Worst Amateur Writing Mistakes (With Examples!) 

It's such a prevalent issue because it's so sneaky! 😅

If you need help you just contact Albert from promotional ghostwriter venture

use alternate verbs or idk...theres too many to list honestly. ... he produced his billfold as i saw his hand come into view, and then he handed me the money... she reached, barely grasping the cup i...got ready to pay, by the time i took the money out of my wallet.... after selecting his choice spot Steve carefully reached a seated position hmm ok some of those are terrible but if you change the aspect of the action doing something to the object youre focused in on you can just reorder the sequence of things but youre not reqlly altering any tenses in anu way like a fumble in a game you can see it from the ball perspective ANNND the ball landed on the turf or the rustling of the grass as the ball lands... idk if any of those are good im also a novice. but it would be my easy work around. if its all throughout the story it could be repeititve also. sometimes we dont need to be told the action occurin with some object by a subject we just imply time ordered events we know how the process goes and theres no illustration necessary, instead why u do u want to say hes getting his wallet outt of his pocket? because you want the reader to attain a mental image of this man getting the wallet, because its idk descriptive of the characters style are they smooth or clumsy ...is done in haste? maybe then u need to say it as a way to say something useful for painting the character in ours minds eye with small little details. im tryng to always get better at the poetic way of using the LEAST words possible to convey te most vivd or at least informative ways of illustration. i might be a horrible writer TBH BUT....if one were to start practicing this way of using our broader vocabulary and then try to introduce similar mechanisms into our IRL speech patterns i think many people will be pleasantly UN surprised to learn that others feel it to be a highly effective way to communicate verbally or that it can even make people hear us more clearly and to be more attentive or liste to stuff said in conversation because it piques the ear and mind and is somewhatj satisfying to hear a person use words poetically. talkig like a list reading robot is a surefire way to get people to ignore your speech but in writing it just depends on the frequency of the simple way to prase it maybe?? but also this, you use it to your qdvqntqge to illustrate that there is some element of rote, mndane, repeitive, habitual, or reflexive sense to the area of the story where that repetition occurs. maybe you could even trigger subconscious responses to diffeerent like idk feels to the plot like for this whole chapter you didnt use the repeat phrase so later when we pick up the repeat again it trggers a sort of memory of the feeling from the earilier chapterj where you introduce the repettive thing...idk. thats too complex for me to figure out tho most likely. Dont listen to me though because im not a writer and it was all kind off the cuff ideas and my ESL is good but i make lots of mistakes. some people like repetition tho, as well. i hink less is more applies very well here. see how crap a writer i am?

i mean that seems like it makes a lot of sense, intuitively, good to know.

I agree -- the past perfect might work in shorter flash backs that are more in the moment, but it can get clunky real quick. If it's very clear you've jumped in the past, you can use Simple IMO, especially if you're devoting a whole chapter to it and you've shifted POV to say a dead character. Of course it must really matter to the plot and be something the reader is really wondering about, if you do this. New writer here.

Well said!

@@AlyssaMatesic Not your day, Alyssa. While you are correct in stating that subject/verb nonagreement is a big problem in English grammar, what you show from 05:04 onward is actually a misplaced modifier. · · · PARTICIPLES are verbal adjectives, GERUNDS are verbal nouns. Do not confuse 'ing'-suffixed words. Most times they are NOT gerunds. · · · As you show, there is NO problem with S/V ['run'/'took'] agreement. BUDAPEST 2022 SEPTEMBER 3 9.1 PM

@@magyarkivan6723 pedantry is the mark of amateurs.

Thank you! 😄

I'm glad they helped!

I'm so glad you notice the difference between your writing now and before! An important part of any journey is taking the time to self-reflect and see how far you've come. I hope you continue to grow in confidence as a writer!

I'm so glad! Best of luck with your fantasy novel!

@@AlyssaMatesic One cannot 'DISTILL UP', Alyssa. At 01:50, you said "… and you can distill it down and simplify it." Since 'down' is inherent in 'distill', your use of "DISTILL IT DOWN" amounts to a TAUTOLOGY. · · · Listening to your many videos, Alyssa, I have noticed that you often use other such tautologies, a sloppiness that many favor. BUDAPEST 2022 SEPTEMBER 3 7.7 PM

Yes, this is another technical mistake to watch out for!

I'm glad you caught them!

Glad it was helpful! I wish you the best with your middle grade novel!

Yes, that's a great perspective to have on writing 'it's! Thank you for sharing!

most people can barely select right tenses and in speech we do it commonly enough that its ignored. so you can make someone say it in story i any tense you want. that way youre not making a mistake the characer in story is and they have an accent or poor grammar/diction...lol

Yes, that's another way of demarcating the flashback scenes--by having the format of the novel denote when the narrative is in the past. Good question!

I think it is also a personal preference thing. Controlled use of redundancy and repetition makes the sentences swing better. (From the examples she gave, I preferred the unfixed one.) But... I also enjoy Kalevala meter style poetry and repetition is integral part of it.

Those repeated phrases are sneaky! 😂

@@AlyssaMatesic Too sneaky. Then my editor pointed some repeated ones as well. Thankfully all fixed.

Good point!

Have you contacted Albert yet? He helped me with my book publishing

If you're looking for a traditional publisher, there are many small publishing houses that specialize in poetry! The Big Five imprints do publish some poetry as well.

@@AlyssaMatesic thank you

I would consider them as obvious foreshadowing, as they directly mention that what is about to happen in the next chapter will affect what happened in the previous one. Thanks for commenting!

I don't have a number per say! But as long as your story is still understandable, with the mistakes not taking away from the story being told, a copy editor and proofreader can catch grammar mistakes and typos during the publishing process.

It's great that you're catching them! Good luck with your final edits!

I go over that issues in this video about dialogue mistakes here!: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YWJuS-Noc9A.html

That's fair! Although I will say, a little hook is different from a heavy handed hook 😊

@@AlyssaMatesic I just love how it pulls you in, like a couple have a good day and then its all "the day with Peter was magical, it was also the last time she would see him alive." I'm immediately like "ohhhhh shit, what happens to Peter?! I've gotta start this next chapter NOW!"

She has lots of good advice, but she is incorrect about this. Most writers use “had” maybe once at the top of the flashback, then switch to regular past tense so it is readable :)

@@bfreecity ok interesting thanks for the input 🙏🏼

Actually, I think that is an example of a dummy subject, rather than an undefined it.

Seriously? It's always been clear to me that the "it" is "the period" -- much like the present -- which the writer is going to tell me about. I think it's a great opening. But that's strictly my personal opinion. I may write like the dickens, but I don;t write like Dickens. :)

It sounds more like a lack in reading comprehension that’d be improved with continued exploring of literature. Which sounds harsh, but is honestly true. The sentence speaks for itself.

The sentence even explicitly states what the ‘it’ is after the em-dash. It’s referring to ‘the period’.

I prefer the very next sentence in A TALES OF TWO CITIES which is: "There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. " A reader of this sentence will ask what king and what queen? This is a comparison of the rulers of both England and France. A reader will wonder if a judgement is being made here where the queen of England is described as having a "plain" face while the queen of France is described as having a "fair" face. Is the queen of France more "fair" in her rule of her people than the queen of England? Is the queen of England a ruler who makes "plain" or unimaginative rulings over her people? Both kings are described as having "large" jaws. Are all kings the same? This sentence is specific to this book. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." and the rest of this very long sentence does not make me as a reader want to read this book. Even for the time period, this sentence is too long. The second sentence about the kings and queens of England and France makes me want to read the book. I wonder what Alyssa Matesic, the creator of this video, would advise a writer about really long sentences.

Yes, great clarification! Thanks for sharing :)