Top 20 Mistakes Developmental Editors See in Manuscripts
by Jenn Windrow
Let’s face it, preparing your novel to send to a professional developmental editor can be stressful. Creating the perfect story line, compelling characters, and perfect pacing takes time. But a wonky plot and flat characters aren't the only things that drive an editor crazy when they are editing a book.
But how do you know what to fix to save your editor a headache or keep your edited manuscript from looking like someone bled all over it when you get it back?
Well, that's where developmental editors like me come in.
I recently had the opportunity to ask six developmental editors about the most common things they find that they would love authors to be aware of and correct before sending them their manuscript.
And today, I am going to share them with you!
Without further ado, here are the 20 mistakes in no particular order…
- Characters who do not have unique voices - they all sound the same.
- Writing the inner dialogue correctly in italics, but then following it with he/she thought to themselves. You definitely don’t need that tag because the italics tell us that it’s inner dialogue.
- Continuity issues!
- Proper punctuation/spelling when doing dialogue tags i.e. "I don't know the answer." He said. (To me, this falls under copy editing, but it is still a good one to know.)
- Homophones.
- Talking Heads, the band = awesome! Talking heads in dialogue, not so much. It’s good to break up large sections of pure dialogue with some actions or internal thought so the reader gets a break from the conversation.
- Internal dialogue instead of deeper POV.
- Crazy amounts of dialogue tags, especially when not said, that could be strengthened by grounding and showing more. (I’m almost positive I am guilty of this one.)
- Overstating things or repeating things in dialogue tags that the character said in dialogue. Example: "That books is too long," he said, annoyed at the length of the book.
- The character’s goal, motivation, and conflict should drive the story. If that gets lost in scenes and etc, it loses tension and pacing.
- Dialogue tags like "she sneered."
- When the character is supposed to be an "expert" but the author did not do enough research into a field. Example: archaeologists do not dig up dinosaurs. That's Ross from Friends (a paleontologist).
- Timelines - the person is a certain age in this section but what happened in the past does not correlate to how old they would have been back then - i.e. they are 22 now but 10 years back they would have been 12 but they are portrayed as 16.
- Dialogue... unless your character is Data from TNG, characters should speak in contractions because people do, after all.
- Spelling characters correctly - Delia here, Dalia there - which is it? (This one is for all you fantasy writers with crazy-spelled names. Raises my hand!)
- In reference to dialogue: accents. I'm Southern and nothing makes my blood boil more than someone stereotyping the dialect. (That also goes for AAVE, Gaelic, etc.)
- Dialogue...don’t do the Jack/Rose thing from Titanic...No one really says each other’s names as much as those two did when speaking to each other.
- Head-hopping and lack of POV control are big issues for me. X can't know what Y is thinking/feeling unless Y shows/tells it. Keep POV to one per scene, at a minimum. I prefer one per chapter.
- When it is written in first person, you are in their POV and their dialogue does not have tags like I said, etc.
- Filler words. Examples – like, just, either, felt.
Final Thought
I am sure if I asked more than 6 editors we could fill 100 pages with the little things that drive them crazy. But this list is a great start for anyone editing their book in preparation to send it to an agent or an editor. So, while you are editing, use this list to make sure you remove as many of these as possible. It will make your editor's life easier in the end! And we all want to make our editors happy, don't we?
But, as with all my posts, I love hearing from the community. Do you have any pet peeves that you’ve found in critique partners books or even published novels that you would like to share? Let's start our own list in the comments!
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About Jenn
Jenn Windrow is an Award winning author, developmental editor, and illustrator.
She loves characters who have a pinch of spunk, a dash of attitude, and a large dollop of sex appeal. Top it all off with a huge heaping helping of snark, and you’ve got the ingredients for the kind of fast-paced stories she loves to read and write. Home is a suburb of it’s-so-hot-my-shoes-have-melted-to-the-pavement Phoenix. Where she lives with her husband, two teenagers, and a slew of animals that seem to keep following her home, at least that’s what she claims.
Website: https://jennwindrow.com/
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40 comments on “Top 20 Mistakes Developmental Editors See in Manuscripts”
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I am in a critique group, and one person seems to use dialogue tags every time someone speaks. It doesn't read well, and too many 'saids' gets boring. I've suggested she used actions instead of some of them, but every new chapter is the same. Grrr!
I agree with contractions in speech, and also the assumption that everyone understands acronyms. Many are commonly known, yes, but many others aren't. A useful of the full words the first time of use is helpful.
I agree. Too many dialogue tags gets really hard to read. Tagging with action or internal thought helps break it yo, while also showing the reader who is talking.
I read a book a while back wherein the author did "said" after what seemed like every line of dialogue, even when they were in the same paragraph, spoken by the same character, and there was action by that character between them. She was 100% resistant to changing it, though. Ugh. Horribly repetitive and boring to read.
I go through a lot of editing clients MS and remove a ton of saids that they place right before they have an action dialogue tag or internal thought tag. It drives me crazy to see unnecessary saids.
Like every other writer I'm sure, I always worry about clarity -- who said what, whether it's boring, is the body language clear. I did a story where word count was a consideration, so I really worked to cut dialogue tags. The writers loved it. The non-readers like my husband said he got lost a few times. *sigh*
It’s hard to juggle all the things we need to do as writers to make a story both fun and functional!!
Most are good points and I try very hard to follow them. But I disagree with #19. Think of a conversation you've had with someone, where you're relating what happened to you. For sure you're going to say "I said x. She said y. So I said z." Possibly in deep POV 1st you could omit them, but I feel it would be confusing.
One of my pet peeves is what other people consider filler words. NO word is a filler word if it's necessary to get the point across.
I agree that in the real world we talk like that, but I think in a book that kind of back and forth isn’t necessary all the time. Especially when every single word that is placed on the page has a job to do. So, as writers we need to really think about what the job we’re expecting are words to do in that story.
I second you on #19, Virginia, especially if there are more than two characters in the conversation. As for filler words, "that" is the #1 overused filler in my personal experience as an editor. I try to avoid it as much as possible but sometimes it's necessary for clarity.
Mine is just and if you ask my copy editor, I have a new one in each book I write.
Hahahahaha! I have a new one every story too. But "just" is one of those standards.
Pet peeve: info dumps! Also, extensive description with no voice.
I see info dumps with a lot of new authors. They haven't been trained to sprinkle that information through the MS. Usually once they are taught they can correct themselves.
The thing I see the most is misplaced commas. Sometimes they are missing. Sometimes they are where they don't belong. I believe our schools need to work harder on teaching commas.
Commas are subjective other than when they’re absolutes. I’ve worked as an editor in a three editor MS and what I’ve realized over time is that commas often depend on the Ed. Ed One takes out - puts some on. Ed Two and Three do the same thing. And they’re ALL different. It depend too on how someone speaks. Cadences shift where commas go. So when a comma is added or take out - I just accept it unless it’s a “rule.”
100% agree about schools failing on comma usage. The problem is they push "rules" without teachers explaining the WHY of any of them. Students forget the "rules", but if they know WHY to put, or not put, a comma somewhere, they're more likely to remember whether to use it or not. When I was a kid, the only answer I ever got to WHY was "that's just the way it's done". Stupid reason without logic. Thankfully, I finally found a writing mentor who explained WHY for various commas uses. Would've made my school years much easier if even one teacher had done that. I'm working with a young writer now who's in the same boat, so nothing's changed.
That’s a copy editors job, but yes, comas can be tricky for some. I’m over here raising my hand high!
Great post, Jenn. I can see I have a lot of work ahead of me!
But it is fun work!
Wonderful list. Thank you.
You're very welcome!
The internal dialogue in italics drives me crazy. It's okay occasionally with a short phrase when totally surprised, but entire thoughts? No.
Another is when pronouns are overused or misused. Same with the word IT. Makes for clarity issues.
I agree about the internal dialogue in italics. IMO, if you are writing it correctly, you shouldn't need them.
Most of my notes in a developmental edit on the word it, is to define the it.
I'm the polar opposite. If internal dialogue isn't written in italics, to me it's like leaving quotation marks off spoken dialogue. I stop reading and toss the book aside. It's too frustrating to have that sudden switch from past tense storytelling to present tense without the warning italics provides. I find it incredibly jarring.
It’s wonderful how every reader is different.
This was a great list - all really good points. And I see this over and over in writers. Including myself. Lol. Every writer has a set of “go to” words they use in every book too.
One of my bug bears too is when there is unnecessary “movement” written. It slows the MS down. I.e. I went to the kitchen and got a coffee cup down, filling it with coffee and put the milk back in the fridge. Going around the kitchen island, I walked back to the bedroom and set it on the bedside coaster.
We’re not blocking a stage play.
I grabbed a coffee with creamer from the kitchen and went back to the bedroom covers what’s going on.
so very true!
All of that unnecessary movement slows the pacing. When I am editing, I usually pull it all out. The author doesn't always like it, but sometimes it just has to go.
We can all use these reminders, Jenn! Thank you. :O)
You’re very welcome!
not doing research, using ableist and archaic terms/descriptions, and continuity
Not doing research is the worst. I get in the olden days before the internet, but now you can google anything and get an answer.
Sometimes it's obvious that a writer never read their dialogue aloud - if they had, they'd have immediately thought, "Nobody talks that way." It's stilted, cheesy, or otherwise not human speech.
Another tell is when a writer describes characters "hissing" words with no sibilants. I feel like writing and asking them to record how that sounds.
It also yanks me right out of a story when I see the kind of lack of research mentioned in the post, when the writer clearly knows nothing about a subject and just didn't bother to ask someone who did. This is baffling. If I write about a given field I don't know well, I ask someone who does. It's not that hard. Some examples:
I'm a retired Marine. I see people mix up terms like "squad" (ten to a dozen people) and "company" (usually about 100 to 200) and have colonels doing things that a corporal would actually do.
In my second career I was a psychotherapist. I've lost count of the times I've seen people mix up "psychotic" and "psychopath" - not at all the same thing.
I've even written to authors I liked otherwise, care of their publishers. respectfully volunteering to act as a fact-checker or subject matter expert in those areas. None have written back, and I've never read any more of their books.
Life is too short to read bad books; there are more good books out there than anyone will ever live long enough to read. Those mistakes make bad books.
Reading your book out loud is a very important step in making sure that you have good cadence and aren't writing dialogue like a robot.
I mentioned being able to google things these days and how easy it makes doing research. You can find out how to do anything in a 5 minute serach.
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As a copy editor, one of the things I see the most is on this list. Not using contractions. Sometimes I'll tell my clients to read it out loud, and they'll see they need the contractions. And the "she sneered" dialogue tags. I see that kind of thing a lot, too.
Great points, but could you clarify a couple? Number 7: I probably do overuse the internal dialogue, but what is meant by subbing this with deeper POV? Like, how? LOL. Number 16: accents. Do you mean, refrain from using "ya'll" or something like, 'tis? Thanks!
Accents are fine as long as you know the accent you are writing for. But saying someone has a german accent and then not doing it properly makes you look bad to people who are familiar with the dialect.
If you are writing in deep POV, which is typically easier when you write first person, you can take that internal dialogue and make it a deeper internal thought. We all have that internal dialogue in our heads, but it doesn't have to be every line or even every page in a book. Save it for the good stuff and dig really deep into those internal thoughts, deepening your character in those moments.
One of my biggest pet peeves is an author using the past perfect verb tense instead of simple past tense when it is not required. "She had known her neighbor" instead of "She knew her neighbor." "Bill had spoken about the problem" instead of "Bill spoke about the problem." In every sentence. Maybe it's a language pattern from a specific part of America, but it's horrible to read.
I agree!