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Watch for mixed metaphors! “Her eyes flew across the room” is a classic example. If this doesn’t conjure up eyeballs springing from someone’s head and soaring across the room, like often seen in cartoons, I don’t know what does. While the reader is likely to know what you mean and may not even catch it, this is one of the things a pro will avoid. Metaphors are great, but need to be constructed with care.

This confusion can also happen with misplaced prepositional phrases. Make sure they’re in the most logical order or they can have a similar effect. I know that my thought process as an author is often not linear, which can cause this to happen. I get quite a few laughs when I start editing.

What works for me is to make sure related phrases are kept close to whatever they describe. If it relates to the character, then make sure it is next to the subject, not trailing along at the end of the sentence. This also serves as another indictment on prepositional phrases, which generally should  be used judiciously and avoided when another literary vehicle will do the job more effectively.

Today’s Writing Tip

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If your novel becomes a series, bear in mind that not all readers will start with book one. Describe your characters again and recap key plot elements. Loyal readers will appreciate the refresher.

Probably the biggest author faux pas is leaving a reader feeling lost, which also tends to throw them out of the story. If they have to stop and backtrack (which is especially difficult and annoying when you’re reading an ebook), it may be because they forgot or it could be you didn’t state it clearly enough. If a reader starts with book two or three of a series, this is especially likely to happen if you don’t do an instant replay of key events in a previous book.

Even those who have read the stories in sequence can use a refresher. It’s highly unlikely that you are the only author they read. Thus, they have probably read other stories between them, especially if a span of time elapsed before the next book was released. They will likewise be more comfortable with the story with a few reminders.

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The usual convention is to start your story with the main character. That way,  your reader immediately knows who the story is about. Prologues are the only exception. If something occurs before the main story begins that involves another person, often a prologue functions well to present that information.

Sometimes another character comes along who is so strong, that he or she takes over the story. It’s okay to have several strong characters in a story, but who does it really belong to? This is not always easily answered. Sometimes two characters come together who have separate story arcs. I don’t have all the answers to that situation and am dealing with just that in my current WIP.

However, if someone else clearly takes over, leaving your original main character/protagonist in the dust, then it’s time to reconsider who your protagonist really is. If it changes dramatically, you may have to go back to Chapter One and introduce that person first.

Main characters in complex stories with well-developed plots are not always that easy to identify. How often has your favorite character in a book been someone other than the protagonist? Side and back stories are always an option with these folks as well.

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I know I nag a lot about what the author’s job entails. If you’re fortunate enough to have a conventional publisher who provides a cadre of competent editors, then you may have the luxury of simply putting your story down for them to clean up, much as your mother may have done your laundry or cleaned up your room when you were a child.

However, if you’re an independent author, you need to be aware that proper grammar, word usage, punctuation, and so forth is YOUR JOB. Even if you hire an editor, unless you understand there are several types of editors, your work may not be at its best when it goes to press.

One thing that occurs frequently is misuse of homonyms. These are words that sound the same, yet have entirely different meanings. You can find a great list of common offenders as well as words that are often confused on Grammarly here.

Some of my pet peeves are shutter (those louvered, wooden panels you see on windows) versus shudder, which is to shake or tremble; Hanger (what you put your clothes on in the closet) versus hangar, (a building for aircraft storage); their (possessive pronouns for they) versus there (place) versus they’re (contraction for they are); lead (a type of metal or the graphite in a pencil) versus led (past of the verb to lead); whose (possessive pronoun) versus who’s (contraction for who is).

Check out the list on Grammarly. If those terms aren’t firmly implanted in your brain, bookmark the page for future reference.

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Flashbacks can be tricky and confusing to a new writer. How to construct them is really quite simple. You introduce flashbacks with past perfect tense, then revert to simple past for duration.

For example, “She’d always known they were an item when their eyes had first met.” After that, you would go to simple past, i.e.: “She remembered that first time clearly, as it stood out so dramatically….” Continue is simple past for the duration of the flashback.

Then, when it’s over and you come back to the present story action, use past perfect again. For example, “That moment would always mean a lot as it had signaled from the start that it would be a special relationship.”

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Use active voice as much as possible. If you don’t know what that means, “The boy threw the ball” is active voice.  “The ball was thrown by the boy” is passive voice. Who is performing the action versus what or who is receiving the action?

Not that active voice also eliminates a preposition. The sentence is more clear and there are less unnecessary words. Tighter writing is better writing.

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Another skill that separates the pros from the amateurs is comma usage. Personally, I don’t know all the specific grammar rules that apply. There are also a multitude of usage opinions. I actually had an English professor in a university level grammar class tell us they were optional! If he were still alive, I would write him a strongly worded letter regarding why he was all wet.

Granted, there are some who could be called “comma fanatics.” For example, there’s a lot of controversy over what is known as the “Oxford comma.” Most people seem to understand that the elements in a series need to be separated by one. However, whether or not to place one directly before the “and” that precedes the final item is less clear. Most readers can deal with that situation one way or another.

However, with complex sentences, commas help keep the statements from running together. Think of your dinner plate, how most people prefer to keep the meat, potatoes, vegetables, and anything else separated, as opposed to being all slopped together. Commas do this for long sentences, keeping the thoughts separated and more coherent.

Another classic example of how commas change meaning is “Let’s eat Grandma” versus “Let’s eat, Grandma.”

Without knowing all the rules, one way to tell intuitively where a comma belongs is to read your final edit aloud. Where a pause is necessary for clarity is usually a good place for one.

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Redundancy is another thing that can slow a story down. One part of speech that helps avoid repetition of a character’s name is the pronoun. You don’t need to keep repeating the character’s name. This is where he, she, it, and they as well as possessive pronouns like his, hers, its, and their come into play.

If a paragraph only involves one person, by all means, don’t keep repeating his or her name. If there are two people involved of different genders, then he and she will work fine. If there are two people of the same gender, then it’s more complicated. If it’s not clear, then it is sometimes justifiable to repeat names.

I read an absolutely dreadfully written story a few years ago where the protagonist was alone, no one else within miles, yet the author repeated his name with nearly every sentence, paragraph after paragraph. It was tedious to the point of being offensive, as if the reader wasn’t intelligent enough to figure out who was doing what.

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I’m amazed by how many authors don’t know how to punctuate dialog properly.  I’ve seen periods instead of commas for statements, missing question marks, overuse of explanation points, lack of semi-colons, and multiple speakers in a single paragraph. Knowing these rules is an author’s responsibility. While not all readers will notice if you honk it up, experienced authors will. I remember learning this no later than high school, probably earlier. However, I’ve always been a writer at heart; that may be why that information stuck. Others, if they came to writing later in life, may have never paid attention and simply haven’t noticed it in reading.

Besides punctuation, which really ought to be obvious, the one mistake I see a lot is when one of the characters is on a long-winded speech or monologue. Visually, it’s good to break these into more than one, huge, eye-bogging paragraph. Great. So, if that’s the case. do it correctly.

The way you do that is to start it as you do all dialog with a quotation mark. However, if it goes on to a new paragraph, don’t use a close quote on the first paragraph. This tells the reader there is more to come from the same speaker. The new paragraph will start with a quotation mark, telling the reader it’s still someone speaking and not to be confused with prose.

It’s amazing how many authors don’t know this. Apparently, some editors don’t, either.

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Preposition phrases are one thing that get a lot of bad press. If you had the not-so-joyful experience of diagramming sentences in school, you’ll remember that they were placed below the main subject/predicate/object line. This is a graphic illustration that they are add-ons. One way to get around them in many cases is by using possessives. For example, “the pencil’s tip” vs. “the tip of the pencil.”

You’ll be surprised how often this streamlines a sentence, not only be eliminating words, but by compacting the sentence’s meaning, making it easier for the reader to digest. Often prepositional phrases are redundant, too. Give them an evil eye when you’re editing. First see what happens when you take it out entirely. If it contains important information that needs to be included, see if using the possessive form works.

You can’t get rid of them entirely, but assessing their value and then using them sparingly gives them as well as your writing as a whole more punch.