This is great, and writers should get excited about what they are doing. The problem comes when the writer gets so excited that they forget to become their own critic.

Here are five mistakes that new writers often make.

Telling, Not Showing

This is arguably the most important advice any novelist will receive. You never want to simply tell a story. Telling is boring. An author often makes the mistake of “telling” because they understand their characters so well. They know the scenes and how the characters react in certain situations. The reader does not know this.

Showing comes from the characters themselves. The story is told through their eyes and ears. This is what truly makes a reader fall in love with your story. Don’t just tell them that your character is scared. Show them how the character is scared.

Not Reading

Every good writer is a good reader. It sounds odd, but it is true. Reading is much more important than one might think. It helps you know what is popular or trending for the market in which you are writing. It lets you know what stories are not being published, and gives you an idea of which stories will then take more effort to get publishers to consider. Best of all, reading helps you learn how to write. Pay attention to how other authors start their stories and end their stories. Look at the words they use and how they phrase things. These can be used as learning tools to help you discover your own way of creating words that matter.

Imitation

We all have one author that we admire. They are the person we hope to someday be. We look at their words and aspire to be able to create that same magic ourselves. As much as you admire that author, remember not to imitate them. Imitation might be considered flattery in some professions, but in the writing world imitation can be considered a form of plagiarism. Every author should have their own unique voice. Maybe you don’t know what yours is yet, and that’s fine. If you keep writing and experimenting, you will find it.

Submitting Too Soon

In the excitement of finishing a new novel, some writers send out their story way too soon. Step away for a while and let your piece rest. Go back later and take another look at it. Find a critique partner or a beta reader to give you some pointers. Never jump the gun and send your work out when it isn’t ready. If you do, the chances of rejection are higher. This isn’t because the piece is necessarily bad. Maybe it just needs more details and some reworking. Take the time to make your story the best it can be before you submit.

Giving Up!

Getting published is not an easy task. For some authors it can take years to get published. Don’t be surprised when you get a stack of rejections in the mail. It’s the nature of the business. Rejections are hard to handle, but look at them as a learning experience. Keep writing. Keep believing in your ability to tell a story people want to read. Most of all, don’t give up.

(This a guest post by Mary Ellen Quigley. Mary is a paranormal romance author from Indiana, who got the writing bug as a child in the fifth grade. She started writing her first novel “Nocturne” in 2006, which is yet to be released. In 2009, Mary began writing “The Wild Side”  which was released in the summer of 2011. You can read more of her posts on her blog.)

(Image courtesy: Avolore from sxc.hu)

Writing is a craft, and every writer is a craftsman

Words are the basic tools that writers use to bring out the best in their work. Like any other craft, the best results can be achieved only with the best of tools.

Even if you possess a good set of tools, you need to constantly sharpen and improve them, so that your tool set does not become old and rusted. Similarly, you need to keep learning new words – your writing tools – to be able to write well and long.

Read as much as you can.

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

    – Stephen King

Since my school days, I have been surrounded by teachers and friends who wanted me “use a dictionary”. For, better or worse, I never paid attention to these people.

I simply read a lot.

When I encountered a word I didn’t know, I ascribed a meaning to it based on the context in which the word appeared. When I came across that word again, I checked out the meaning I had ascribed to it against the context in which the word appeared now. Over time, with this system of trial and error, I not only began to understand the meaning of words, but I also began to remember them.

This method had an added advantage that I did not have to take a break from reding to look up the meaning of a word in an dictionary.

A Dictionary tells you the meaning better.

At the risk of contradicting my earlier point, and sounding like all those people who wanted me to use a dictionary, I have to say that using a dictionary is the second best method to improve your word power.

You don’t have to consult a dictionary in the midst of a reading session because that may take the fun out of reading. You can, however, remember the hard words, and the interesting words, and look these up later when you are finished reading.

Also, there are words that have more than one meaning, and you can learn about the different meanings of the word only by consulting a dictionary. So, while I would still say that the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read a lot,  I would recommend the use of a dictionary as often as you can.

A Thesaurus is where the words live.

A thesaurus is a great tool to learn new words.

As a writer, I wasn’t using a thesaurus earlier because I strongly believed that the best word to use was the one that came naturally. But, sometimes when you read your writing again, you feel that there are words that stick out, and are best replaced. A thesaurus can help you find the right word to replace the one sticking out.

Additionally, going through a thesaurus can be an interesting way to spend your time if you have a knack for words.

Test your Word Power

As a child, I was a great fan of the monthly magazine, The Reader’s Digest.  It had great anecdotes, great stories, and it had a section on Word Power.

The first thing I used to do when the Reader’s digest arrived on our doorstep was to grab a pen and take the vocabulary test. Doing well in that quiz was always a satisfying experience, and If I did not do well, I was motivated to do better the next time. In this way, I not only got a chance to learn new words, but also found motivation to continue to improve my vocabulary. There is no reason you can’t do the same by taking vocabulary quizzes, which can be found in any good magazine.

So, these are a few ways in which I learn new words. What’s your source of words?

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You think that you have come up with a great story, and your friend accuses you of Plagiarism. There are very few things in life, let me tell you, that can irritate you more than such an accusation.

I, naturally, asked my friend about the part of my story that sounded copied.

“All of it,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. Then he continued to tell me how my story was a copy of the so many stories he had read before.

“Your story has a hero, who gets into trouble with a few bad guys, and in the end manages to solve all of his problems easily. Isn’t that how all stories go?”

For a while, I was troubled by what he said, because what he said was true.

I had to ask myself how my story was different from the so many others that have been written before me.

Eventually, however, I saw light, and realised that the search for uniqueness is something that may have ended many a writer’s careers.

The Fact is: There is almost nothing that has not been written before.

Maybe, if you keep writing long enough, you may be able to write something truly unique, but till then you will have to make do with whatever you can write. If you keep waiting till you come up with something unique, your wait may well last forever.

Stories are like finger prints.

On the face of it all fingerprints seem alike, but the reality is that the six billion people on our planet have unique fingerprints, and no two people have the same finger prints.

Similarly, the basic ideas behind the stories we write may be similar, but each story becomes unique when we add our own touches to the story. These touches are a result of our life experiences, and our reaction to these experiences. All of us come across different situations in life, and the way we deal with these situations is also different.

When we begin to use these experiences in our writing, our stories start becoming unique. We may take a familiar plot, and add to it our own style, and the result would be unique.

An excellent example of this phenomenon can be seen in James Cameron’s Avatar. The basic premise of the movie is nothing special – the rogue hero infiltrates the enemy camp, falls in love with the enemy, finds true love, has a change of heart and, in the end, good defeats evil.

However, anyone who has seen the movie will definitely agree with me when I say that the movie was something that none of us had ever seen before.

So, stop worrying about trying to be unique, because whatever you write in your own style will automatically be unique. Wouldn’t you agree?

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But, as usually happens, one day I was forced to watch the show. The circumstances which forced me to watch the show are not important. What is important, however, is the fact that I watched the show.

At the end of the show, I was surprised by the fact that I actually liked the show. I liked it, not only for the human interest element of the show, but also for the type of challenges that the participants have to face.

These challenges can be used by everyone, including writers, to improve their craft.

1. The Mystery box: The participants are given a set of ingredients, and they have to cook a dish using only these ingredients.

As a writer, you can challenge yourself by choosing a random topic, or asking a friend to give you a random topic, and write about it. For best results, the random topic should be different from the topics you generally write about. It will help you to think differently, and, therefore, expand your writing skills by challenging you to write about a subject that you usually avoid.

2. The Invention Test: The participants are given a core ingredient and they have to invent a dish using the core ingredient.

You can similarly test yourself by choosing a subject to write about, and then writing about it in a way that you haven’t done before. It is a way to challenge yourself to do something new. An individual is usually comfortable doing what he has already done, and doing something new takes extra effort and time that one usually wants to avoid. The Invention test is way to force oneself to find time to do new things.

3. The Pressure Test: The participants are asked to a cook a dish in a given time.

This one is simple. All you have to do is write what you usually do, only in lesser time. If you write a blog post in 40 minutes, then, as a challenge, set yourself a target of writing a similar blog post in 20 minutes. This test can help you stretch your limits, and make you more productive.

4. Team Challenge: The participants are broken into teams and given tasks to accomplish.

This one is slightly difficult as it involves finding like-minded people who would want to collaborate with you. A group of you can set yourself a combined goal and work on it. This will help you in building bonds with other writers, and create an environment where you can learn from each other. Writing, as it is, is a lonely craft, and the opportunity of finding like-minded friends is one that should not be missed at any cost.

5. Master Class: The judges teach the participants about how they could improve their cooking skills. The participants are told how they could have accomplished the tasks given to them over the weeks in a better way.

This one is the most complicated, as to do this you would require an able and a willing mentor to help you out. You can send him some of your writings and request him to review it and offer suggestion as to how you can improve upon what you have written. This part is also difficult because accepting criticism in a positive manner is a very difficult thing to do. But, one must do that, if one wants to improve.

These were some of the things that I learnt from Master Chef. So, now, would you agree with me when I say that the time I spent watching Master Chef was time well spent?