Your stupidest writing blunders

How long have you got?

My first ever fantasy novel (which I thought was the next Tolkien), I started off with a four page info-dump, didn't get to the story til about page 20, had characters with unpronounceable names derived from Welsh (lots of LLs and DDs and FFs), really dodgy humour too, including some cows that exploded at one point, fifteen thousand POV characters... It did have a really cool bad guy though.

In my latest, I have a character called Magnus Ravenhowe, and discovered that I'd been spelling it 'Ravenshowe' every alternate chapter. The name of my parliament in the same story is the 'Sansiege' and I spelled that wrong for a long time. 'Add to dictionary' is now my best friend on MS Word.

I don't remember who I did this with but I remember once going through nearly a whole book before I realised I was calling one of the characters by the wrong forename (he was referred to in the narrative by his surname) whenever someone else addressed him.

The fact that I keep trying to do it.

But I loved Ddexelleffelleddengohgohgoh!

JessRamage said:

How long have you got?

My first ever fantasy novel (which I thought was the next Tolkien), I started off with a four page info-dump, didn't get to the story til about page 20, had characters with unpronounceable names derived from Welsh (lots of LLs and DDs and FFs), really dodgy humour too, including some cows that exploded at one point, fifteen thousand POV characters... It did have a really cool bad guy though.

In my latest, I have a character called Magnus Ravenhowe, and discovered that I'd been spelling it 'Ravenshowe' every alternate chapter. The name of my parliament in the same story is the 'Sansiege' and I spelled that wrong for a long time. 'Add to dictionary' is now my best friend on MS Word.

I don't remember who I did this with but I remember once going through nearly a whole book before I realised I was calling one of the characters by the wrong forename (he was referred to in the narrative by his surname) whenever someone else addressed him.

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OMG! There are so many!
My first, though, was when I was about 15. I was almost finished with my sci-fi novel and I thought, "Hey! I'll get a jump on it and start shopping for a publisher before it's finnished!" Well, the worst of the worst happened. A publisher wanted to see it before I was done! Needless to say, the editor passed. lol

Voyager said:

But I loved Ddexelleffelleddengohgohgoh!

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I remember the MC's name was Lleuad, someone else had the surname Dhakhfferren...I cringe now as I think about it.

Let's see...on my first finished MS, when I finished the first draft I had: a long-winded and completely useless prologue; enough adverbs to fill an unabridged dictionary; not one but two Mary Sues; and I ignored my own glossary of made-up words and index of characters, and had to spend several weeks figuring out who was who and who was saying what. Worst of all, I wrote the first 4 chapters 5 years ago and forgot it until 2 years ago, when I picked it up without editing that part (or, as was eventualy necessary, deleting it altogether) and kept going like my style hadn't changed. I think I spent more time editing it than I did writing it.

Oh, and my first query letter had this pretentious (and incredibly stupid) paragraph that went something like "I subscribe to the "D&D" schol of fantasy; I believe a novel should have a glossary, a map, a prologue and an index."

Amazingly, I got full requests off that, I dunnno how. One agent was even kind enough to advise me (in a very droll email) to take the D&D reference out of my query.


*cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe*

Last night I was doing a bit of editing on my WIP. A woman who runs a Bed and Breakfast place figures quite prominently. Every single time I referred to the Bed and Breakfast I called it a Bread and Breakfast. Every single time. Duh!

sunna7kore said:

Amazingly, I got full requests off that, I dunnno how. One agent was even kind enough to advise me (in a very droll email) to take the D&D reference out of my query.

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You know, that is the weird thing, I got full requests off that silly MS of mine too, and loads of really personal, encouraging rejections instead of form ones. Maybe in my case it was pity...

When I was in college I took a couple of history of theatre classes from a really awesome professor. I was so inspired I decided I was going to turn one of my short stories into a stage play. (This is after studying plays for what, maybe 4 months?) I thought it was brilliant and asked her if she wanted to see it. She appreciated my enthusiasm and invited me to her office for a chat. I came in all nervous, expecting her to say how wonderful it was and that she wanted to do it for the next production. Ha! Instead she kindly, patiently detailed all of the ways I had gone wrong-- pointed out some very basic, basic stuff about the differences between acting something out and just reading it.

Yeah, it was one of the most horrible half hours of my life. And she was so NICE about it, too.

My greatest mistake in writing a novel? Thinking that typing "The End" at the bottom of the last page of the first draft meant that for real. It took a long time for me to realize that maybe, just maybe, I might have to rewrite it--just a little. Then I started it and shrank in horror at all of the glaring faults.

I wrote an 800-word feature about a pair of brothers. One was dying of bone cancer and needed a marrow transplant. The other donated the marrow. As written, the story was fine, brother helping to save a brother's life. However, the magazine failed to follow up when it ran the story almost 9 months later, after I'd left the staff.

The sick brother died three months before it ran. The story ran as is.

Although this was an editorial blunder, I accepted full responsibility, and called the brother, though actual editorial responsibility lie with the editorial staff after I'd left.

My stupidest blunder was to wait until I was almost 60 years old before I started writing seriously.

I enjoy it so much I wish I had begun 50 years ago.

Just last night I was proofing my manuscript and read a passage where one character thinks another character is a "swaggert." It took me a few minutes to realize my error, that I had meant to use "swaggerer". I guess I somehow combined "braggart" and "swaggerer."

I was laughing my butt off until I remembered an agent has the full.

I wrote my first novel in first person, solely because I thought it was easier.

Yeah, that didn't work out so well.

Oh, and for my second novel, I wrote this stupid SF story that might have been relevant in the early nineties, with stupid virtual reality technology, but the story had been outdated by over a decade before I even wrote it.

Haha, I was thinking, like, related to the televangelist??? too funny

clara bow said:

Just last night I was proofing my manuscript and read a passage where one character thinks another character is a "swaggert." It took me a few minutes to realize my error, that I had meant to use "swaggerer". I guess I somehow combined "braggart" and "swaggerer."

I was laughing my butt off until I remembered an agent has the full.

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miles said:

So, come on, fess up to your most embarrassing writing blunders that were caught by readers.

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Where to begin? I hate to think of what will turn up after I'm published. Once it's out there, it's out there! 1) Posting stuff I now regret posting, including terrible writing samples.

2) I went to a writer's conference at a local college, and some prominent agents/editors were there. I was walking around with a copy of my ms in a satchel, and I found myself with an audience of agents/editors during an intermission. I kinda said, "Would you like to look at my story?"

When they asked, "What's it about?" I had no answer. It never dawned on me that someone would want me to sum up what the story was about.

3) A year later I'd gotten an agent to request a partial. Then they asked for a re-write of the opening. I wanted to get this back in 48 hours. The problem was that I never put it aside long enough to look at it impartially, and when I finally read what I wrote I was mortified. It was horribly written and it got rejected.

However, everyone that rejected my work did me a favor as it always forced me to go back and improve on what I'd written. What I wrote before was pretty embarrassing.

When I was in college I worked for Waldenbooks, and the company sponsored a contest for store employees: write a short story and submit it to their in-house press, Longmeadow Press, and their editorial staff would choose the best ones. The winners would get their stories published in that book which would then be sold in their stores nationwide. I'm sure winning contributors got free copies, but I don't remember now, this was 1992.

So I got busy and wrote a fish out of water story about a guy who lives in the country, kind of a hayseed, who is just starting college in the Big City. Suddenly he's surrounded by people and things he's never encountered before. The problem was, I didn't have a clear idea of where the story should lead, and ended up having the MC meeting a group of goth-type people whom he befriends, then his uncle tells him about how "dangerous" these types of people are what with their drug use and whatnot (rolls eyes). The MC confronts his goth friend (named Bugger (yes Bugger)) about it, who gets insulted, then pops some mystery pill that makes him wind up in the hospital--he does this to show MC that if MC believes it, Bugger might as well make it so. Anyway, the story ends with the characters not knowing if Bugger will pull through.

It was soooo lame. I liked it at the time, but it was full of tell and not show, and probably lots of attaching physical actions to dialog. I don't know anymore. I still have a copy but can't read it. I showed it to a friend of mine in 1996 and his reaction was that it read like a really bad after-school special.

I think it was called "Black Mondays." The title came from the name of the band playing at the bar where Bugger dropped that fatal pill.

Anyway, after I worked really hard on it, I submitted it to the contest. Eventually I got my first rejection slip. Ah well, such is life.

I think my biggest mistake here was focusing so much energy on such a lame story.

allen

Attempting to describe a 'loincloth' before I realized the word 'loincloth' existed.

I was 14.
I was writing the next great White Captive historical romance.
Hey...I liked bodice rippers, n'kay?

My biggest blunder is perhaps anagrams. I used to have a bad habit of making one up, putting it into the story and then writting as it's unjumbled form every time it came up. And that applied to names, riddles, etc. Got really annoying in the end.

Internal inconsistencies. Here's an example:

"Susan walked into the room wearing jeans and a blue top that may have revealed more than she intended. She sat down and..."

Two pages later I wrote, "Susan stood up. Smoothing her dress, she..."

But she was wearing jeans.

Things like that crop all over my manuscripts. I forget if something is happening in the morning or afternoon. On one page a character is driving a Ford and in the next chapter it turns into a Toyota.

Etc.

My first attempt at a fantasy story had me plagiarizing characters of the novel I was reading at the time and (thinking I was clever) creating a bad guy with the name NATAS (Look in a mirror). I was 11 years old at the time. My English teacher told me it was crap.

My next blunder occurred at age 17 when I made up a kingdom based on the Cross Country/Track team I was on. I took the names of all my teammates and made characters out of them including their personalities. Names like Jon the Pretender (a guy that seemed like a politician even then) or Pamela the Wanton Whore. Then I'd describe current gossip/relationships/typical high school drama events in a fantasy setting. I'd only shown it to two or three of the people and one of my friends got a real kick out of it. He xeroxed it and somehow gave one to everyone on the team. While most everyone found it funny or at least mildly amusing (those that got light mentions), those that I slammed and really tore into (or revealed details of things I should not have) never spoke to me again.

I really liked that story too. I wish I could find it.

Names, names, names...

In my latest novel, I have a major character who's known as "Barton" (his last name) throughout. Only twice does his first name get mentioned, and of course it turns out he has two different first names.

In the opening chapter is a minor character named Earl. Two chapters later a villainous character is introduced as Earl.

Later in the book, Barton is accompanied by two other men who work in his spy agency. Everyone in that chapter has a last name that starts with B. (But hey, it worked for Superman, whose every female companions' first and last names start with L!)

Jack Nog said:

My first attempt at a fantasy story had me plagiarizing characters of the novel I was reading at the time and (thinking I was clever) creating a bad guy with the name NATAS (Look in a mirror).

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Which reminds me: Is there anyone here who didn't immediately recognize REDRUM as murder spelled backwards? I couldn't believe King thought it would get past anyone, and it's one of the reasons I'm loathe to try to fool my readers. I always assume they're at least as smart as I am.

Alvah said:

My stupidest blunder was to wait until I was almost 60 years old before I started writing seriously.

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I'm right there, in spades. I started writing horror stories in high school (mid-1960's), where they consistently won awards. Then I went to college and stopped writing. I spent most of my adulthood thinking about writing horror, but didn't get around to it until the late 80's, just when the formerly-biggest genre in the country was dying!

After THOR was published in 1991, I spent two years on my magnum opus vampire novel, only to discover (the hard way -- I found an agent who spent well over a year trying to sell it) that no one was publishing horror, and especially not vampire novels.

I'm not trying to brag, but I know I'm a better writer than about 80% of the horror authors published in the 70's and 80's (when the genre was huge, all sorts of crap got published). Today I'm holding a shit job while trying to sell a non-horror novel. If I'd started right after reading 'Salem's Lot, I'd be retired in comfort now.