm not saying you need to memorize the entire English language and know off the top of your head what vocab words would work best for your sentence. I use thesauruses too for every single chapter I write, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that as long as you're doing it to enhance the story, not because you want to sound fancier.

If you're forcing words to be fancier, then there's a chance your writing will come off as ingenuine. One word can change the entire meaning of a sentence, so if you're using words you yourself aren't familiar with for sake of being "fancier," then your sentence might not make sense or feel like it wasn't written by you.