Writing is a skillset. And like all skillsets, writing takes time to perfect. You’re going to make mistakes, especially at first. But when you understand those missteps and adapt your craft accordingly, you will become a stronger writer.

I thought it would be helpful to highlight common writing mistakes to save you some time in the learning process. Here they are:

Not giving yourself enough time. If you’re anything like me, having a deadline for a competition, assignment or publication is almost necessary to motivate you to sit down and write. However, the tendency with deadlines is to procrastinate until the last minute. Writing takes an enormous amount of time since you have to give lots of thought to each and every aspect of the piece. It can take years before a work is completed. I’m not saying that you can’t utilize deadlines, but I am saying to allow yourself more time than you think necessary, and to not assume the piece is complete after submitting it.
Being scared to ask for help. Writing is a very personal artistic pursuit, making it challenging to allow others to judge your work. It’s a lot easier to hang on to your pieces so no one can ever tear them down. But I implore you to ask other people to look over your texts as it will improve them exponentially. No matter how scary it is, you have to put yourself out there. I assure you that you are your biggest critic, and your editors won’t think ill of you just because your writing needs some work.
Not exploring all of your ideas. Sometimes you’ll think of an idea and say to yourself: “that’s terrible.” And sometimes you’ll be right, but sometimes you’ll be wrong. The only way to know for sure is to explore the idea further. Leaving it in your head and not even attempting to flush it out (whether through a brainstorm or rough draft) won’t help your craft in the slightest. It’s through the process of writing that a story is formed and if you dismiss the idea right away, you’ll miss out on a lot of potential. Even if it does turn out that the idea was terrible, you can still learn from that experience.
Writing the same story over and over. This mistake is similar to the previous one in that it prevents you from exploring different options. You may have written a specific story that you’re proud of, and that’s truly great. However, when people find something, they’re good at, it’s easy to establish a comfort zone from which they never venture out of. If you find yourself doing this with your writing by sticking to the same genre or types of characters, please make an effort to try something new. It’s the only way to keep growing.

While I hope that this was educational and useful to you, the best way to learn is to keep on practicing. So stop reading and get to work!