by K.J. Ness

Created on: October 08, 2007

Good writing is like chocolate. When the writing is made well and sustains its flavor to the end, the reader is left feeling satisfied and delighted. But when the writing has any of the following five problems, it just makes the reader want to spit it in the trash. To keep your reader happy, avoid these five things that kill good writing:

1. Telling. You've heard it a thousand times, from every writing teacher you've had and every critique group you've attended, "Show don't tell." Telling not only kills the momentum of a story, it kills the reader's imagination by guiding the reader to exactly what the writer wants the reader to know instead of allowing the story to play through the reader's mind like a movie. To avoid this common pitfall, be sure to use action verbs, dialogue, and plot to move the story forward instead of long narratives and exposition.

2. Failure to Edit. Nothing is a bigger pet peeve for a reader than to be in the midst of a great sentence and to suddenly come across a grammar or spelling error. The reader's mind screeches to a halt at the error like a record player hitting a scratch on the record. And this one is so simple to fix! Ever heard of spell check? Grammar check? Most computers these days do the editing for you. Take advantage of that. Never consider a piece of writing to be finished until you've read through it at least twice to be sure that there aren't any glaring mistakes.

3. Cliches and Tired Descriptions. Often writing suffers from a lack of originality. Cliches are overused in our everyday speaking habits, don't overuse them in your writing. Think of fresh new ways to say something to your reader. Every reader craves that certain description or bit of dialogue that has never been thought of before. Dig deep into your imagination and find a new way to say it.

4. Lack of Research. Nothing can ruin a story faster than mistakes in the facts related to the story. Even if you are writing about something that you think is too obscure for anyone to know about (pig wrestling, for example), someone out there, one of your readers, will know about it and will know when you have made things up instead of doing your research. A mistake in facts will cause your reader to lose faith in the story. You, as the writer, lose credibility. The reader begins to wonder, "what else is wrong with this story?"

5. Pace. The first sentence grabs the reader, takes the reader on a wild ride for the first chapter, then drops the reader flat in a long narrative description as soon as the second chapter begins. Pace can make or break a story. If the reader becomes bored, your book is going back on the shelf. You must develop a pace and sustain it through the story to keep the reader interested and involved.

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