The Mistakes in g My First Book
My first book, Interviewing Immortality, hit the Amazon shelves on July 29, 2017. Since then, I have published three more and am on the edge of a new release.
I had learned a lot since that fateful day, and I thought it would be fun to explore the mistakes I made and the necessary changes for the second edition.
One of my biggest complaints is that the book was written in the first person. People dislike this style because of the constant use of phrases like: “I did…” and “I was not....” I get it, because I also do not like books that take too deep a dive into the first-person style. Yet, I still feel that the story demanded this perspective because it is about terrible events happening to one guy. Meaning that the perspective needed to be, “This is what I went through.” If I wrote in the third person, “James did…” “He was not…” or used a narrator perspective, the result would be impersonal and awkward. So, I still feel I made the right choice, but this book serves as a warning to myself about writing in the first-person.
My most prominent style flaw concerned proper dialogue integration. Bill said, “Go over there.” This last sentence seems so simple, but gaining the confidence to stick to one of the many proven methods took three books to master. What I wish I had done was read a book for writers that covered the topic. My problem was that I did not realize how bad my first draft was.
There were many homonym spelling mistakes and other glaring typos that readers pointed out. Today, automated grammar checkers are much better at catching those types of errors, but that is not the entire story. What I submitted to editors was so lousy that many mistakes slipped through the cracks.
I have several writing ticks, and my worst is starting something and then restating it. “He walked up to the door, opened the door, and walked through the door.” For some reason, I cannot spot these glaring errors, and my first book had over 200 sentences that need clipping.
Readers also complained about the ending because I left them hanging. I did this intentionally because this was the first book in the series. There were two options for fixing the first book.
I could have either applied more details to close the story or put other writing projects aside and published three books in the series simultaneously. I chose not to do either. My flawed reasoning is that in life, we do not always get a solid ending. For example, my great-grandfather lost a small family fortune in 1955. To this day, nobody knows where it went, and my book ended similarly. The difference is that I answered these questions in subsequent books. Still, I should have been better at preparing my readers.
Another major problem was flow. This is when the reader gets stuck, going from one sentence to the next. A good example of inadequate flow is changing topics mid-paragraph. Yet, a writer can go too far and make the work bland. It is a delicate balance that was not mastered in my first book.
What about the overall format, plot, characters, and theme? I recall a quote by Michelangelo. “The statue was always in the stone. I removed only the extra bits.” The same is true of my first book. My job as a writer was to get my story down on paper adequately. I achieved my goal, but I now see that I could have done a better job.
When I wrote my first book, I was blissfully unaware of how an outline would refine the plot, spot errors, and make the writing easier. This simple document or diagram shows how a plot unfolds and allows the writer to see the big picture. Had I used this device, I would have eliminated mistakes that took endless edits to correct and had a better-organized story.
Another problem was that the main character was a writer. People (wrongly) compared my book to Misery by Stephen King. I should have made him a blogger, which would not have changed the story, but in the reader’s eyes would have made a better book. In the second edition, I did not make this change because I had already written the second book, and that change would have been too difficult to fix.
The final problem was insufficient self-editing before handing the book over to an editor. I should have spent six additional months, which would have eliminated 90% of the reader complaints.
Given the above issues, there was no choice, and in December 2021, I published a second edition. I focused my edits on grammar, dialogue integration, my writing ticks, and flow. Each page received a good scrubbing, resulting in 12% of the words changing.
Part of the flow improvement involved eliminating small sections to maintain reader interest and adding paragraphs to explain missing details. The result was 99% the same story, but it read much better. Overall, the book was eight pages shorter.
I am still proud of my work and give myself an A- grade for effort, but the first edition was a C in the reader’s eyes. I still think I have a solid story premise.
I suppose it is called learning and life experiences for a reason. Writing that book got me to where I am today, and it was a good choice to leap into publishing blindly.
You’re the best -Bill
January 27, 2021 Updated August 02, 2025
I had learned a lot since that fateful day, and I thought it would be fun to explore the mistakes I made and the necessary changes for the second edition.
One of my biggest complaints is that the book was written in the first person. People dislike this style because of the constant use of phrases like: “I did…” and “I was not....” I get it, because I also do not like books that take too deep a dive into the first-person style. Yet, I still feel that the story demanded this perspective because it is about terrible events happening to one guy. Meaning that the perspective needed to be, “This is what I went through.” If I wrote in the third person, “James did…” “He was not…” or used a narrator perspective, the result would be impersonal and awkward. So, I still feel I made the right choice, but this book serves as a warning to myself about writing in the first-person.
My most prominent style flaw concerned proper dialogue integration. Bill said, “Go over there.” This last sentence seems so simple, but gaining the confidence to stick to one of the many proven methods took three books to master. What I wish I had done was read a book for writers that covered the topic. My problem was that I did not realize how bad my first draft was.
There were many homonym spelling mistakes and other glaring typos that readers pointed out. Today, automated grammar checkers are much better at catching those types of errors, but that is not the entire story. What I submitted to editors was so lousy that many mistakes slipped through the cracks.
I have several writing ticks, and my worst is starting something and then restating it. “He walked up to the door, opened the door, and walked through the door.” For some reason, I cannot spot these glaring errors, and my first book had over 200 sentences that need clipping.
Readers also complained about the ending because I left them hanging. I did this intentionally because this was the first book in the series. There were two options for fixing the first book.
I could have either applied more details to close the story or put other writing projects aside and published three books in the series simultaneously. I chose not to do either. My flawed reasoning is that in life, we do not always get a solid ending. For example, my great-grandfather lost a small family fortune in 1955. To this day, nobody knows where it went, and my book ended similarly. The difference is that I answered these questions in subsequent books. Still, I should have been better at preparing my readers.
Another major problem was flow. This is when the reader gets stuck, going from one sentence to the next. A good example of inadequate flow is changing topics mid-paragraph. Yet, a writer can go too far and make the work bland. It is a delicate balance that was not mastered in my first book.
What about the overall format, plot, characters, and theme? I recall a quote by Michelangelo. “The statue was always in the stone. I removed only the extra bits.” The same is true of my first book. My job as a writer was to get my story down on paper adequately. I achieved my goal, but I now see that I could have done a better job.
When I wrote my first book, I was blissfully unaware of how an outline would refine the plot, spot errors, and make the writing easier. This simple document or diagram shows how a plot unfolds and allows the writer to see the big picture. Had I used this device, I would have eliminated mistakes that took endless edits to correct and had a better-organized story.
Another problem was that the main character was a writer. People (wrongly) compared my book to Misery by Stephen King. I should have made him a blogger, which would not have changed the story, but in the reader’s eyes would have made a better book. In the second edition, I did not make this change because I had already written the second book, and that change would have been too difficult to fix.
The final problem was insufficient self-editing before handing the book over to an editor. I should have spent six additional months, which would have eliminated 90% of the reader complaints.
Given the above issues, there was no choice, and in December 2021, I published a second edition. I focused my edits on grammar, dialogue integration, my writing ticks, and flow. Each page received a good scrubbing, resulting in 12% of the words changing.
Part of the flow improvement involved eliminating small sections to maintain reader interest and adding paragraphs to explain missing details. The result was 99% the same story, but it read much better. Overall, the book was eight pages shorter.
I am still proud of my work and give myself an A- grade for effort, but the first edition was a C in the reader’s eyes. I still think I have a solid story premise.
I suppose it is called learning and life experiences for a reason. Writing that book got me to where I am today, and it was a good choice to leap into publishing blindly.
You’re the best -Bill
January 27, 2021 Updated August 02, 2025
Follow me
