5 Common novel writing mistakes

This is how I am when I write a novel:)

Writing a novel is hard enough. Writing one that will not only get published, but also sell is harder still.

But, what if you're writing your novel and you think something's missing? Could you be making one of these common mistakes?

1. Writing what you think will sell and not what you want to write - We all want to have a bestseller; to write the book everybody is talking about. But we won't do that if we don't write from the heart, because if we don't enjoy writing our books; if we don't put our heart and soul into our writing, who on earth is going to enjoy reading them?

2. Writing too much back story - Writers need to think like the readers they are and what can be worse than wading through heaps of backstory to get to the real story? You've read 30 pages of a novel and you know every intimate detail of the main character's life but guess what - the story hasn't started yet or its been dragged down by all that mind numbing backstory.

Tip - A little back story is fine, but generally back story should come out in dribs and drabs in the course of telling your story. Not as an avalanche.

3. Using the wrong point of view - Are you telling your story from the right POV? Is first person too restrictive (you can only tell the story through your narrator's eyes) or is third person not intimate enough?

Changing POV can work wonders.

4. Starting the story too late or too early - Every story should begin when something has actually happened or is about to happen. You need to hook the reader from the start, not expect them to skim read through a third of the book before they get to the good part. They won't. They'll put your book down. They won't buy the next.

One of the best books for writing tips.

5. Being too predictable - Have you ever read a book and thought "I feel like I've read this before" when you know you haven't? Why not follow a tip from Stephen King's On Writing and think "what's the most logical thing that should happen next?" then write the opposite.

Dealing with backstory

It can be so easy to fall into the trap of writing too much backstory. Aren't we all a product of what has gone on before in our lives? Therefore, it would follow that our characters are the same.

Liz Roberts who whittled down the Debut Dagger entries – ‘Many entries started off very well – and then ran the reader into the literary equivalent of a brick wall around page 3 or 4, because they couldn’t resist putting in a lot of backstory.’

The best piece of advice I have read came from literary agent Carole Blake in From pitch to publication -
'In order to illustrate a character trait, or a backstory element, demonstrate it with a scene, a snippet of dialogue, but don’t have the narrative address the reader like a newsreader reading facts.'