How to Avoid 3 Common Creative Writing Mistake

Polaroid Images Reading ‘Who’, ‘When’, ‘Where’, ‘How’, ‘Why’, and ‘What’ Attached to Wooden Slats
Polaroid Images Reading ‘Who’, ‘When’, ‘Where’, ‘How’, ‘Why’, and ‘What’ Attached to Wooden Slats
Writing might be something you learn as you grow up, but creative writing is a skill set. You may have a knack for weaving worlds through your words, but turning that knack into an art form will take time and a series of trials and errors.

Urban novelist Charlie Mon was no different, but he worked to understand his mistakes and adapt his writing accordingly. Here’s how you can do the same.

1. Starting When the Deadline is Near

Creative writing takes time, so not granting yourself any is not the way to hone your craft. You might be tempted to rush through the process because you have a deadline coming up, and that’s where you’d be wrong.

A deadline isn’t a call for you to get to work. It’s not a time limit for you but an indication from your publishers of how long they’re willing to wait for your book. Creative writing involves building a world out of nothing, and it consists of a lot of thought and concentration. 

So, don’t wait for the deadline to become a foreseeable future. Start when it’s very much a distant reality. That way, you’d be allowing yourself more time than you initially think is necessary. Don’t trust yourself to finish early because there is no such thing as finishing early, just as there’s no such thing as the work ending after you’ve submitted your first draft. It’s only just beginning.

A Faceless Woman Typing on a Laptop at a Table Featuring a Planner and Tea Mug
A Faceless Woman Typing on a Laptop at a Table Featuring a Planner and Tea Mug


2. Not Giving All Your Ideas a Chance

Explore all your ideas, or at the very least, write them down somewhere because they could come in handy later on when you’re stuck at a particular point in your novel and can’t see a way out.

You see, ideas are funny things. They might feel terrible at one point and downright revolutionary later on. They’re pretty intangible, so you might want to commit them to paper before they leave your mind.

A better idea would be to explore the concept further and see if it has any merit. If it doesn’t, you’ll have one less piece of information to worry about.

3. Recycling Your Stories

Fiction draws on established works all the time. You might’ve seen rewrites or modern takes on Pride and Prejudice and loosely based versions of Cinderella. However, these adaptations work because they’re timeless. They also came about after the concept of adaptations came into existence centuries later.

Only time will tell whether yours will be a timeless piece of fiction. It would only reflect poorly on you to recycle a story that worked for you once. Many writers fall into this pattern because it’s comfortable. This recycling may or may not work with the readers, but it will prevent you from growing as a writer.

Read Something You Never Imagined by Charlie Mon

As an author of the 21st century, Charlie Mon takes something from the literature out there and blends it with the real-life of African Americans in the wastelands of San Bernardino, California. His book, Never Imagined, may start the way you imagined, but the twists and turns, loyalty and betrayal, and life and death will truly take you for a ride.

Buy your copy of the urban thriller today.

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