What’s one mistake you made early as a writer that you wish you avoided?

[lizzyrose]

What’s one mistake you made early as a writer that you wish you avoided?

I feel like I’m probably making a lot of them right now without realizing it.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

What’s one mistake you made early as a writer that you wish you avoided?

I feel like I’m probably making a lot of them right now without realizing it.

One?
And well, I'm pretty sure I'm still making mistakes. As long as I don't recognize them, I can't really do anything about them - if I knew, I wouldn't repeat them. That's life.
But I guess my first story was a fanfiction an there were quite a few things in there that want to make me jump off a bridge by today's standards indeed.

 

[Akenoi]

Starting on RR

 

[TinaMigarlo]

the first lesson I learned? Hm.
write the first chapter.
Then, write the ending or at least big fight finish chapter.
Now, you know where you're going to.
you have a beginning and a destination, you can now work out the path to get there.
it helps prevent the "meandering pointless middle" part,
that in some novels goes on forever.

 

[Eldoria]

What’s one mistake you made early as a writer that you wish you avoided?

I feel like I’m probably making a lot of them right now without realizing it.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes; humans learn from them.

Don't worry too much about writing mistakes; every writer starts with a single ink-filled scribble, like the name of this website.

 

[Queerious]

Have fun

If you have fun writing, the reader will have fun reading

 

[Makimaam]

I would gladly make those mistakes again if I had to start from the beginning, as I like to think they helped me grow as a writer.

 

[Puffikki]

I am not a writer, but am a reader.
An early mistake? Authors not believing in themselves and stopping too soon! There is room to learn and grow.

Never let negativity dampen your passion for writing!

 

[Lysander_Works]

Leaving the auto-save turned on.
Lost 2 big projects that way.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Wish I'd kept more notes on story ideas.
Had a lot of stories I started or plotted out and then lost the only pages of notes I had (or floppy disks, or software to read the files, or the entire hard drives) and now I don't remember enough to rebuild them, nor really care enough to start them over from scratch.

 

[JayMark]

Life got hard, rejection flooded in, no one cared except for me, and I gave up writing.

 

[lizzyrose]

the first lesson I learned? Hm.
write the first chapter.
Then, write the ending or at least big fight finish chapter.
Now, you know where you're going to.
you have a beginning and a destination, you can now work out the path to get there.
it helps prevent the "meandering pointless middle" part,
that in some novels goes on forever.

I actually really love this idea.

Writing the beginning and the ending first feels like giving the story direction instead of just hoping it finds its way. And yeah, that “pointless middle” part is way too real

I might try this for my next project.

Wish I'd kept more notes on story ideas.
Had a lot of stories I started or plotted out and then lost the only pages of notes I had (or floppy disks, or software to read the files, or the entire hard drives) and now I don't remember enough to rebuild them, nor really care enough to start them over from scratch.

This happened to me too.

Most of mine were short drafts, but losing them still hurt. It’s weird how you can remember the idea or the vibe, but not enough to recreate what you had.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Trying to write what I thought was popular instead of procrastinating writing what I want to write.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

Don't be afraid to make mistakes; humans learn from them
Don't worry too much about writing mistakes; every writer starts with a single ink-filled scribble, like the name of this website

ha. you say that now.
OP? wait till she gets the calculus books out, on y-o-u...
lol

 

[TinaMigarlo]

I actually really love this idea.
Writing the beginning and the ending first feels like giving the story direction instead of just hoping it finds its way. And yeah, that “pointless middle” part is way too real
I might try this for my next project.

if you like that? You'll love this... here's the secret to "pace"...

lets assume you decided 200 (ish) pages, standard first paperback.
that's 80k words, lets say 100k words, upper limit. Allow for what-not.

100k / 5k = 20 chapters.

Chappie # Chappie Goal
--------------------------------------------------------
1. girl sits behind boy in a class. Thinking, daydreaming, dreaming, the works.
2. girls friends go with her, to spy on boy in gym. check out the goods. Looks hot.
3. best friend, bad news. He's a geek among geeks in the math and comp sci department.
4. all her friends and her circle, work on her over this. That Ick, ewww.
5. she catches hell trying to stick up for boy, but its no use.
(OP gets the idea)
18. Girl rocks boys world silly, for 5K words, he deserves it.
(19 and 20, if you *earned* it... are for aftermath, etc. Happy ever after, or, set up next book's slop(I mean... "premise")

You can start to write, with this.
as you get ideas? chapters will get numbered and put in.
I think chappie 6 or 7 is TWIST,
she finds out gossip he's *secretly* a raging tough guy, hides it, because computer department.
write those patented "girl whining in her head, about boy" as they come to you, you can number them and slap them in later.

You can see how this goes now.
seat of the pants for each chapter, baby. Room to breathe, be original. No straight-jacket.
Just accomplish that chapter's goal.

its okay to change your outline for whatever reason as you're in the heat of battle :
---My character wouldn't do that !!! (she's only half that trashy)
---Plot hole needs plugged, more desperately than this feMC's hole needs plugged
---This chapter too whiny.
---This chapter not whiny enough.
Whoa, pulled of a MAJOR smut chappie, Let's see where this puppy gets shoved in at...

 

[TinaMigarlo]

@lizzyrose :
you might as well take my whole video course, you got most of it anyways.

1. have a premise. (start)
2. know your destination.
3. simple list to keep on pace.
4. real life character models.

what's number 4? easy. why waste you time making stupid diagrams, to create a "more real" character?
writing bios and psych eval charts.
you want a REAL character? Start with a real person !!!

yeah. your best friend, you think her and her boyfriend's on again off again bullshit will make an interesting romance?
whatever, its your book.
They are your CHARACTER MODELS.
they exist? in real life! you know how they dress, how they talk, what they might say or do in response to situation X...
they have flaws and shortcomings!

gee. start with real people? instantly with no work, you get "a real character"
never ever tell anyone, who the model is.
okay, the boy can be "young Rutger Hauer" for looks model, but "just like your brother" for everythign he does and says.

this will make your descriptions... rich and realistic.
the banter and dialogue? Very real.
you will have well working characters and dialogue... overnight.

OP, if you can "write", then sentences and grammer and spelling and sense of style... that's on you.
but... I laid out the basics of "mechanicals" so if you CAN write, you can make something decent now.
have fun OP... you can worry about the nitpicking shit later on, just GET WRITING and this will keep it coherent.

 

[great_sloth]

Writting 4k words a day. I did that for about two months, 5 years ago, and damn I'm still burned out after that.

I realized that writing like a chinese web author is not for me. Now, I usually write 2 sentences per day lol.

 

[Ral_062]

Since I began writing there had been a lot of mistakes I've made.
For me, the biggest mistake is not writing a mini story at the start/prologue.
And i've only realised that since i began revamping my chapters...

But if i ever write another grand story, from now on i'll include a mini story that will encompass lore about the world.

 

[zainzhou]

Honestly? I think my biggest early mistake was
trying to plan everything before writing a single
word.

I had this whole outline, every plot point locked
in — and then the story just felt stiff. The
characters weren't breathing, they were just
hitting marks.

The moment I let go and started writing
*reactively* — letting the story surprise me —
Fork of Heaven actually started to feel alive.
My current arc (Anthropic's source code leaking
in 2026 and the chaos that follows) came out of
a "what if" moment I never planned for.

So I guess: don't over-engineer before you
even start. The story knows where it wants to go
sometimes.

@TheKillingAlice — totally agree with you,
by the way. Not recognizing mistakes in real
time is the curse of every early draft!