5 Writing Mistakes You ALWAYS Want To Avoid

• Passive voice
Verbs give sentences and books vibrancy. When too many of them in a story are passive or weak, the writing sounds drab.

• Telling not showing
Perhaps the most common mistake among novice writers is that tell rather show. To “tell” what happens is to state it directly, as might occur in a newspaper article. To “show” what happens, however, is to present the events without being told directly how one feels or reacts.

• Weak verbs
Even when using active verbs, sentences still may sound flat. More than likely, those active verbs are also overused.

• Starting sentences with “it”
Avoid starting sentences – and especially paragraphs – with “it.” By starting a sentence with “it,” you can confuse the reader. After all, what exactly does “it” refer to?

• Adverbs everywhere
If you’ve got a lot of adverbs in a passage, you’re probably relying too much on that part of speech to do the hard work in your sentence. Adverbs aren’t the muscle that an exact verb provides.