6 Common Manuscript Mistakes, and Strategies I Use with Writers to Avoid Them

Take These Proactive Steps Now to Make Revisions Easier Later

Editors and book coaches frequently see different writers make the same mistakes in manuscripts over and over again. As a book coach, I believe in the power of a little foundational planning now to make for a much smoother revision process later, and that includes measures that help writers avoid these common writing missteps. 

When writers come to me with an initial story idea, but have yet to write pages or are in the early drafting stages, we use my Craft Your Story Blueprint approach, which incorporates key components of Jennie Nash’s celebrated Blueprint for a Book method as well as my own processes that I’ve fine-tuned as I’ve worked with writers through the years.

I use this with my authors who identify as Pantsers as much as Plotters, and I often hear from both types of writers how much easier the writing is once they have this clarity on their story. I promise that some initial story planning doesn’t mean you have to outline your entire story. It simply means you identify some of the key story elements so you’re clear on the story you’re building from the beginning. You don’t even have to be clear on all of the story elements yet—much of the discovery can happen in the planning phase.

As you’ll see below, this foundational work shows up again and again as a way to counteract common manuscript mistakes. Here are some of the most frequent mistakes we see, how I work with writers to prevent these in the planning stage, and how you can implement these strategies on your own. Even if you already have a first draft, you can still use these as part of your revision process! 

MISTAKE #1: The story starts too early or too late.

This is such a common mistake in novel writing because it’s so easy to slip into info-dumping or get caught up in world-building, and yet this is a mistake you can almost always avoid with a little story planning. I usually see a story start too soon, and it’s always been when a writer comes to me after they’ve written the draft rather than during the story-planning stage. It’s often because the writer didn’t know where to start the story since they were discovering the story as they wrote. Without having an idea of the general sweep of your story, it’s difficult to know where to begin, and that’s when writers tend to meander and spend a lot of time in the story set-up. But, you only have a couple of pages to engage a reader (or agent) so it’s important to start strong. That doesn’t mean you need to open in explosive action, but it does mean you want to open in the right place to get the reader emotionally invested in the story as soon as possible. 

HOW I ADDRESS THIS WITH WRITERS: First we focus on the protagonist’s (or main character/MC’s) character development and identify their arc of transformation. Particularly in women’s fiction the protagonist’s personal growth is the defining element of the genre—it’s the spine of your narrative. We need to pinpoint the MC’s transformative arc so we can be sure we are starting just before they will begin on this path (i.e., the inciting incident), not too far before and not too far after. At this point we also discuss misguided beliefs and how these show up in conflict. We then build on this work to conceptualize the story bookends, and ensure the opening gives enough glimpse of the protagonist’s beginning arc just before the inciting incident. 

HOW YOU CAN ADDRESS THIS ON YOUR OWN: Get clear on your MC’s arc as well as their external wants and internal needs, external and internal conflicts, and the story stakes. Answer these questions: Who is your MC at the beginning of the story and how will you depict this in the opening? What is their worldview and life situation before the story begins? What is a scene that encapsulates the beginning of their story arc? What is your inciting incident and how soon does it come after your story opening?

MISTAKE #2: There’s no conflict in the story. 

Sometimes writers get confused by the term “conflict,” and it’s important to know that it doesn’t always show up in such an overt way. In some stories conflict can be more subtle…it can show up as what happens when a character is placed in a new situation, or as author Alice LaPlante says in her book, The Making of a Story, (which I recommend often to writers), “that series of events that causes your character to crack open in some way.” 

In fact, internal conflict is even more important in women’s fiction than external conflict because overcoming the internal conflict is where the personal growth (that key component of women’s fiction!) happens. 

HOW I ADDRESS THIS WITH WRITERS: Much like Mistake #1, this is an issue that can generally be traced back to the MC’s character development, or lack thereof. You need to know what your protagonist wants and needs, externally and internally, to be able to identify the external and internal conflicts that are preventing her from getting these. This is also where a misguided belief often emerges to highlight internal conflict.

HOW YOU CAN ADDRESS THIS ON YOUR OWN: As above, get clear on your MC’s character development, including wants, needs, and external and internal conflict. You can also explore a misguided belief and how this shapes your MC’s worldview and aligns with their need and internal conflict in some way.

MISTAKE #3: There’s nothing at stake for the MC. 

If you’ve read craft books or attended writing classes, you may have read/heard about stakes and even raising the stakes. Stakes are about the consequences a protagonist will experience as a result of their actions. Without stakes, the character has no skin in the game, nothing to lose, and as readers, we will struggle to be emotionally invested as well. A common mistake in early manuscript drafts is there are no—or very minimal—stakes. In other words, the MC faces no consequences for their actions and they have nothing to lose, which doesn’t make for a very interesting story. 

HOW I ADDRESS THIS WITH WRITERS: As in Mistakes #1 and #2, this comes back to the early work of character development. (Are you starting to see a theme? These early foundational steps really are key to minimizing revision hassle later!) When I work with writers, we additionally draw on the Blueprint for a Book steps to identify the emotional context for the protagonist at key plot points so it is clear to the reader what the stakes are.

HOW YOU CAN ADDRESS THIS ON YOUR OWN: Do that early work to get clear on your protagonist’s characterization. As you write forward be sure your MC’s emotional reactions are on the page so that the reader fully understands what is at stake for them. One way to do this is to identify those key plot points and write out how the reader is making sense of the unfolding events—the emotional context of the scene—for you to draw on as you write forward. More on emotional context below! 

MISTAKE #4: Lots of plot, but there’s little emotional context on the page. 

What does it mean to say there’s little emotional context? It means there may be events unfolding around the protagonist, but we as readers don’t understand what these events mean to them. In part, this is because, as with real-life people, what a character says aloud doesn’t always match up with what they think or feel, so if we’re missing interiority on the page, we have no idea what’s true for the protagonist. But even more important is that the protagonist’s transformational arc happens internally, and if we’re not understanding the emotional context of the plot points that guide them along this arc, then we don’t understand how this transformation happens, or even that it’s happening. 

On one episode of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast (which I also highly recommend!), literary agent CeCe Lyra emphasizes the reason for interiority is that the reader needs to see the MC’s psyche process information. 

Remember the real story is not about the plot points—the things that are happening externally on the page—but rather how the main character addresses these in their own unique way to achieve an internal transformation. Lisa Cron sums this up well in her fantastic book, Wired for Story. She says that story is the synthesis of three elements: the theme (or what we call your story point), the plot (the events that the MC experiences outside of themselves), and the MC’s issue, which, as Cron says, is “the story question, which translates to the protagonist's goal. But…the story isn't about whether or not the protagonist achieves her goal per se; it’s about what she has to overcome internally to do it. This is what drives the story forward.” 

HOW I ADDRESS THIS WITH WRITERS: We carefully consider and flesh out the protagonist’s emotional context for each of the key plot points so when it’s time to write forward, the writer can ensure they’re getting these emotions onto the page.

HOW YOU CAN ADDRESS THIS ON YOUR OWN: Before you begin writing or even during your revision process, identify your key plot points and be sure you’re clear on the emotional context for your protagonist. Use interiority to show how your protagonist is filtering the unfolding plot points through her own perspective, misguided belief, and lived experience. In other words, what do the unfolding plot events mean to the protagonist? 

MISTAKE #5: There’s no narrative drive. 

If things happen in the story but the events feel random and orchestrated rather than direct outcomes of the MC’s actions, this indicates a lack of narrative drive (also sometimes referred to as cause-and-effect trajectory or causality). You want scenes to feel like dominoes falling one onto another so that the next scene always feels inevitable. Note this is different than predictable—inevitable is something a reader might not understand until after they have read it.

HOW I ADDRESS THIS WITH WRITERS: We begin laying the foundation for a strong narrative trajectory by first identifying the main story beats. We then complete a “Because of that” exercise, a Blueprint for a Book technique that book coach Monica Cox explains here. 

HOW YOU CAN ADDRESS THIS ON YOUR OWN: Keep in mind that the events in your story should have a cause-and-effect logic to them. If you don’t create a logical sequence of events, then readers will find the story to be too orchestrated rather than inevitable. You can use the “Because of that” exercise that Monica explains to check that your story has a strong narrative trajectory or detect where you might need to link your plot points more clearly. Jennie Nash also discusses this more in depth in her book, Blueprint for a Book.

MISTAKE #6: There’s no satisfying story resolution. The ending falls flat and/or there’s no emotional payoff for the reader.  

I don’t know if there’s a writing misstep that is more heartbreaking than this one. All of that hard work and when you finally get to the end, the ending just doesn’t land. Your beta readers tell you they just didn’t buy it or that the ending was a real letdown. Maybe you even realize it just isn’t very emotionally satisfying nor how you envisioned it. How do you determine what went wrong? Better yet, how do you prevent this in the first place?

HOW I ADDRESS THIS WITH WRITERS: Again, this comes back to the protagonist’s transformative arc, which (as we know!) is the defining element of women’s fiction. When I coach a writer through story planning we identify their story point as well as their MC’s arc of transformation, which is the primary way the reader experiences your story point. (Your story point is what you’re ultimately arguing for in the story, and you want to be sure that point resonates with the reader by story’s end. If you follow the Blueprint for a Book method, this is Step #2.) Then, as mentioned previously, we utilize the story bookends (another Blueprint step) to ensure the story ending aligns with the MC’s arc of transformation as well as other essential story elements. Finally, we identify the emotional context of the finale’s story beats so the writer can ensure the essential interiority is clearly on the page at the story’s conclusion.

HOW YOU CAN ADDRESS THIS ON YOUR OWN: When drafting your finale chapters, be sure the arc of transformation is clear on the page as well as the emotional context for your protagonist. Again, to do this you need to be clear on your MC’s narrative arc: What is her worldview and life situation before the story begins? How does that change by story’s end? What has she learned and how has she changed? Consider how the narrative trajectory should feel inevitable in hindsight, but also include an element of surprise. Finally be sure that your MC’s ending arc clearly aligns with your story point on the page, and that there is enough interiority on the page so we see how the MC arrived at the end of their arc. 

As I remind my writers, even with thoughtful planning, missteps will creep into writing. But this is not a failure! So much of writing is in the process of it, in the multiple iterations. However, if you’re able to identify and spot these patterns early, you will not only continue to grow as a writer, but you will also thank yourself later when your revision process doesn’t leave you in tears!

---

Heather Garbo is a certified book coach, editor and writer with a background in communications, book publishing, and nonprofit work. Heather specializes in working with women’s fiction writers who are discovering (or rediscovering) their writing voice in midlife. Find her at www.garbobookcoaching.com.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase a book by clicking on that link, I may earn a small commission.