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It's Style Week here at the blog and today's tip from the web discusses how to avoid the errors in style that may mark you as a beginner. In "Mistakes Often Made by Beginning Writers," author Debbie Lee Wesselmann shares a list of six tips for avoiding those humble errors.
Can you avoid every mistake? No way. Not even the best and finest writers are at the top of their game in every sentence of every book, but when you're about to send your fictional babies off to an agent or editor who is going to decide whether or not to give them wings, depending on how your manuscript reads, you do not wish to mark yourself as an Unlearned Outsider.
Wesselmann's hints hit at six of the most common ways to alert a professional that you aren't one yet. I can recommend this list most highly, and I found these good reminders for my own work as well.
Read. Enjoy. If one of the ideas she lists seems like a personal assault, take it personally, apply her insight to your manuscript, and write in a more polished, professional style ever after.
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