Post by Brownie on Mar 30, 2017 22:23:45 GMT -5
Both in published and internet stories, the top ten things that will make me stop reading on the spot (or else be severely annoyed in general)
**Note: these are OPINIONS not FACTS. These are my personal top ten, in a random order, of things that annoy me when reading here or on the internet. I'd been inspired to write this due to the fact that the first two books I picked up after not reading anything for over two months had several of these issues between them, enough to cause me to stop reading both of them.
If you feel some of your writing fits into some of these categories, please realize that I am not saying your writing is bad or that you are a bad writer. Each work is completely unique, and there are exceptions to all of these rules (well maybe not the grammar/spelling; there's not much right with typos). Again, these are just opinions, thrown together out of the annoyance I feel towards these two books specifically and augmented with other annoyances I've come across as a reader.
Fancy words for no reason
Lyrical style is amazing, and reads great if you can pull it off. But those books that look like they just spliced it with a thesaurus? This goes for original works too, but I'm reading a book (a published. book.) that does this and even if the storyline is great, I can't get past the thesaurus-diction. Especially when half of it is from the perspective of a peasant, who is kept oppressed and without education. You're telling me they won't give them a book, but they'll sit these farmers down and teach them the precise meanings of words that I've never heard in any other context than a spelling bee? It doesn't make sense to the character or how he's supposed to be characterized. I can't read more than five pages of this book a day and I love the plot. It's sad really.
"Summery" "Prolouge"
Or misspelled words in other title-y places. I don't mind the occasional slip up in the actual writing, especially online where we don't have editors to comb through and fix every little typo. As long as the error isn't consistent and they aren't in every sentence, its cool. But words in titles or headers should be spelled correctly. This is an immediate turn off for me, and I likely won't even read what's in that "summery".
Summaries that spoil the plot
In my view, summaries are a general outline of the first two, maybe three chapters. Something to hook the reader into reading and tell them what genre the piece is in. A summary should not summarize the whole novel. If events from the summary are still occurring 100 pages in / 10 chapters in then what's the surprise of reading it? At least put a note that says: read the summary then progress to chapter 17 for the twist.
Formatting
If you zoomed in to see this message you're trying way too hard
Creative character names
I'm all for creative character names. Names that are not commonly used, ones that have meaning. As a writer, I know that a lot of the character's personality is contained within their name, and certainly the reader's first impression. Honestly this one is a little odd for me, as in some cases it bothers me a lot and in others it only bothers me a little, but not enough to stop reading. Basically, if I feel the character's name is not what fits the character and is just something creative for the sake of being creative, I just can't connect with them. Maybe the main character is actually named Death on their birth certificate. Who knows.
Grammar errors
Especially commas. They're hard, I get that. But, you don't, need, them everywhere,,,. There's a comma flu going around where everyone puts commas after every 'and' or 'but' even if they're not needed. A few times is okay; again, we don't have paid editors writing on the internet. But consistent errors or ones that break the flow of the text. . . I can't read it. It's painful. And again not saying I'm perfect at grammar and my word is law but after a while it starts to annoy me to the point where I can't focus on the writing anymore. I get stuck in the alpha-reader/editor phase where I just go about noting the grammar mistakes and don't read a single word of the actual story.
Honestly this is even more annoying in published works. I've read a couple books that were flooded with errors like this and I wonder how half of them were published in the first place. Did they not have editors either? The saddest part is that most of them are chapter books for kids, which is only teaching them improper grammar.
Inconsistencies
Also includes(but is not limited to): timeline/age warps, personality flops, and description inconsistencies. After coming back to a work from not working on it, particularly if it's been a while, there surely will be some lapses in consistency. Maybe writing a character 'looks into his blue eyes' after noting a few chapters back that they were hazel. Or having a flashback where the age gap between siblings is significantly larger/smaller than in the regular story. A few of these and the reader probably won't even notice. Too many, or, worse, too many in the same chapter/paragraph/sentence will be noticed. This is the only one on the list that 90% of the time I will keep reading despite this, because usually the color of a character's eyes isn't the end-all-be-all for the book. But sometimes it becomes such a large plot hole --with timeline inconsistencies or personality flops-- that it becomes hard to read and understand. That's usually my limit.
Overused romance
The idea that every character must have a crush/date/sexuality, or, if they don't, are some sort of social outcast/'heartless' stereotype. Honestly I don't have much to say about this one. It annoys me. Having not had a crush until after high school, I don't understand this cliche or the portrayal of romances in most modern fiction. Characters can have a crush, sure. But is it likely that a group of friends will all happen to have crushes on each other and not on others outside their circle? Probably. At least, that's what my experience with life has been like. I think this is partially due to reader-pressures of trying to make their ships canon, but not every character needs a love interest (or several of them) in the time period the book takes place.
Killing characters that don't really matter anyways
and portraying it as the most dramatic event of the novel. I'd only heard of Bob through a name drop earlier on in the series, and now he's dead. So what? Sometimes killing random characters is important to the plot (otherwise how would there be a murder mystery genre in the first place?). Otherwise, why did they die? For the character to learn something? For the character to move on? For plain old drama? Red shirts are important, but if there's no context to the character, it shouldn't be the main drama for the characters to deal with. An example of this would be the anime Grimgar, where the death of a character we'd only seen for one or two episodes is the main emotional motivation for the rest of the season, which, with all the danger and death in the world as it is, feels fake and poorly constructed (although the art is amazing so check it out anyways). Harry Potter and the death of Cedric could also serve as another example of this (but I'm not stopping harry potter for that one issue).
Overuse of language/gore/ma+
This isn't a problem on a site like this, but other places on the web where anyone is free to post unrated material with proper labeling, it can be an issue. And yeah, I could just stay away from anything over PG-13 but that's cutting out a good deal of the fantasy plots I enjoy reading for other things, such as psychological horror, which could also be rated ma. Language and gore have their place, and can be used very effectively to emphasize characters or certain points in the writing. But only when used properly. Swearing just to swear is awkward at best, and writing scenes just to write scenes without doing anything to further the plot is a waste of words that could have been used to characterize characters and, ya know, write the book with. It's really obvious when an author is overusing ma+ content just to overuse it and not for the plot, and for me that's an immediate turn off for reading.
**Note: these are OPINIONS not FACTS. These are my personal top ten, in a random order, of things that annoy me when reading here or on the internet. I'd been inspired to write this due to the fact that the first two books I picked up after not reading anything for over two months had several of these issues between them, enough to cause me to stop reading both of them.
If you feel some of your writing fits into some of these categories, please realize that I am not saying your writing is bad or that you are a bad writer. Each work is completely unique, and there are exceptions to all of these rules (well maybe not the grammar/spelling; there's not much right with typos). Again, these are just opinions, thrown together out of the annoyance I feel towards these two books specifically and augmented with other annoyances I've come across as a reader.
Fancy words for no reason
Lyrical style is amazing, and reads great if you can pull it off. But those books that look like they just spliced it with a thesaurus? This goes for original works too, but I'm reading a book (a published. book.) that does this and even if the storyline is great, I can't get past the thesaurus-diction. Especially when half of it is from the perspective of a peasant, who is kept oppressed and without education. You're telling me they won't give them a book, but they'll sit these farmers down and teach them the precise meanings of words that I've never heard in any other context than a spelling bee? It doesn't make sense to the character or how he's supposed to be characterized. I can't read more than five pages of this book a day and I love the plot. It's sad really.
"Summery" "Prolouge"
Or misspelled words in other title-y places. I don't mind the occasional slip up in the actual writing, especially online where we don't have editors to comb through and fix every little typo. As long as the error isn't consistent and they aren't in every sentence, its cool. But words in titles or headers should be spelled correctly. This is an immediate turn off for me, and I likely won't even read what's in that "summery".
Summaries that spoil the plot
In my view, summaries are a general outline of the first two, maybe three chapters. Something to hook the reader into reading and tell them what genre the piece is in. A summary should not summarize the whole novel. If events from the summary are still occurring 100 pages in / 10 chapters in then what's the surprise of reading it? At least put a note that says: read the summary then progress to chapter 17 for the twist.
Formatting
If you zoomed in to see this message you're trying way too hard
Creative character names
I'm all for creative character names. Names that are not commonly used, ones that have meaning. As a writer, I know that a lot of the character's personality is contained within their name, and certainly the reader's first impression. Honestly this one is a little odd for me, as in some cases it bothers me a lot and in others it only bothers me a little, but not enough to stop reading. Basically, if I feel the character's name is not what fits the character and is just something creative for the sake of being creative, I just can't connect with them. Maybe the main character is actually named Death on their birth certificate. Who knows.
Grammar errors
Especially commas. They're hard, I get that. But, you don't, need, them everywhere,,,. There's a comma flu going around where everyone puts commas after every 'and' or 'but' even if they're not needed. A few times is okay; again, we don't have paid editors writing on the internet. But consistent errors or ones that break the flow of the text. . . I can't read it. It's painful. And again not saying I'm perfect at grammar and my word is law but after a while it starts to annoy me to the point where I can't focus on the writing anymore. I get stuck in the alpha-reader/editor phase where I just go about noting the grammar mistakes and don't read a single word of the actual story.
Honestly this is even more annoying in published works. I've read a couple books that were flooded with errors like this and I wonder how half of them were published in the first place. Did they not have editors either? The saddest part is that most of them are chapter books for kids, which is only teaching them improper grammar.
Inconsistencies
Also includes(but is not limited to): timeline/age warps, personality flops, and description inconsistencies. After coming back to a work from not working on it, particularly if it's been a while, there surely will be some lapses in consistency. Maybe writing a character 'looks into his blue eyes' after noting a few chapters back that they were hazel. Or having a flashback where the age gap between siblings is significantly larger/smaller than in the regular story. A few of these and the reader probably won't even notice. Too many, or, worse, too many in the same chapter/paragraph/sentence will be noticed. This is the only one on the list that 90% of the time I will keep reading despite this, because usually the color of a character's eyes isn't the end-all-be-all for the book. But sometimes it becomes such a large plot hole --with timeline inconsistencies or personality flops-- that it becomes hard to read and understand. That's usually my limit.
Overused romance
The idea that every character must have a crush/date/sexuality, or, if they don't, are some sort of social outcast/'heartless' stereotype. Honestly I don't have much to say about this one. It annoys me. Having not had a crush until after high school, I don't understand this cliche or the portrayal of romances in most modern fiction. Characters can have a crush, sure. But is it likely that a group of friends will all happen to have crushes on each other and not on others outside their circle? Probably. At least, that's what my experience with life has been like. I think this is partially due to reader-pressures of trying to make their ships canon, but not every character needs a love interest (or several of them) in the time period the book takes place.
Killing characters that don't really matter anyways
and portraying it as the most dramatic event of the novel. I'd only heard of Bob through a name drop earlier on in the series, and now he's dead. So what? Sometimes killing random characters is important to the plot (otherwise how would there be a murder mystery genre in the first place?). Otherwise, why did they die? For the character to learn something? For the character to move on? For plain old drama? Red shirts are important, but if there's no context to the character, it shouldn't be the main drama for the characters to deal with. An example of this would be the anime Grimgar, where the death of a character we'd only seen for one or two episodes is the main emotional motivation for the rest of the season, which, with all the danger and death in the world as it is, feels fake and poorly constructed (although the art is amazing so check it out anyways). Harry Potter and the death of Cedric could also serve as another example of this (but I'm not stopping harry potter for that one issue).
Overuse of language/gore/ma+
This isn't a problem on a site like this, but other places on the web where anyone is free to post unrated material with proper labeling, it can be an issue. And yeah, I could just stay away from anything over PG-13 but that's cutting out a good deal of the fantasy plots I enjoy reading for other things, such as psychological horror, which could also be rated ma. Language and gore have their place, and can be used very effectively to emphasize characters or certain points in the writing. But only when used properly. Swearing just to swear is awkward at best, and writing scenes just to write scenes without doing anything to further the plot is a waste of words that could have been used to characterize characters and, ya know, write the book with. It's really obvious when an author is overusing ma+ content just to overuse it and not for the plot, and for me that's an immediate turn off for reading.
