Gina here!
Yesterday, I talked about the first three mistakes teen writers make. Today I focus on the last four. But whether you’re a teen writer or just new to writing, these are mistakes all beginners usually make. With time and practice, you can master them and make them less common in your own writing.
Though teen writers have a good grasp of showing the actions of a scene instead of telling like younger writers, they still have difficulty showing emotions. They often use adverbs at the end of their dialogue. For example, she said, angrily. Or he said, shyly. A better way to write the dialogue would be to use an action beat to show the emotion. Instead of she said angrily, after the dialogue you can say, She hit the desk with her fist. No one likes to be told how to feel. The same is true with the reader. If you learn to allow the reader to feel your character’s emotions instead of telling them, it will make for a richer reading experience.
Teen writers tend to write about what they know. Which is a good place to start, but if you just write about fun people, school, annoying parents, and boys without giving your main character a goal, then your story will be boring. Every character needs to have a goal (or dream) and a greatest fear that they must face. That goal should be hinted to in the beginning of the story. But remember not to tell simply tell the reader the goal, but to show it.
Let’s take a look at the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is a typical teenager who doesn’t like her family or authority. She wants to escape. To run away somewhere over the rainbow. That is her goal in the beginning, but it’s not her story goal! That comes later when she is in Oz and wants to get back home to Auntie Em. But that’s another post for another day about story structure. The point is, don’t just have interesting characters on the page. Have them want something…something big and then send them on their journey. Which brings me to the next common mistake.
Once your character starts her journey toward her goal, there has to be conflict, preferably on every page. Yes, every page. But remember conflict comes in many forms. There’s internal conflict that is inside the character and stems from opposing goals, dreams, fears, insecurities, and past mistakes. There’s relational conflict where another character causes problems (external or internal) for the main character. And there is external conflict that comes from outside the character. Conflict is anything that slows the journey of your character and makes it more difficult (yet not impossible) for them to reach the end of their journey.
Now I know you love your characters and throwing problems at them is hard, but it’s necessary for a good story. Our job as authors, whether you’re a preteen, teen or adult, is to torture our characters so they can learn their lessons. Kind of sounds like a parent-child relationship, huh!
I was twenty-three and newly married when I started my first novel. I had an idea I couldn’t get out of my head, so I just started writing. How hard could writing a novel be? Four kids later in my thirties, I wrote THE END. Then I tried to sell it, and soon realized there was more to writing then just putting words on a page. There was something called story structure, and I needed to learn it to be a good writer. Needless to say, that first story never sold.
Now some of you might be thinking, oh great, story structure. {insert eye roll} A bunch of writing rules I have to follow. Instead of thinking of story structure as a bunch of rules, think of it as destination stops on the way to where you want to go. If you were taking a cross country trip, there would be certain places you’d stop. This is the basis of story structure. But HOW you get to those different places has endless possibilities. For example, you can start in New York and drive to Philadelphia. Then you can take a plane to Dallas, take a bus to Oklahoma city and maybe rent a motorcycle for the rest of your journey. Not so structured, now is it.
Whether you’re young or old, a new writer is a new writer, and we all need to learn the “rules” to great writing. The best thing about being a teen writer is you’re going to learn and master them way before most people. So go write! And help make these 7 common mistakes not so common!
I’m giving away ONE first chapter critique up to 10 pages (a $20 value!) to commenters on this post. I’m in the process of crafting an ebook for teen writers outlining the 7 mistakes and everything you need to know to structure a novel. If you would like to know when the ebook will be made available, or if you’d like to take my online story writng course, please leave your email. If you tell me you found me on Go Teen Writer you will get a 10% discount!
Stephanie speaking: Thank you so much, Gina, for being with us and for giving away such a fabulous prize! Hey, writers, you can get entered twice if you leave a comment yesterday and today. To get entered today leave a comment saying with of the 7 traits on Gina’s list trip you up the most: Too much backstory, not starting in the middle of the action, head hopping/POV, telling instead of showing, no goals, not enough conflict, or no story structure.
And learn more about Gina and her books at Writer … Interrupted!