Recently I finished teaching a six week workshop where one participant asked a tough question that has haunted me. “What shouldn’t I do as a writer? What mistakes can you help me avoid making?” I stumbled through an answer. I like to focus on the positive things writers can do to improve their writing and yet the question was a legitimate one. And in my line of work I’ve seen a lot of mistakes. So I thought I would share a short list of do’s and don’ts. Know your genre Many writers suffer from genre confusion. Fictional memoir doesn’t exist. Knowing your genre is important because bookstores need to know where to shelve your book. As a writer, it’s even more important because each genre has its own literary conventions. Within the genres of romance, mystery, thriller, suspense, and science fiction there are well-defined subgenres. Know precisely where your book fits because readers bring certain expectations to each. There are lots of love stories, but not all of them belong to the genre of Romance. Know your reader There is no “general reader.” Have you ever gone into a bookstore and library asked for a book that could be for anyone? No, me neither. Write with a specific audience in mind. Read I often hear writers say they don’t want to be influenced by what they read. Do artists avoid museums and galleries? Do musicians surround themselves with silence? Do you know any chefs who ignore their passion for food?…

Many aspiring authors think they can’t afford to hire an editor. If your plan is to publish, then the truth is you can’t afford NOT to hire one. Anyone can call themselves an “editor,” yet not all editors are the same. There is no test or certification process. Be choosy when you hire one. Instead of looking for the cheapest rate, look for editors with experience and a proven track record and figure out how you can reduce your costs by doing as much self-editing as possible. While inexpensive, the retired English teacher down the street is not a professional editor. Proofreaders are not editors. They check for typographical errors, missing words, formatting glitches. You will want to use a proofreader, but only when you have “proofs” ready to go to press. After you have a contract. After your publisher has approved your final version. After it’s gone to typesetting and layout. Don’t waste your money on a proofreader on your early drafts unless you’re too lazy to learn grammar, spelling, and punctuation. And if you haven’t mastered the mechanics of the English language, then perhaps you have some work to do before your writing will be published. Imagine if Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers had hired someone to run laps, practice yoga, and do push-ups for him. I mean, all that really matters is if the quarterback knows the right call to play, right? If you want to play in the big leagues, then you need you…

I drive my 87-year old father to his memoir writing group every other week, where he meets with 8-10 peers to discuss short vignettes they have written. Each of them takes a turn having their piece of writing “critiqued” by the others. He’s been in this group for seven or eight years, and has written more than 117 stories about his life. I usually wait down the hall from the memoir group’s room. One day they had to use a different room. There was only one chair for me. Right outside the door. So I sat and listened. It was my father’s turn first. My shy, sensitive, grammatically-correct father. This time, he had written about the plants that were in our yard when I was growing up. His job had been as a biologist with the Fish & Wildlife Department of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix Division. What he had written was a combination of scientific and folk information about a few plants, with photos he had found on the Internet of the ones he described. Everyone had shared their writings over the internet before the meeting, so no one read their piece out loud. When it was Dad’s turn, everyone in the room gave him their reactions to the three page piece he’d written. I was not able to hear clearly, but the main comment seemed to be that he might have filled too much space with pictures when it was supposed to be a writing group. There was…