Photo by Geran de Klerk
So far in my career as an editor, I've had the good fortune to work with a series of smart, talented writers whose work I actually enjoy reading, even as I nitpick my way through their manuscripts. But no matter how good the writer, every ms is prone to at least a few (fixable) weaknesses. Here are some of the most common I've come across, with suggestions on how to avoid or fix them.
1. Unintentionally repeated words or phrases
Unintended repetition is by far the most common issue on this list. I have never read an unpublished manuscript in which it didn’t come up multiple times. In fact, I had to fix a few repeated words of my own as I wrote this post. The culprits might be commonplace crutches (like “therefore,” “as a result,” “however,” “even,” etc.) or more unique phrases that have stuck in our heads—often because we have just read them in our own writing—and probably feel like brilliant solutions each time we use them. Careful self-editing and a liberal use of the “Find” function in your word processing program will catch some of these, but you need another set of eyes (or, realistically, several sets of eyes) to fully eradicate them from your text.
2. Timeline errors
Timeline errors take several forms, but usually occur in manuscripts that jump around in time, either as part of the book's structure (for instance, when a first chapter actually takes place after most of the plot has occurred) or when characters must recount events that are not described elsewhere in the story (as in most mysteries). A good rule of thumb for combating timeline confusion is to consistently ask yourself whether the characters' ages progress at the same rate as each other and the major plot points. Do this while you are writing your text, because chronological errors are easy to read through in the self-editing and beta reading stages. To be truly certain your chronology makes sense, create a timeline that includes the ages of your characters and all plot points.
3. Lack of differentiation between the narrator’s/main character’s perspective and the author’s perspective
Good readers expect to be challenged by characters who represent life experiences and world-views other than their own. As a result, characters can typically get away with thinking or saying whatever they want without much risk of personally offending or irritating the reader. Problems arise, however, when audiences feel they are expected to share the narrator’s point-of-view, a predicament that can leave them feeling frustrated, resentful, or even angry, and ends with them putting down the offending book and never picking up another by its author. To avoid this, show your characters' thought processes and make sure everything they say or do is clearly grounded in their experiences and personalities. When writing in third person, avoid using judgmental language until you switch to your character's perspective. When writing unreliable narrators, make sure you show the flaws in their logic by clearly juxtaposing their thoughts and actions with both reactions of other characters and plot developments that run contrary to their expectations.
4. Assuming the reader sees the world the same way you do
This issue obviously goes hand-in-hand with the last one, but also extends to potential problems with world-building. Unless you have an in-depth understanding of your audience (and it’s usually best to assume you don’t), establishing a clearly defined world—from the psychological profiles of your characters to the details of your physical setting to the structure of your societies to the ways in which these aspects are interrelated—is crucial in communicating your vision to the strangers who will compose most of your audience.
5. Unchecked biases
Like it or not, who we are and what we believe comes out in our writing. This is especially true for culturally received ideas, including those that, when actively thought about, we might refute or even find disgusting. Although most writers steer clear of overt authorial bigotry, our biases can still come up in subtle ways, like casting the vast majority of powerful and professional characters as male and white, or having the only well-rounded characters be the ones that are essentially reflections of ourselves. There is no simple solution to this issue, but actively checking the gender and racial distribution of your characters and asking yourself whether the story itself presents a clear, logical reason for its demographics is a good place to start. Having a diversity of readers (and taking their critiques seriously) is also crucial. To be clear, I am not saying authors can't or shouldn't write stories that reflect societal biases, only that, when we do, those biases need to be firmly rooted in the worlds of our stories rather than the unexplored crevices of our own minds.