How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

by Howard Mittelmark

We do not propose any rules; we offer observations. “No right on red” is a rule. “Driving at high speed toward a brick wall usually ends badly” is an observation.

Do not think of us as traffic cops, or even driving instructors. Think of us instead as your onboard navigation system, available day or night, a friendly voice to turn to whenever you look up, lost and afraid, and think “How the fuck did I end up here?”

While it is your job to know a great deal about your characters, it is seldom necessary to share it all with the reader, and by “seldom,” we mean “never.”

Pick a pivotal action scene and start your novel in the middle of it, introducing your character when he is already in the midst of some gripping conflict, to get the reader instantly involved.

If, by chapter 3, you have only two characters playing a role in the plot—Chapter One, they meet; Chapter Two, the first date; Chapter Three, first kiss—your novel is probably suffering from a bad case of monogamy. Even if it is a light-hearted romance set in the bistros and boutiques of Manhattan, there’s something Twilight Zone–ish about it. The only real people in it are your two main characters, who do not interact in any significant way with anybody but each other. There are many problems with this. Some of them—tedium, boredom, monotony—are merely symptomatic. But one in particular makes it fatal. It does not feel like real life. However obsessed Annabel is with dating Ronald, she still has to go to work, deal with her family, score the painkillers to which she has been addicted since high school. In a monogamy plot, friends and relatives only ever call the protagonist in order to have long conversations about Ronald’s behavior on dinner dates. In real life, friends and relatives only call to have long conversations about themselves.

It is always a good idea to avoid letting the reader know what is going to happen before it happens. If a character details a plan of action before executing it, blunders or unforeseen circumstances should always arise, causing the plan to go awry.

When there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler, the action becomes dull and predictable, and the reader’s plan to finish your book is what gets derailed.

A good approach is to allow one dream per novel. Then, in the final revision, go back and get rid of that, too.

well-chosen detail is always more effective than the exhaustive inventory.

It is likewise unnecessary to introduce a mother and/or father into the narrative—usually through the medium of a long telephone call on the subject “How’s things?”—to demonstrate that the protagonist does, like all mammals, have parents.

“First, I bribed the Commissioner and paid a certain unscrupulous rival optician to take care of your meddling mother. One amusing adjustment to the glaucoma test machine and—well, she never saw what hit her!

Fiction is made of language and language is made of words. Writers have long appreciated words for their ability to communicate ideas to readers. Some writers, though, seem unaware that this works only when both parties agree beforehand on what words mean. Overlook this simple but essential precondition, and things can go wrong in a number of ways.

Using words the reader does not know is a bad idea, but it is at least defensible; there are excuses. There are no excuses for using words you yourself do not know. Nonwriters might wonder how this could happen, and frankly, from time to time, so do we, but it does, and with appalling frequency.

We have no way of knowing what words you are going to misuse, so we cannot offer you a list. What we can offer, though, is a test that you yourself can apply to any word, whenever you are in doubt. A Test: Do I Know This Word? Ask yourself: “Do I know this word?” If the answer is no, then you do not know it.

In almost all situations that do not involve immediate physical danger or great surprise, you should think twice before using an exclamation mark. If you have thought twice and the exclamation mark is still there, think about it three times, or however many times it takes until you delete it.

Writers find that they can get the most out of words and phrases when they are arranged in sentences. And, as sentences are exponentially more complex than words, your opportunities to go wrong now increase at a breathtaking rate.

We will at this point remind you that the purpose of writing is communication. There is no substitute for saying something, and the reader should be able to discover what it is you are saying without having to call and ask you in person.

For a greater sense of immediacy, many successful authors choose a first-person narrative (I raced as fast as I could down the stairs, away from the innocent-seeming cat) or tell their story in the present tense (I shift uncomfortably beneath the tarp. The ticking sound grows louder. Has the cat found me?). In all these cases, authors use interior monologue to enrich the story, which is mainly told through action.

PART VII HOW NOT TO SELL A NOVEL What’s that? Despite all our time and effort, you’ve written a publishable novel? No, we’re not angry. We’re just disappointed. Disappointed and hurt.

Some manuscripts end up looking like the label on a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s. This doesn’t just happen to the manuscripts of writers with abysmal spelling and punctuation skills; it is often because an author hasn’t bothered to correct all the typos. You have to correct all the typos. Surprise Quiz How many of the typos do you have to correct? None of the typos Some of the typos All of the typos