Here are some of the most common mistakes I’m seeing in manuscripts from newer authors. How many have you been guilty of? 🫣

1. Too many dialogue tags. When two people are speaking, you don’t always need to indicate which one is talking. Often it’s obvious. You can also avoid overusing tags by incorporating action before or after:

Jenny smoothed back her hair. “You know, I’m thinking this isn’t going to work.”

“Well, I’m thinking you’re wrong.” Emma emphasized her point by kicking at a rock.

You don’t want to overuse these either—just enough so it’s clear who’s saying what.

2. “Creative” dialogue tags. A simple said is your friend—it doesn’t stand out. If you can’t cough, yawn, hiss, or growl the sentence, don’t use that verb as a dialogue tag. Anything more unusual than said—even yelled, cried, and shouted—should be used sparingly, if at all.

3. Adjective overload. Only describe things that are truly important to the plot. If we don’t need to know that the table is covered with a red, checkered, plastic cloth, don’t tell us. And in cases where you do need an adjective, just use one—not three.

4. Adverbs. I’m with King on this one. 99% of the time, you don’t need them.

5. Overexplaining. If we can guess that once she got into her car, she drove away, then you don’t need to tell us she sat down, fastened her seatbelt, turned the key, backed up slowly, etc.

6. Headhopping. If you’re going to tell a story from multiple points of view, there ideally should be a scene break between each one. Now we’re in Jenny’s point of view, and in the next chapter, we’ll switch to Emma’s. Hopping back and forth between multiple points of view in a single scene is confusing for the reader. So many writers will say, “But (insert name of famous author here) does it.” Yeah, they can get away with lots of things you can’t.

7. Skimping on research. This leads to ridiculous situations where reporters, investigators, doctors, etc. are doing and saying things that they’d never do or say, which shatters any suspension of disbelief the reader has. You don’t have to be a cop to write about cops, but at least talk to a few so you don’t have them enjoying donuts and coffee at a tailgate party moments before they bust a big trafficking ring. (Yes, this is a real example.)

8. The dreaded info dump. Okay, so you’ve done your research, but it doesn’t all need to be on the page. You may think the reader will find that stuff fascinating, but it’s just killing your pace. And if you think you can disguise it as dialogue, think again.

9. Description—too much or too little. Even if you avoid using adjectives, describing every stick of furniture in the place or every feature on the protagonist’s face isn’t necessary. Use description as a way to show us something important about a character or setting. Do rolling green hills tell us anything, other than to scan that section for the next interesting bit? No, but if there’s a crop circle smack in the middle of one of those rolling hills, that’d be good to know. On the flipside, not describing things the reader really needs to be able to picture accurately—like what moves the protagonist used to slip away from the killer—is just as bad.

10. Telling us too much about something before we care. Don’t tell me the character’s life story before I’m invested. Don’t describe every single detail about a fantasy world in the first paragraph of chapter one. Start with action. Grab the reader, make it interesting, and then start threading in those little details. I’ve received so many cozy mystery manuscripts that begin by describing the entire town and everyone in it before a body has been discovered. Grab us with the shocking discovery first, and then thread in the little details that will bring your story to life.