Ever made a writing mistake... a rookie error? Of course you have. My blog guest today is someone who is pretty much an expert - not on making mistakes but on helping others avoid them. Please give a warm welcome to Alex Gazzola, from the well-known blog Mistakes Writers Make. His new book 50 More Mistakes Beginner Writers Make is a must for anyone thinking of writing articles or non-fiction for magazines but a lot of the advice is just as relevant to fiction writers.
Over to you, Alex.
To err is divine … mostly!
When I
first started writing about writing mistakes, seven years ago, some writers,
not unreasonably, assumed I was doing so to be smug and boastful about my purported
writerly perfections, and snide and finger-pointy about others’ writerly
imperfections – but that was never the intention or motivation. I just wanted
to help non-fiction writers who felt somehow stuck.
So here’s
my take on mistakes:
1. Mistakes
are good. We all make them, they mean we’re doing something, and when we become
or are made aware of them, we can learn from them and correct them.
2. Mistakes
of which we’re unaware, and which aren’t stopping us doing what we want to do (from
running a blog or publishing an article, to selling a book proposal or making a
living from words) aren’t really a problem.
3. Mistakes
of which we’re unaware, and which are
stopping us doing what we want to do (typically, getting our work sold to
editors and noticed by readers) are a
problem.
Nobody deliberately
sets out to make mistakes in this business. They do what they think is right. But
doing it wrong feels the same as doing it right. Unless a tutor, or an honest
colleague, or some grumpy bald middle-aged bespectacled self-appointed mistakes
guru tells you otherwise, your mistakes won’t feel as if they’re mistakes.
So that’s
the idea behind the blog and the books: to help you see what you may be doing
wrong and to guide you towards putting it right.
The most
fundamental mistake to my mind is the notion that you can become a writer
without any help from anyone. But writing is such a team sport – you need a
support network of family and friends, people to help you research, the wisdom
of editors – that you just can’t play the game alone. You’re going to need
experts and other folk to interview if you write for magazines and papers, but
pretending you don’t, and refusing to seek out these individuals because you’re
intimidated by the thought, is a huge mistake that many beginners make.
When it
comes to subject matter, a common issue is to think you can make a living out
of writing whatever you want to write. But what editors want to publish and
readers want to read may not correspond to that – and writers need to accept it.
Sharing your opinion is another common error: there are exceptions, but
generally readers want hard facts, not the views of someone they don’t know and
don’t want to know. And there’s another mistake right there: assuming readers will
care about you. They won’t, on the whole. They care about themselves, and are
unlikely to even register your byline.
When it
comes to markets, some aim too high – The Times, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest.
You’ll hear success stories, granted, but in general the lesser-known titles
offer more fruitful hunting grounds. Niche magazines. You may think you can’t
write for a magazine dedicated to hair
or horses or Hondas, but you can. You just need to research.
What else?
Not reading enough – even refusing to read – is common. Being a bit sniffy
about writing fillers (such as letters and tips) or being seen in populist
magazines (Take a Break, That’s Life!). Having a fixed path for a writing
career mapped out before setting off – and declining to ever take an unexpected
left or right turning. Failing to have a target reader and market in mind when
writing. Thinking apostrophes don’t matter.
This is
not about ridding the writing world of all your mistakes and all of mine. Your
mistakes, to some extent, characterise you. Your flaws are often what make you
interesting. As the dating agency ad says, even if you don’t love your imperfections,
someone else will – or at least won’t mind them. What it is about is tackling
the ones that might be holding you back from your goals. I know I make lots of
bloopers (I’m rubbish at using dashes properly, for instance), but I’m too
grumpy and set in my ways to change, and I am exactly where I want to be –
warts, flaws, dodgy punctuation and all.
I hope you
are too (without the warts business, obviously). But if you’re not, it could be
that there’s just one little thing standing in your way. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll
find it on the Mistakes Writers Make blog …
Alex Gazzola is a writer who
specialises in allergies and food intolerances – as well as writing advice. He
is the author of two ebooks, 50 Mistakes Beginner Writers Make, and the newly
released 50 More Mistakes Beginner Writers Make. His blog is at www.mistakeswritersmake.com
