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Writing is so multi-faceted and so complex, that quite often, errors slip past an author's mind, no matter what kind of writing it may be. Journalistic article mistakes are easy to fix when compared to those of fiction - creative writing is a creature of its own world.

The creative writing world consists of words fraught with power and meaning, and when talking about stories and novels, each word must pull its own weight. In fact, it is within the realm of stories and novels that many subtle mistakes are made over and over again.

1.) For too many fiction writers, the first error occurs within the first few pages; often in the first paragraph. Just as a journalistic column needs a good lead, so too does a good story. Only in fiction, it is called a "hook". The writer is supposed to hook a reader's interest in to reading the next line, the next paragraph, and so on.

The trouble arises when only the author sees the beginning as interesting. Perhaps his/her first line brings no question to a reader's mind. It just sits there as a statement of no import; maybe it is interesting, but has nothing to do with the rest of the tale; is unnecessary back story in flashback form, or starts off very slowly. All beginnings should start in the middle of action somehow.

In fact, when writing a beginning, a writer should keep three things in mind; that the initial set up of where and when the story starts should be narrative description; that the start needs to be a character in the midst of action, and that the first line/paragraph must raise story questions in the reader's mind.

For example, a novel starting with the hero driving at night with a gun on the passenger seat of his car, begs the questions where is he going in the middle of the night that he needs a gun? Why is it on the seat, and not hidden? What if the cops catch him, or he gets killed? These are questions a reader asks him/herself that keep him/her reading.

On the other hand, a character that starts the first line as sitting eating breakfast, raises no questions - unless something unexpected happens by the second line. If the marmalade was poisoned with arsenic, and there's no one around, if the character reacts, then suddenly there's interest. Why was he poisoned, and by who? What type of poison is it, and why did that character have to die? The reader becomes curious, and reads on.

2.) A second error fiction writers make is constructing boring, blas characters. To avoid this, one should always keep

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