10 Common Mistakes in Creative Writing

Creative writing is used by students, bloggers, professional writers, copywriters in the advertising field, etc. There are books on how to write creatively, and seminars, and marathons for those who want to avoid stress and develop creative writing skills. Here, we will address this issue from another angle. Let’s get to know more about typical mistakes made in creative writing and how to avoid them.

No Preparation to Writing a Text at All

When it comes to creative writing, many authors think that creative means taken from the blue sky and expressed in beautiful, not banal words. This way, most of the creative texts lack substance, they are shallow, and no one is interested in finishing reading them because they are not worth wasting time. Solution: When you decide to write a creative text, gather relevant information from trustworthy sources, and use it in your paper to prove your arguments.

Dull or Irrelevant Topic

People these days are overwhelmed with information, and if you find your inspiration in rewriting dull topics, it won’t work, at least it won’t work as creative writing. Your topic should be relevant to the moment and preferably should solve one of your reader’s problems or at least satisfy their curiosity. Solution: Choose your theme based on the problems your knowledge, your ideas can solve, not just because something seems popular.

Boring, Mediocre Title

Even if the content of your paper is high-quality you will lose lots of readers due to a dull title. Of course, in most cases, especially when it comes to academic writing, you cannot use too scandalous or even too engaging titles, however, it is not a reason to write something “curly” and hard to understand, or just too plain. You still need to attract your potential reader, even if the only person who will read this text is your professor. Solution: Analyze the last ten articles you clicked on, try to understand what in their titles was the most engaging for you.

Too Much Text

When you write a paper for academic purposes you are mostly limited by your professor in terms of the number of pages you have to submit. However, when it comes to articles, posts, books, white papers, etc. you are basically not limited unless you limit yourself for good. The attention span now decreases significantly and you don’t have the luxury to have all the readers time, so cut to the chase. Solution: Edit, and through away abstracts which don’t include anything except for “some beautiful words creating the right atmosphere.”

Unnecessary details, Metaphors, Endless Examples

You want people to relate to your story, to be impressed by it, to share it with others, we get it. However, again, you should cut on metaphors and other means of expression, as they make your text heavy and amateur-like. What you really should do is focus on substance. Solution: Again, edit more than you write. Focus on what is valuable about your text, not on what makes it more “fancy.”

Too Much Creativity

Creative writing doesn’t imply writing as no one else has written before you. It only means you should not be banal, should think outside the box, etc. Many students and bloggers write with their own ”fresh” structures, which are impossible to follow, and create lots of additional techniques calling them “their distinguished style.” Well, maybe you are the next Hemingway, but let’s face it, chances are not that high. Solution: stick to the proven writing techniques and add creativity as a spice, don’t serve it as a main dish.

Not Enough Proofreading

Another true problem of creative writers or those who want to look/act like them is that they don’t focus much on such “silly” matters like grammar and spelling mistakes, wrong structure, failed references, links going nowhere, etc. If you follow this practice, you will fail, and it will be painful. Solution: Treat every post or paper you write as a symbol of your diligence, and remember that respect for grammar rules is a sign of respect to your readers.

Using Too Standard Illustrations

It is not applicable to academic papers, but it is applicable when it comes to any blog posts or articles. Imagine, you write a quality text, with lots of relevant bright examples, etc., and accompany it with the same picture every article about happiness is accompanied smiling people showing their faces to the Sun or something like that. Solution: Even if you don’t want to pay for images, look for not too standard ones in stocks. It is better to spend another 30 minutes looking for a creative picture than to make your article look super cheap and standard.

Aiming Perfectness

Done is better than perfect, you should remember about it. If you don’t submit your paper of the time, or you fail to follow your content plan, it is much worse than if you submit or post something good but not perfect. Solution: Practice makes perfect.

Not Writing at All

We all have our fears, we are not sure what we write is good or needed, creative, or dull, or engaging, etc. This insecure behavior is normal, even if you have writing experience. To overcome it, you need to concentrate on small steps and write at least one abstract a day. The worst thing you can do right now is to forget about writing because of your perceived lack of talent, abilities, skills, time, etc. Solution: Fake it till you make it.