Mistakes to avoid when writing
I have come across many books that had something indigestible, a jarring line. Do you know that annoying feeling that grabs your stomach, that drips into your mind while you are reading forming a small puddle of disappointment on each page? Then it can remain small, or become an ocean.
It will be that unfortunately I have assumed that “professional deformation” damn … and when I read if I’m not 100% taken from history I find myself inevitably thinking about its aspects, I split the book into a thousand pieces and recompose them. Same thing with the movies, because of the cinema studios, I wonder sometimes if they were bad or good.
It happens to stumble while reading in things that turn up their noses and that sometimes damage the book to the point of ending up boring, or forcing the reader to lower the vote and, in the most serious cases, even to abandon it.
The following are for me the unforgivable mistakes that any writer should try to avoid, because the reader does not deserve them! All the mistakes to avoid when writing (in my opinion), identified during the experience I gained as a writer but even more as a reader. Then I’d like to know if you agree.
They are more or less serious but all with that same irritating face, of those who look you straight in the eye and tease you until you puff with exasperation.
Probably the first place is the lack of empathy with the characters. Not being able to identify with the characters, walking in history alongside them is the thing that saddens most and makes reading dull, boring. And if at least some kind of involvement is not empathetic, only possible if the character is not flat like a table but has a character, a soul.
For me, any character, and this is what I learned, becomes a person, a being that breathes and lives, only when he has his backstory, a past behind him. It is the backstory that makes them different from each other, which gives them that soul and allows identification. Then the spark, that empathy can be triggered and not, but you will always remain intrigued in following it, whether the character is a saint or … a madman.
“The scent” by Patrick Süskind is a clear example. The protagonist, Grenouille, in addition to having goals that are not exactly orthodox, is obviously one with serious problems, not to say psychopathic, and yet you want to follow him, even identify yourself (sometimes with him!) And make an impression, because the experience it’s one of those that shakes.
The clichés and the choice of the most classic and banal possible route come immediately after. A writer should do everything to find the less obvious solutions. Of course, it is said that nothing is really original by now, but effort is necessary.
I usually when I have a character at a crucial turning point I pull out my trusty block and throw down possible paths, if I’m lucky the character will show it to me without too much effort, but often he jumps into known paths, so what to do? Delete and search for another solution, and again and again, until the most original one has been found. Understanding a twist twenty, thirty pages before it happens is demeaning and unbearable. In short, we need a minimum effort. We owe it to ourselves, to the characters and to our readers.
The lack of clarity in the plot is added with its beautiful load of a thousand. Reading an incomprehensible story or without a rhyme or reason, which makes it difficult to follow events, well it bothers me. Not you? I do not want to say that it must be linear at all costs, for heaven’s sake, a person who likes to jump happily jumping from one side to the other, putting flashbacks here and there, or reversing the points of view, comes to tell you. aranci ”is a clear example, but it must have a meaning, a reason for it.
Reading must be clear, yes, but also stimulating. And to stimulate means to tease the reader from time to time, to push him to reflect, and why not, sometimes to confuse him so he will be encouraged to continue to understand better. Some mystery, not a whole host of questions thrown there just to intrigue, but you don’t even have any idea how to solve! No sudden turns that change the deep foundations of the story. Always be consistent, right?
In the following article I continue with my roundup … stay with me! But above all let me know what you think. What do you think are intolerable errors in a book?