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aspiring authors, common mistakes that break immersion, how important is it to edit your book, how important is it to proof-read your book, indie authors, keeping readers hooked, story building problems in writing, story telling problems in writing, writing tips
Common mistakes that break reader immersion include:
- weak mechanics (spelling, grammar, etc.)
- implausible character behaviors
- echoing words, sentence styles, and images
- illogical world building
- conspicuous exposition (info dumping).
I found this information from Creativity Hacker who had conducted a study on reader immersion. The link to the original article is HERE. Jefferson, the author, put himself through an experiment where every morning he read an indie ebook and read for as long as he was immersed. When the immersion had broken three times, he stopped, and wrote a short report on why his attention had wandered. Then he did this study on the first 50 reviews and synthesised his findings. Now this study doesn’t have lots of participants (only one: the author), which weakens the study, but the findings are interesting!
Jefferson found a fascinating discovery. He broke down the WTF moments (what he referred the problems in the book that broke his attention) into three fundamental issues.
1. Story Building Problems (e.g., cliche plots)
2. Story Telling Problems (e.g., bad dialogue, show vs. tell)
3. Editorial Problems (e.g., spelling) Continue reading
