Five Simple, Common Newbie Mistakes Authors Make

Published July 21, 2026

By Sam Knight

There are so many! But let’s get some simple ones out of the way so we can move on with our writing lives!

1) Worrying about things they don’t need to know.

When I first decided to write a novel, I kept trying to figure out what font my favorite paperbacks were written in. I tried to figure out how many words, characters, or lines went on a page, and what size the page was, so I could set my printer. I tried to fix the justification and figure out how to hyphenate words that broke off into the next line. Basically, I was trying to figure out how to format a paperback.

Yes, it gave me something to do while procrastinating writing the next agonizing sentence, but I had no idea that, no matter how a manuscript is formatted, the publisher is going to change it into what they want anyway. (Which is why no publisher wants a PDF file.)

I felt foolish. Then I started reading slush piles and realized I was not alone. It’s been a while now, as the internet made information more available, but I still occasionally find an author trying to do the same thing.

Honestly, it’s a natural attempt at emulating something we love, but unless we intend to self-publish, it is useless knowledge. Even then, it isn’t important during the writing process.

2) Worrying about things that don’t make any difference.

Things like what kind of writing software to use. Is it okay to write on a legal pad or in a journal? Is blue ink okay? What about pencil? And what is a Library of Congress number and how do I get one?

Now, that last one some will dispute, and rightfully so, but until recently, if you were self-published, or even a small publisher, you couldn’t get a Library of Congress number. But that’s a different discussion. Meanwhile, it has nothing to do with writing.

And neither do finding the right steampunk keyboard, using Google Docs, Word, or Scrivener. Just because some writers do, that doesn’t mean you have to, too. You don’t need a Grammarly account to write. Whether you scribble on napkins is up to you, not other writers. Whether you dictate and transcribe it yourself, use software to convert it to text, or hire someone to type it out, is all up to you. Don’t worry about what other people are doing, do what works for you. That said, of course it is okay to ask which Dictaphone works best. (Those are still a thing, right?)

3) Feeling they don’t need an editor.

I’m gonna go a little soft on this one. Yes, it’s true you may not need an editor before you submit a story for consideration somewhere. It costs money to hire an editor, and spending a couple hundred dollars to get a short story edited may not be feasible, let alone financially responsible, when you may not earn more than $20 for the story.

That said, someone, who is not you, needs to look it over before you send it. Swap with another writer. Or, if you have to, wait a week and read it out loud to your dog. There are so many mistakes you won’t see until you let someone else see it. Then you’ll feel foolish for not realizing you changed the main character’s name halfway through

Yes, some editors may overlook that and buy your story and then edit it. No, they won’t always. Some will just quietly shake their head and reject it. Especially if they’re paying pro-rates and have hundreds or thousands of submissions.

A novel is a different. If you want to sell that, you may need it to go through an editor before it is “clean” enough an agent will be interested. And if you are self-publishing, well… I don’t know what to say. Many people self-publish without using an editor. And it shows. (Not in a tantalizing way, but in a grimace-and-back-away way.)

4) Faking their way through punctuation.

Here is a simple rule I think everyone should follow: if you don’t know how to use a punctuation mark, avoid it.

My follow up rule: make a list of punctuation marks you don’t know how to use and then learn how to use them.

Some mistakes are no big deal, but some are so distracting that some readers give up on the story.

Some of the most common punctuation mistakes I see are in dialog. I believe the reason for this is confusion caused by capitalizing names and proper nouns combined with the question mark and exclamation point replacing the comma at the end of dialog, but before the dialog tag.

Example:

“Hi, Billy!” Ma said.

could be rewritten as:

“Hi, Billy,” she said.

but not as:

“Hi, Billy.” She said.

But don’t think this is the only issue. So many people have problems with colons and semi-colons that common (mis)usage is pushing them to be the same thing in the eyes of AI. (Is that a bad metaphor? Do AI’s have eyes?)

When you look up how to use them, AI answers have not only been wrong, they contradicted within the same answer. Don’t trust it, go look up punctuation in a reliable way, like checking to see what Grammar Girl has to say about it.

5) Not recognizing what an IP is, and that they cannot use it.

First, my soapbox: fanfiction is not legal. Yes you can write fanfiction in your journal, no you cannot put it on your blog, website, Insta, or anything else. As soon as you “make it available to the public,” you have broken the law. It doesn’t matter if you are monetizing it or not.

Anyway, a sure way to get rejected is to use song lyrics. They are copyrighted. Don’t even try part of them.

He was singing, “Last Christmas, I ga—” when the truck hit him.

Any publisher big enough to be worth getting published with is going to balk at the idea of getting sued. It doesn’t matter if it was only a couple of words (there is no legal limit), or meant to be a “parody,” even the threat of a lawsuit costs us little guys too much to make it worth considering. (Here, it was “fair use,” which isn’t as broad as some people think.)

Another issue is using someone else’s characters or settings. You can mention Spider-Man as a pop icon, because he is, but you can’t make him a character in your story, not even a background “I saw Spider-Man save a dude at Hogwarts last night!” That makes it seem as your story is part of the MCU or Harry Potter, or both, and, again, even the threat of a lawsuit is too much to make it worth considering.

There are many more mistakes, but these are some easy-to-avoid, common ones. Some we all make, some only a few of us stumble through. Hopefully I’ve saved you a misstep or maybe given you the courage to point out a speed bump for someone else when you see them racing for it.

Sam Knight is the owner/publisher of Knight Writing Press and author of six children’s books, four novels, and over 80 short stories, including three co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson. Though he has written in many cool worlds, such as Planet of the Apes, Wayward Pines, and Jack L. Chalker’s Well World, among his family, Sam will always be known for Chunky Monkey Pupu. He can be found at SamKnight.com and contacted at sam@samknight.com