14 Plot Pitfalls You Need to Avoid

• Twist endings
• Telling the backstory
• Cookie cutter story
• Stalling as approaching crucial event
• Packing peanuts 
• Bait-and-switch
• Subjective tension
• Histrionic exit
• Reader cheating 
• Inappropriate mystery to create suspense
• Too many subplots
• Literary dream 
• Runaround error in story
• Schizophrenic story
• BONUS: “I don’t praise plots as accurate representations of life, but as ways of keeping readers reading.”