Common Mistakes I See in Almost Every Manuscript

After editing over 1,600 manuscripts, I can tell you that almost every author makes the same handful of mistakes. This isn't a criticism. These are the things that are genuinely hard to spot in your own work because you're too close to it. That's exactly why editors exist.

Here are the issues I flag most often, with examples so you can check your own manuscript.

Inconsistent Tenses

This is the single most common issue I see, especially in fiction. An author will be writing in past tense and then slip into present tense mid-paragraph without realising.

"She walked to the door and opened it slowly. The hallway is dark and she can barely see." That shift from "walked" and "opened" to "is" and "can" happens naturally when you're writing in flow, but it pulls readers out of the story.

The fix sounds simple. Pick a tense and stick to it. But in practice, these slips hide in plain sight because your brain autocorrects them while you're reading your own work. A fresh pair of eyes catches them instantly.

Head-Hopping (POV Shifts)

If you're writing in third person limited, you should only know what your point-of-view character knows, thinks, and feels. Head-hopping is when you accidentally jump into another character's thoughts without a scene or chapter break.

"James watched her leave, wondering if she'd come back. Sarah walked down the street, furious that he hadn't tried to stop her." In a single paragraph, we've gone from James's head to Sarah's. Unless you're writing in omniscient POV (and doing it deliberately), this is a problem.

I see this in probably half the manuscripts I edit. Most authors don't even notice they're doing it until I point it out, and then they see it everywhere.

Overuse of Adverbs

"She said angrily." "He walked slowly." "They looked at each other nervously." Adverbs aren't inherently bad, but when every action has one attached, the writing starts to feel weak. Strong verbs do the heavy lifting. "She snapped" is better than "she said angrily." "He trudged" is better than "he walked slowly."

I'm not in the camp that says you should eliminate every adverb. Sometimes "she said quietly" is exactly right and anything else would be overthinking it. But if I'm highlighting fifteen adverbs per page, the text needs tightening.

Dialogue Attribution Issues

Two problems here, and I see both constantly. First: getting too creative with dialogue tags. "He exclaimed," "she retorted," "he queried," "she breathed." Stick to "said" and "asked" for most of your dialogue. They're invisible to readers. "He ejaculated" is not (yes, I've seen it used unironically in modern fiction).

Second: unclear attribution. In a conversation between two characters, it should always be obvious who's speaking. If I have to count backwards through the dialogue to work out whose line it is, something needs fixing. A simple "Tom said" every few lines keeps things clear.

Timeline and Continuity Errors

Your character leaves the house at 9am, has a twenty-minute drive, and arrives at 11am. Your protagonist is described as an only child in chapter two and mentions her sister in chapter fifteen. A wound on the left arm moves to the right arm three scenes later.

These are the errors that dedicated readers will write to you about. I keep a continuity spreadsheet for every manuscript I edit, tracking dates, times, physical descriptions, and plot details. It's painstaking work, but it's one of the most valuable things an editor does.

Repeated Words and Phrases

Every writer has pet words they lean on without realising. I edited a manuscript last year where the main character "let out a breath" forty-three times. Another where characters were constantly "padding" everywhere instead of walking. One where every emotion was described as a feeling in someone's "gut."

You won't catch your own repeated words because they feel natural to you. That's your voice. But when a reader notices the same phrase for the fifth time in three chapters, it becomes distracting. Part of my job is spotting these patterns and suggesting alternatives.

Common Grammar Mistakes

These crop up in every manuscript regardless of genre or the author's experience level.

Their/there/they're and your/you're. Yes, even experienced authors mix these up in first drafts. Spell check won't catch them because they're all real words.

Affect vs effect. Affect is usually the verb ("the weather affected her mood"), effect is usually the noun ("the effect was immediate"). There are exceptions, but that rule covers 95% of cases.

Lay vs lie. "She lay down on the bed" (past tense of lie) vs "she laid the book on the table" (past tense of lay, which needs an object). This one trips up almost everyone.

Comma splices. "She opened the door, the room was empty." Those are two complete sentences joined by a comma when they need a full stop, semicolon, or conjunction. I probably fix a dozen of these per chapter in most manuscripts.

Dangling modifiers. "Walking through the forest, the trees seemed to close in around her." The trees aren't walking through the forest. It should be "Walking through the forest, she felt the trees closing in around her."

The Good News

Every single one of these issues is fixable, and none of them mean your writing is bad. They mean you're human. I make these same mistakes in my own first drafts, which is why I have my own work edited too.

If you're reading this list thinking "I probably do half of these," you're in good company. That's exactly what professional editing is for. If you'd like me to take a look at your manuscript, send me a message and we'll talk about what it needs.