This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 350 second episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors

Podcast.

Something I've been reminded of this summer is the importance of new perspectives for writers.

It can be so easy to get stuck in a routine,

riding at our desks 8 to 10 hours of the day,

walking the same route on our morning workouts, looking out the same window at the same time, every day.

Even just these little deviations can offer astounding new discoveries, and these discoveries are the stuff of fiction.

This is what's meant when you hear the old advice, right what you know,

right what you've observed, right what you've absorbed and try to absorb something new every day.

That's one of the reasons why as you listen to this I'm probably in the air returning from a 10-day vacation in Alaska.

I hope to have seen, breathed, eaten, heard, and experienced all kinds of new things before I get back.

And now I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast entitled Most Common Writing Mistakes Part 53,

No Contractions in dialogue.

What's the worst writing mistake an author can make?

It's a broad one.

Doing something you think makes you look sophisticated and clever when really it doesn't.

A common manifestation of this is a conscientious avoidance of contractions in dialogue and

narrative.

Now I'll admit I fell prey to this as a young writer who not so coincidentally read a lot of

Austin and Dickens.

Contractions were informal. Hence they must be unprofessional, and I was far too smart to be anything

less than polished in my first novel.

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