Transcription
I've edited over a hundred manuscripts in the last 5 years. Different genres, different skill levels, different stories. But here's the thing that keeps me up at night. I keep seeing the same mistakes over and over and over. Not typos, not grammar issues, not "should this be a comma or a semicolon?" I'm talking about the deep stuff. The stuff that makes a manuscript feel amateur even when the writing is technically perfect. The stuff that makes agents stop reading on page three. Stuff that makes readers put the book down and never pick it back up.
And here's what's wild. Most authors have no idea they're doing it. They've read all the writing advice. They've taken the courses. They've revised 17 times. But these mistakes, they're invisible to the person who wrote them until someone else points them out. So today, I'm going to show you the seven mistakes I see in almost every manuscript that crosses my desk. And more importantly, I'm going to show you exactly how to fix them. Because the difference between an amateur manuscript and a professional one isn't talent, it's knowing what to look for.
The first mistake I see is the explanation addiction. This is the big one. This one I see in literally 90% of manuscripts. Authors explain things that the reader has already figured out. Let me show you what I mean. The before would be: Sarah slammed the door behind her, angry and frustrated. She was upset because Tom had forgotten their anniversary again, and this made her feel like he didn't care about their relationship anymore. Now, do you see what's happened here? We got the slam, and then that really told us everything. But then the author explained that she was angry and frustrated, and why she was angry, and what the anger meant. The reader already knew all of this from "slam the door," but the author didn't trust us to get it. Here's what this becomes after editing: Sarah slammed the door behind her. Three years, three forgotten anniversaries. That is so much stronger. We still know she's angry. We felt the slam. We still know why the anniversary pattern. We still know what it means. This isn't the first time. And that repetition tells us everything about how she feels. But we're not being told any of this. We're discovering it. And discovery is so much more powerful than explanation. So, here's the fix. Every time you write an emotion word, ask yourself, "Did I already show this?" If the answer is yes, well, then cut the explanation. Trust your reader. They are smarter than you think.
Mistake two is the talking heads problem. And this one drives me absolutely crazy. Dialogue that sounds like a therapy session instead of a real conversation. People explaining their feelings to each other in complete, articulate sentences. So, let me give you an example. Here's the before: "I'm feeling really conflicted about this decision," James said. "On one hand, I want to pursue my dreams, but on the other hand, I don't want to disappoint my family. It's a difficult position to be in." When was the last time you heard someone talk like this in real life? Never. That's when real people, especially when they're emotional, don't give TED talks about their feelings. They fragment. They contradict themselves. They avoid the real point until they just can't anymore. So, if I was editing that dialogue, here is how I would change it. The after would be: "I don't know," James turned away. "The band... or I mean, Dad's already printed the business cards. My name, his company." Do you see the difference? We get the same conflict: dream versus family expectations, but now James can't even finish his sentences. He changes direction mid-thought. He focuses on a specific, painful detail: the business cards with his name already printed. And this shows how actual humans talk when they're struggling. So the fix is that real dialogue is messy. Let it be messy. People interrupt themselves. They trail off. They say one thing when they mean another. If your dialogue reads smoothly out loud, it's probably too polished.
So the third mistake is the point of view drift. Now this one is sneaky. I see it in manuscripts, even by very experienced writers who I'm sure know better. It happens when the author accidentally slips into someone else's head. So, here's an example: Marcus watched her leave. He wanted to call after her, but his pride wouldn't let him. Sarah hoped he would stop her, but when she reached the end of the driveway and looked back, he was already gone. So, did you catch it? We started in Marcus's point of view. We're in his head. He wanted to call after her, but then suddenly we're in Sarah's head. She hoped he would stop her. And if we're in her head, how do we know he's already gone? Is she psychic? This happens because the author knows both characters' thoughts and forgets that the reader can only know one at a time. So, here's the fix. This is how I would change it: Marcus watched her leave. He wanted to call after her, but his pride wouldn't let him. By the time he changed his mind and went to the window, her car was already pulling away. Now, we stay with Marcus the whole time. We don't know what Sarah's hoping. We just see her leave. And that moment of him going to the window, that's him changing his mind, but too late. It's more dramatic. It's more focused. It's more real. The rule to keep in mind is one scene, one head. If you switch, make it a very clear break and never let yourself slip into another character's internal thoughts mid-scene.
The fourth mistake is the stakes that never land. This might be the worst one on the list because you can have brilliant prose, perfect pacing, cracking dialogue. But if your stakes don't land, none of it matters. And here's what I mean. Authors tell us the stakes are high, but they don't always make us feel the stakes are high. An example would be: If they didn't reach the vault before midnight, everything would be lost. The mission would fail, and the consequences would be disastrous. Now, that's pretty generic. "Everything would be lost." "Consequences would be disastrous." These are almost placeholder phrases. They're the writer's note to themselves to insert real stakes here. But sometimes that note never gets replaced with the actual stakes. Now, watch what happens when we get specific. Here's how I would change it: If they didn't reach the vault before midnight, the bank system reset would lock them out. Six months of planning, $12,000 in equipment, and Jake's brother's bail money due at 9:00 a.m. Okay, now I care because now I know exactly what they lose. Time, money, and Jake's brother sits in jail. The last detail, the brother's bail, that's the human cost. That's what makes it hurt. So the fix here is that vague stakes sound big but ultimately they feel meaningless. Specific stakes sound small but feel massive and give us the human cost, the personal cost, the thing that can't be undone. That's what makes readers turn pages.
Now mistake five is the pacing plateau. Here's a mistake I see mostly in the middle of manuscripts. Everything slows down to the same pace. Doesn't matter if it's a tense confrontation or a quiet moment of reflection. It all moves at the same speed. Here's an example: Rachel walked into the abandoned building. The floor creaked beneath her feet. She looked around slowly, taking in the dusty furniture and broken windows. She wondered if anyone had been here recently. The silence felt heavy and oppressive. So, nothing was wrong with this except it's all moving at walking pace. Every sentence is roughly the same length. Every action takes the same amount of space. But here's the thing. Pacing should match emotion. If Rachel's scared, the prose should feel scared. So, here is how I would improve it: Rachel stepped into the building. Floor creak. She froze. Listened. Nothing. Just her own breathing. Too loud in the dead air. She moved deeper in. You see what happened? The sentences got shorter, choppier. We're now in her nervous system. "Floor creak." Instead of "the floor creaked beneath her feet," "she froze." In two words of pure attention. "Listened. Nothing." Fragmented sentences that mirror her fractured attention. So the rule to follow here is sentence length equals emotional temperature. Calm moments: longer, flowing sentences. Tense moments: short and sharp. Mix it up. Give the prose rhythm. Let the structure reinforce the feeling.
Now the sixth mistake is the first page that starts too early. And this one really breaks my heart because I'll read a manuscript where page seven is absolutely brilliant. The voice is there, the hook is there, the story is there, but pages 1 through six, they're the author warming up. And here's what I mean with an example: Detective Hayes woke up on Tuesday morning and went through his usual routine. He made coffee, checked his phone, and thought about the case that had been bothering him for weeks. After breakfast, he drove to the station, greeted his partner, and sat down at his desk. That's when Captain Morrison walked in with the file. The real story starts with the file. Everything before it was just treading water. The author thought we needed to see the routine first to establish normal before we disrupt it. The truth is, we don't. So, a fix for this would be: The file landed on Hayes's desk at 9:47 a.m. He was still holding his coffee when Morrison said, "Three bodies, same signature as the case you never solved." Boom. We're in. We don't need the morning routine. We don't need to see him drive to work. We need the moment that changes everything. So the fix to stop this happening in your writing is start where the story starts, not where the character's day starts. So look at your first page. Now look at your seventh page. Which one makes you want to keep reading? Start there. And everything else, just cut it or sprinkle it in later when we actually care.
Now mistake seven is the overwritten everything. This is the last one. And it's the hardest to fix because it feels like you're making your writing worse, but you're not. I promise. Overwriting is when you use three sentences to do the job of one. It's when you describe every detail of a room, every nuance of an expression, every layer of a feeling. It's when you're so in love with your prose that you forget to let the story breathe. So, here's an example: The rain fell heavily from the dark, ominous clouds that have been gathering all afternoon. Each drop hit the pavement with a sharp, percussive sound that echoed through the empty street. The wind howled mournfully, bending the trees and sending loose papers skittering across the wet concrete like frightened animals fleeing from danger. Beautiful, right? But also exhausting. We get it. It's raining hard. It's atmospheric. But we don't need this much detail for rain unless the rain is the main character. So watch how I would change this. I would improve it to: The rain hammered down. Papers scattered across the empty street. Two sentences, the same scenes, and the same mood. But now we can move forward. And here's the hard truth. Your reader's imagination is so much more powerful than your description. Give them the key details and let them fill in the rest. The fix is count your adjectives. If you have more than two in a row, you're overwriting. One vivid detail beats five generic ones. "Hammered" does more work than "fell heavily from the dark, ominous clouds." Trust your verbs. Trust your nouns. But ultimately, trust your reader. And for the love of everything holy, trust the power of some white space.
Now, here's what I want you to understand. Every single author I've worked with has made these mistakes. If not all of them, definitely some of them, including the ones who went on to sell thousands and thousands of books, including the ones who hit bestseller lists, including me in my own writing. These aren't signs that you're a bad writer. They're signs that you're a writer who's still in your own head. You're explaining because you want to make sure we get it. You're overwriting because you care about your craft. You're starting too early because you want us to understand the world. These mistakes come from good intentions. But here's the thing. Good intentions don't make good books. Good decisions do. And now you know what decisions to make. Now go back through your book with these seven fixes in mind. And I promise you, you'll be shocked at how much stronger it becomes. And let me know in the comments down below which of these you fixed, which of these you noticed you were doing the most. And I would love to hear what you went on to change in your book. YouTube will now be recommending another one of my writing videos to help you with your next book, just here. So, go ahead and watch that one next.