My Critters List of the 5 Most Common Weaknesses in Fiction
Ever since I became serious as a freelance editor/proofreader and a participant on Critters.org, the oldest online writer’s critique group, I have encountered the same weakness in fiction over and over again. Partly, I think this is because people send early drafts to critiques and forego revision until they receive their first round of feedback.
In my opinion, writers could benefit from self-revision before submitting to critique groups because many weaknesses that make a story unreadable can be fixed by the writers themselves. Beta readers and critique groups are useful resources, but writers can improve their craft more reliably through deep practice.
As a tool to help writers improve their own work, I have provided the following list of common weaknesses in fiction.
1. Too little exposition, especially at the beginning.
Young or inexperienced writers are often advised to avoid exposition at all costs. Info dumping is boring, uninteresting to read, and distracts from the story. But given the volume of fiction I have read where I did not feel grounded in the story, I am no longer convinced that this advice is unimpeachable.
Exposition can sometimes be the way the writer opens the door into their story’s…
