Much like raising a child, becoming a professional author is nearly impossible to do without making mistakes along the way. But much like building that child a treehouse even with no carpentry experience, there are, for writers, ways you can limit the damage your mistakes might cause.

Even the greatest writers make mistakes. George RR Martin, for example, keeps making the mistake of forgetting to send his editors finished versions of his stories. John Updike forgot to take three minutes to consult a textbook and learn how women piss.

I’m going to talk about beginner mistakes by sharing the story of Evan Hayward, a promising young talent who had all the potential in the world, but who unfortunately flamed out of the industry because of some fatal errors he made and his unwillingness to correct them.

And even I’m not susceptible. I vastly overestimated the number of people who can read Old English, for example, and I wrote over thirty books before I gave a woman a speaking role.

Evan Hayward was probably like a lot of people reading this. He was a Master of Fine Arts, he loved literature, and he was a hungry young writer with lots of talent but not the necessary connections you need to make it big. But unlike most of the people reading this, Evan was tall, good-looking, had great skin and people generally liked being in his presence.

I signed Evan in 2015. His debut novel, a self-published indie comedy called A Tale Told By An Idiot, had won a few indie awards. I reached out and commissioned Evan to write his follow-up for D&E Publishing. At the time, the only other authors working for us, besides myself, were Blake Colby, who was struggling with addiction and would soon drown in his bathtub, and Samantha Chao, who only wrote political non-fiction about the imminent takeover of Sharia law. So I was very desperate for fresh talent.

Like many of you, Evan pitched many ideas that, with the correct guidance, editing and marketing, I knew would make a big splash. But unfortunately, over the next six months, he made some errors from which he’d never recover.

Mistake #1 – Trying to Write For Everyone

Writing for everyone is the same as writing for no one. That’s a little phrase I coined, and I find it rings true. When starting a new project, a writer has to clearly define their target audience. This is a mistake I often made at my start. When I wrote And Justice for Some, my target audience was just men, as my story contained lots of violence and the protagonist has sex with six or seven large breasted women with various racial backgrounds. But I was wrong. It turns out there are lots of men who are racist or who like small breasted women and the story did nothing for them.

From the start, I could tell Evan would have the same problem. Everyone in the office loved his work. People praised him constantly. The women in the office, in particular, spent a lot of time hovering around his desk when they should’ve been working.

Once Evan came on and spent more time around our offices, lots of gossip started. Now, to promote diversity and help save money, a large amount of our staff didn’t speak English. Fortunately, I was able to get my landscaper to get his daughter to help me translate their conversations I recorded in our break room by agreeing to help edit a college entrance essay. Here are just some of the things I learned:
Office integrity aside, the bigger problem was that I knew all this love and attention would go to Evan’s head and make him write too broadly.

Mistake #2 – Relying on the Perfect Conditions to Write

Writing is one of the most laborious processes imaginable. Many young writers have great ideas, but they feel if they don’t have their exact color Moleskin notebook in their favorite coffee shop eating their favorite pastry, they can’t get any words down.

A writer has to learn to write anywhere at any time. If you start putting writing off because you can’t find your perfect place, you’ll never get anything done. I make character sketches on the toilet. I write notes while I’m driving. I’ve done key edits while my third wife was in labor.

About a month after Evan joined D&E Publishing, his house burned down. For some reason, his work and productivity started to suffer. He tried to get more of his writing done in our publishing offices, but due to some renovations, I had to move his desk to the utility shed. Evan complained that the formaldehyde made it hard to focus, but I told him a writer needs to find a way to make it work.

Mistake #3 – Neglecting Research

Readers are more discerning than ever these days. Back in my day, you might be able to get away with saying Nixon was president during the Bay of Pigs or have a character with no arms administer CPR. But nowadays, readers are champing at the bit for their favorite writer to slip up so they can go on Twitter and call for him to be castrated.

Evan’s second novel was going to be a crime thriller and it had a solid hook, but the sloppiness was holding it back. The editors I hired, for example, were quick to point out that he didn’t specify the caliber of bullets used by the criminal in both metric and imperial units. Another character simply died of lung cancer, when it was clear they had actually died of pneumonia due to complications caused by lung cancer. No discerning reader would let things that slide.

Mistake #4 – Trying to Shock Without Value

Maybe it was some combination of the pressure over publishing under a deadline, the noxious fumes in the janitor’s closet or the grief over his cat dying in a fire, but Evan had trouble holding it together. Instead of working at his desk, I’d often find him whispering to people in the office, who I found a bit too supportive considering his poor work ethic.

When I did get the final manuscript, I was disappointed by the final twist in his story, where it turns out the killer had been the police detective who had suffered from split personality disorder. I told Evan this made no sense and was incredibly cheap and nobody would ever buy it.

Evan told me that the ending was actually from one of my novels and the fact that I automatically rejected it said I was just jealous of his talent and looks.

Lots of writers feel like way about their mentors, but most have the sense not to say it. I like to think, if Evan had been more mature and willing to learn from his mistakes, he’d have done great things with us. But D&E Publishing cancelled our contract with Evan and my only other regret is that security wouldn’t escort him out of the building because they said they liked him more than me.