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Common
Writing Mistakes Most books aren't
rejected because the stories are "bad." They're rejected because
they're not "ready to read." In short, minor stuff like typos,
grammar, spelling, etc. I don't mean places
where we, as authors, deliberately break the rules. Those are fine. That's part
of our job. Language always changes with use, and we can help it on its way. No,
I'm referring to places where someone just plain didn't learn the rule or got
confused or overlooked it during the self-edits. I've been editing
novels for more than three years. Looking back at my experiences, I feel like
sharing the most common mistakes I've seen. If you'll go through your manuscript
and fix these before you submit it to a publisher, your odds of publication will
increase dramatically. Once you've found a
publisher who publishes what you write, you want to present yourself in the best
way possible. Submitting an unedited manuscript is a bit like going to a job
interview wearing a purple Mohawk, no shoes, torn jeans, and a dirty T-shirt.
Your resume may be perfect, and your qualifications impeccable, but something
tells me you won't get the job. The publisher is
investing a lot in every book it accepts. E-publishers tend to invest loads of
time, and print publishers tend to invest an advertising budget and the cost of
carrying a large inventory. Why ask them to invest hours and days of editing
time as well? If the publisher gets two or three or ten nearly identical books,
you want yours to be the one requiring the least editing. The first thing you
need to do, and I hope you've already done it, is use the spelling and grammar
checkers in your word processor. This will catch many of the "common
mistakes" on my list. But I've been asked to edit many books where the
author obviously didn't do this, and I confess that I may well have been lazy
and let a couple of mine get to my editors unchecked. Bad Michael! There are some other
valuable lists at the following Common Errors in
English http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors
Words That Are
Often Confused http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/words.html
Here's a list of the
mistakes I see most often. * Dialogue where
everyone speaks in perfect English and never violates any of the bullet points
below. Okay, I made that up. That's not really a common problem at all. But I
have seen it, and it's a terrible thing. * It's is a
contraction for "it is" and its is possessive. * Who's is a
contraction for "who is" and whose is possessive. * You're is a
contraction for "you are" and your is possessive. * They're is a
contraction for "they are," there is a place, their is
possessive. * There's is a
contraction for "there is" and theirs is possessive. * If you've been
paying attention to the above examples, you've noticed that possessive pronouns
never use apostrophes. Its, whose, your, yours, their, theirs... * Let's is a
contraction for "let us." * When making a word
plural by adding an s, don't use an apostrophe. (The cats are asleep.) * When making a word
possessive by adding an s, use an apostrophe. (The cat's bowl is empty.) * A bath is a
noun, what you take. Bathe is a verb, the action you do when taking or
giving a bath. * A breath is a
noun, what you take. Breathe is a verb, the action you do when taking a
breath. * You wear clothes.
When you put them on, you clothe yourself. They are made of cloth. * Whenever you read a
sentence with the word "that," ask yourself if you can delete that
word and still achieve clarity. If so, kill it. The same can be said of all
sentences. If you can delete a word without changing the meaning or sacrificing
clarity, do it. "And then" is a phrase worth using your word
processor's search feature to look for. * Keep an eye on verb
tenses. "He pulled the pin and throws the grenade" is not a good
sentence because the verbs are in different tenses. * Keep an eye on
making everything agree regarding singular and plural. "My cat and my wife
is sleeping," "My cat sleep on the sofa," and "My wife is a
beautiful women" are not good sentences. (I exaggerate in these examples,
but you know what I mean.) * I and me, he and
him, etc. I hope no editor is rejecting any novels for this one, because I
suspect that most people get confused at times. In dialogue, do whatever the
heck you want because it sounds more "natural." But for the sake of
your narrative, I'll try to explain the rule and the cheat. The rule involves
knowing whether your pronoun is the subject or object. When Jim Morrison of The
Doors sings, "til the stars fall from the sky for you and I," he's
making a good rhyme but he's using bad grammar. According to the rule, "you
and I" is the object of the preposition "for," thus it should be
"for you and me." The cheat involves pretending "you and"
isn't there, and just instinctively knowing "for I" just doesn't sound
right. (I think only native English speakers can use my cheat. For the record, I
have great admiration for authors writing in languages that aren't their native
tongues.) * Should of, would of,
could of. This one can make me throw things. It's wrong! What you mean is should
have, would have, could have. Or maybe you mean the
contractions. Should've, would've, could've. And maybe 've
sounds a bit like of. But it's not! Of is not a verb. Not now, not
ever. * Shorter sentences
are better. Always. Don't ask a single sentence to do too much work or advance
the action too much, because then you've got lots of words scattered about like
"that" and "however" and "because" and
"or" and "as" and "and" and "while,"
much like this rather pathetic excuse for a sentence right here. * On a similar
(exaggerated) note: "He laughed a wicked laugh as he kicked Ralphie in the
face while he aimed the gun at Lerod and pulled the trigger and then laughed
maniacally as Lerod twisted in agony because of the bullet that burned through
his face and splattered his brains against the wall and made the wall look like
an overcooked lasagne or an abstract painting." Now tell me this sentence
isn't trying to do too much. * Too means
also, two is a number, to is a preposition. * He said/she said.
Use those only when necessary to establish who's speaking. They distract the
reader, pulling him out of the story and saying, "Hey look, you're reading
a book." Ideally, within the context of the dialogue, we know who's talking
just by the style or the ideas. When a new speaker arrives on the scene,
identify him or her immediately. Beyond that, keep it to a minimum. Oh yeah, and
give every speaker his/her own paragraph. * Billy-Bob smiled his
most winning smile and said, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place
like this?" I don't like this. Use two shorter sentences in the same
paragraph. Billy-Bob smiled his most winning smile. "What's a nice girl
like you doing in a place like this?" Same effect, fewer words, no dialogue
tag (he said). * In the previous
example, I don't like "smiled his most winning smile," because it's
redundant and also cliched. Please, if you find yourself writing something like
that, try to find a better way to express it before you just give up and leave
it like it is. During the self-edit, I mean, not during the initial writing. * "The
glow-in-the-dark poster of Jesus glowed in the dark." This editor won't let
that one go. Much too redundant, and it appeared in a published novel. * Lie is what
you do when you lie down on the bed, lay is what you do to another object
that you lay on the table. Just to confuse matters, the past tense of lie is
lay. Whenever I hit a lay/lie word in reading, I stop and think. Do that when
you self-edit. (Note: Don't fix this one in dialogue unless your character is
quite well-educated, because most people say it wrong. I do.) * Beware of the
dangling modifier. "Rushing into the room, the exploding bombs dropped
seven of the soldiers." Wait a minute! The bombs didn't rush into the room.
The soldiers did. To get all technical about it, the first part is the
"dependent clause," and it must have the same subject as the
"independent clause" which follows. Otherwise it's amateur,
distracting, and a real pain for your poor overworked editor. * If you are able
(many readers are not), keep an eye out for missing periods, weird commas,
closing quotes, opening quotes, etc. When I read a book, be it an e-book or a
printed book, I can't help but spot every single one that's missing. They slap
me upside the head, which makes me a great editor but a lousy reader. If you're
like me, use that to your advantage. If not, that's what editors are for! Copyright
2004 Michael LaRocca. All rights reserved. Michael LaRocca's
website at http://www.chinarice.org
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