Sometimes when writing a story, what seems to be a great plotting strategy actually leads you to a dead ed or creates new problems for you to solve. Here are 14 common plot pitfalls that you’ll want to avoid. Click the link to full articles about each pitfall:
• Twist endings
The reality is that twist endings rarely work except for young, novice readers who are seeing them for the first time. Why don’t they work for older readers? Because the ending undermines the story’s whole premise.
• Telling the backstory
Rather than give readers backstory, writers ought to launch their plot with the story’s very first line and keep it soaring. The backstory can be weaved into the plot by mentioning and inferring it through dramatic action.
• Cookie cutter story
A cookie cutter story is one that lacks originality because it is like every other story on that topic. This often is a problem whenever a trend is hot in popular culture.
• Stalling as approaching crucial event
One common plotting problem novice writers experience, especially in the first draft, is that of stalling. Stalling consists of including here-to-there scenes prior to when a crucial event is to occur in the story.
• Packing peanuts
Packing peanuts in fiction are elements added to a story to fill the spaces between big scenes or important events. Such portions of the story tend to lack conflict, are low on tension, and slow the pacing.
• Bait-and-switch
One common and time-honored way to make your plot more interesting is to employ a bait-and-switch device. This occurs when the author guides and encourages readers to invest their attention in some suspenseful situation that actually is a substitute for a payoff that has little to do with what occurred before. Getting readers to invest their attention is the bait; substituting a payoff is the switch.
• Subjective tension
Sometimes when selecting which word to use, our aim is off, resulting in the error of “subjective tension.” Usually, this can be resolved simply by thinking a little bit more about exactly what is meant and then changing that word.
• Histrionic exit
To ensure readers hold your story in high regard, you’ll want to avoid plot clichés, or overused literary devices, which typically are employed by lazy or unskilled writers. One such plot cliché is the histrionic exit.
• Reader cheating
Sometimes authors, in the mistaken belief that they are creating a more exciting story, commit the error of reader cheating. This occurs when the reader has no reasonable opportunity to anticipate that some decision, realization or event will occur.
• Inappropriate mystery to create suspense
One of the greatest temptations of novice writers is to include in their stories an enigma even though it doesn’t move the story forward. Authors who do this are guilty of committing the sin of an inappropriate mystery.
• Too many subplots
Sometimes writers get too creative for their own good. Such is the case when they think about all the stories their characters – major and minor – could experience While the writer’s understanding of the world he’s creating is laudable, for the reader all of those storylines can be overwhelming. There simply is too much to keep track of, and a lot of times those subplots have very little to do with the main story.
• Literary dream
The purpose of our nightly dreams remains unclear, for they appear to be void of any consistent meaning. In literature, however, dreams are quite the opposite. Chock full of symbolism, they can help define the character and advance the plot by foreshadowing events. This device in fiction is known as a literary dream.
• Runaround error in story
Sometimes novice authors write scenes that are fun and action-packed but simply don’t contribute anything to the story. These parts of the tale are called runarounds and are best avoided.
• Schizophrenic story
Does your story belong in therapy? Perhaps one portion of it appears to be in conflict with another portion, maybe over tone or theme.
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.
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