Common Writing Mistakes

26 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by Rachael Dahl in Editing, Editor, Intern, Writing Resources, Writing Tip

Kim Graff who has been a literary intern three times and an editor in several different jobs wrote a blog post on the most common mistakes made in manuscripts. Here is her list.

Overuse of names in dialogue.
Periods ending dialogue.
Lack of inciting incident.
Overuse of filter phrases.
Every scene must have multiple dimensions.

(For futher explanation of the above list, check out her blog here.)

I tend to struggle with numbers one and four. Every time I make a pass through my manuscript, I find these mistakes, even though I actively look for them every time.

If you’re a writer, what mistakes do you make?

Intern Meeting

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by Rachael Dahl in Editing, Intern

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Yesterday the agency I intern for had an intern meeting. I love them. They are every month, taught by different agents at the agency, and cover a wide array of topics such as literary scouts, rights fairs, and this month’s topic–editorial agents.

The agent discussed how she noticed that editors were passing on manuscripts for the same reasons. Once she eliminated these problems from her client’s manuscripts she started receiving higher advances. I thought I’d share the list so that our manuscripts can be as shiny as possible too.

Pacing
Characterization
Ending chapters with cliffhangers
Line by line cutting–are descriptions, thoughts, too blow by blow
Are there too many scenes that are just conversation
What is the heroine’s goal, is it clear from the beginning
Voice
Is the main character likeable
Is it marketable?
Doing too much set up in the beginning so the story doesn’t start quickly enough
Not showing enough growth/change in the main character
And her own pet peeves–conversations with “huhs” and “whats” and scenes where the character is just sitting around thinking.

Isn’t this a great list? Is there anything you think should be on there that isn’t?

Intern Update–Number Style

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Rachael Dahl in Agents, Intern, Manuscript, Personal

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This morning I was dinking around because I have nothing better to do. (I wish that were true.) During that time, I counted up how many manuscripts or partials I’ve read since I started interning. I thought I’d share.

With a couple of vacations and time off not included, I’ve interned for 30 weeks.

Here’s the breakdown for those 30 weeks and the following recommendations I made to my agent.

Read full or partial manuscripts: 66

Revise and Resubmit: 5
Offer of Representation: 4
Rejections: 57

The numbers are a little bleak, I know, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the manuscripts were horrible. In fact many of them were awesome, but just weren’t what my agent was looking for or had other issues. Some of those were well written, prose wise, but fell apart in pacing, conflict, tension, or character development.

I, also, noticed a trend with editing.

The number one problem with most manuscripts (not a deal breaker for my agent) was that towards the end of the story, there were way more errors than the beginning.
I can almost always tell when an author wrote their first draft in one tense and decided to switch it to another because there are quite a few verbs written in the wrong tense. (I so understand this problem, since I did the same thing and it’s just awful, almost soul sucking, to have to change the whole manuscript.)
There were quite a few that felt rushed at the end, like the author was sick of writing the story and the characters, which had such potential in the beginning, fell flat, more one dimensional than real.
Pacing. There needs to be tension and conflict, otherwise there is no story. So many stories started off strong and died somewhere in the middle or started off weak and picked up in the middle.

Overall, the caliber of writers were/are awesome and it makes me proud to belong to the writing community. There were so many times I said to my husband, “I wish I wrote like that.” So, my fellow writers, keep on writing and keep on perfecting your craft because the odds will be eventually in your favor.

The Bent Agency Intern Meeting

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Rachael Dahl in Agents, Intern

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I’m taking a break from writing because my brain is fried and I wanted to share a little insight into the chat meeting I attended today with all of the other interns. First of all, let me say we will now have these once a month and they will be hosted by each of the agents that work at the agency. Today’s was Jenny Bent and wow she sounds incredible. Anyone who nabs her as an agent is lucky. Second, she discussed her route to becoming an agent…it was very twisty and full of all the things a writer goes through–perseverance, rejection, and doing it because you love it.

It seems that it also takes perseverance after you sign with an agent. Not only does the editor have to love your book, but so does almost everyone else at the publishing house, including the people over subsidiary rights. Yikes! She also clarified the difference between being an editor and an agent. Basically, an editor is the middle man or woman at the publishing house and has to make sure everyone is happy while an agent’s job is to sell the book. (That’s a super basic definition, but it would take me too long to write it all out and I need to start on dinner for the kiddos.)

I found the meeting very informative and thought briefly about pursuing becoming an agent…briefly. It seems they are always busy and I like to have somewhat of a life.

Back Story Dump

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by Rachael Dahl in Editing, Intern, Writing

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While reading manuscripts for my agent, I have come upon this problem so many times and every time I do, I cringe because it completely kills my enthusiasm for the story. It usually results in a pass recommendation. Here’s a great post about dumping too much back story and how to fix it.

Internship Update

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by Rachael Dahl in Intern

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Okay so, I’ve been doing this for several months now and I have to say I LOVE IT!! Yep, I’m screaming that. Right now, Beth is teaching me how to write a pitch letter to agents. It’s like a query letter. I’m super nervous about this and I hope I don’t disappoint her too much. I’ve already given her a heads up about how much I suck at query letters. Here’s crossing my fingers that I’ll learn how to do this well and here’s hoping it will only make me a better query writer.

Top 5 Reasons Why A Manuscript Is Rejected

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by Rachael Dahl in Intern, Manuscript

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I know I’ve only been an intern for a little over a month, but I’ve had the opportunity to read eight manuscripts. Out of that number, my agent has offered representation to only one of the authors. All of the rest have been rejected. I thought I would provide insight as to the most common reasons the manuscript’s where rejected.

5. There isn’t enough meat to the story/adventure/journey.

4. The supporting characters are too flat, one-dimensional. Their only purpose in the story is to help the main character.

3. The premise isn’t engaging enough to keep the reader’s attention.

2. The narrative voice isn’t there, leaving the story lifeless, which makes the story all action and no emotion.

And the most common reason is:

1. The pacing is too slow. This applies to all genres, not just thrillers.