10 Biggest Mistakes I See in Begining Writers' Manuscripts

1. Lack of pacing, especially trying to tell too many scenes too quickly.

2. Starting with something really big that has no context and means nothing.

3. A lack of relationships that matter.

4. World building jargon that takes long minutes to parse through.

5. An evil villain who is Snidely Whiplash.

6. Telling too much backstory all at once. (My rule is one paragraph at a time.)

7. Good, meaty dialog that shows conflict between characters (rather than backstory).

8. A sense of layers. This can be a sense of humor or a great voice or foreshadowing.

9.Telling part of the story that feels like filler because someone else told them they had to.

10. Not knowing where to start and so starting in about five different places, one after the other. There is only one beginning.