Nothing sabotages the reader experience like these five fatal story pitfalls. And a big name on the cover is no guarantee.
You would think professional editors at top publishers would spot these and take action, but even big-name authors fall victim to these. Or is it the lure of the easy path? Lazy plotting and characterization? Underestimating reader’s attention? Or the pressure on deadlines and budgets to just get the thing out there?
Nothing happens for far too long
This isn’t a genre thing, it doesn’t matter if it’s romance or crime or literary fiction. There has to be some forward movement in the story. Not just plot, it’s not all explosions and gun-fights. Character arcs, conflict, value-shifts, decisions; all of these count toward progress. The characters need to be active, responding to events. Never ending dialog without resolution achieves nothing. Minutely detailed descriptions are decorative, but not productive. Endless reflection without action or change is not a story.
Bad Decisions to force the plot
In every horror story ever, our young protagonist opens the locked door, goes into the attic, basement, abandoned house, derelict hospital or burned-out lunatic asylum. Whatever they’ve been told never to enter, by everyone, including themselves. Why? Because the plot demands it. Now extend the level of stupid to rash arguments, break-ups, punch-ups and resignations. Why? To force the plot. Meanwhile the reader slams their head against the wall.
Too many characters at once
How many names just landed in one scene? Who’s related to who? Who is a friend? Who is an enemy? What’s their role? Most importantly, who should we care about? Whose side are we on? You may need twenty-two characters to fill a book, just don’t introduce them all at once. Readers aren’t stupid, just human. That means we typically hold between five and seven things in our brain at once.
Info-dumping
The author stops the story to deliver a lecture instead of letting the story unfold. The conversation stops mid-sentence for half a page of world-building and/or character back-story. It doesn’t matter if it’s told in first person, third person or omniscient PoV, it’s still a dump. Even successful authors like Sarah J. Maas fall into this trap. It’s not a genre-thing, any author in a hurry can lapse into a massive digression of info-dumping instead of weaving it like colored thread into the fabric.
The Sagging Middle
Great beginning, exciting ending, but the middle drags or repeats until the word-count stacks high enough we can move on. The try-fail cycles keep repeating, along with the arguments, the training montages, the minor side-quests. Nobody makes a decision, makes a discovery, takes any action. No one moves along their character arc, stuck in a holding pattern for the next plot point. The pacing is off or there’s just not enough plot to move things along. And it shows.
The writer may have the best idea in the world, and a readership hungry for just this kind of book. But any of these pitfalls may be enough to turn it into a Did Not Finish.