10 Things That’ll Make Readers Think You’re an Amateur Writer

1. Cliche Scenes: These scenes include tripping into a love interest, spilling coffee on important documents, dreams, mirror description, and opening a chapter or book with an alarm clock.

2. Overusing Very: Instead of using very plus an adjective try using a stronger adjective on its own. For example say he was a gigantic human instead of saying he was a very big human.

3. Confusing Metaphors: Metaphors are a dangerous game to play, always try to get a second opinion. Avoid mixing metaphors or using unrelated metaphors.

4. Excessive Dialogue Tags: Consider deleting redundant dialogue tags or attempt to replace them with action beats instead.

5. Character has no goals or desires: The character is just going along with things that happen to them. A character should want something and actively be seeking ways to obtain what they want.

6. Clumsy Repetition: This is when you unintentionally keep repeating the same words, phrases, or information.

7. White Room Syndrome: This refers to when your setting lacks any kind of description. Readers need immersive details about the physical surroundings or else they’ll picture the events happening in a white space.

8. Exposition Dumps: This is when you interrupt the flow of a narrative to drop info about things like backstory and world building. Try to weave this information into the story in a more organic fashion.

9. Lack of Paragraph breaks: Start new paragraphs when there is a change in topic, time, speaker, or location. You should also start new paragraphs when introducing a new idea or shifting the narrative flow.

10. Overuse of Adverbs: What counts as overuse is a subjective debate, but if you’re having the debate then you’re probably overusing adverbs. Try not to rely on adverbs to strengthen weak verbs, instead attempt to use stronger verbs. For example replace he said loudly with he yelled.