posted
Tell me what you hate to see an author do in fiction.
I hate authors' who use vengeance as a legitimate and morally correct solution to a problem. This is one of my many gripes with the Eragon series. Vengeance is an emotional craving that satisfies nothing. It should be a present element, something a young or impulsive character should likely desire, but we need the "sage-characters" (like Yoda) to explain why it is a bad decision.
I hate onbnoxiously presented agendas. I don't mind authors trying to use their fiction to share their perspective or emphasize things they feel are important. But I don't like it when the science of the very planet revolves around something that is politically arbitrary but shown in the story to be either black or white. Good or evil. (This isn't a problem for something that is universally frowned upon, like murder) but for things like "Recycling" or "environmentalism," fiction is not the place to push those agendas.
Unpronounceable names and conlang. I understand that some stories require a certain amount of conlang when it comes to names or other words—I even like conlang—but I hate it when it's something that's difficult or impossible to pronounce. Maybe that's because I read adult fiction out loud way more than the average citizen (at least an hour and a half a week... I've got a roommate who has to do a boring physical therapy thing for life, and I've been reading to her 5-6 evenings a week since early '00), so I tend to hear the words in my head as I read them more than most people do, so it's a real niggle when I run into one I can't 'hear'.. Anyway, that's probably number one.
An overabundance of gross redunandcies (which also generally means a vast amount of over-explanation to the reader, thus insulting said readers intelligence) is another big turnoff. Tell me once. Maybe twice if something is vastly important to the plot, but I don't (just for an easy example) need a detailed explanation of why a character has a phobia every time the phobia comes up in the plot. I couldn't not read Jean Auel's Shelters of Stone... I've followed that series too long... but the level of gross redunancy (steadily climbing as the series progressed) is absolutely horrendous (and this after waiting more than ten years for the book!!). I would guess that at least 15% of the whole novel is basically gross redunancies. It's really sad how downhill her writing/editing has gone over the course of her series, and that's one of her biggest downfalls. But I still had to see what happens to Ayla next, even if there could have been a lot more actual story (or a lot less actual pages) than there actually was (were).
Books without a single character I can admire come next (not perfect, but at least more admirable than not). I think Samuel Delaney is an extremely talented writer, and Babel-17 would probably make a personal top-6 most awesome and significant works of SF list, but Dhalgren was interminable because while there were a lot (understatement) of strange/quirky people who I guess might be phychologically interesting to some folks, not a single one seemed truly admirable to me. It was very difficult to really care what happened to any of them. I almost didn't finish it, and I almost never fail to finish a novel once I've started it.
Those are the first three things that come to mind anyway.
Regards,
SharonID
[This message has been edited by SharonID (edited March 10, 2007).]
[This message has been edited by SharonID (edited March 10, 2007).]
posted
Well, hate is kind of a strong word, but some of the things that might annoy me enough to put a book down are
1. What I'll call artificially snappy dialogue. What I mean by that is characters that constantly launch little one-liners at each other, playful little insults. The best example I can think of are David and Leigh Eddings books, especially the later books, where there always seems to be a male and female lead that engage in this back-and-forth when there's no true conflict behind it. Don't get me wrong, a little can be enjoyable, but three times per page for 450 pages will make me puke.
2. Characters that think too much. I've found this in what people call the "literary genre". That's not to say all books of this type are bad--many are great, but there seems to be a line somewhere where a fifty line rumination on meaningless topic like why a character never fails to floss before bed makes me long for a John Grisham book. I bet it could be done in 40 lines, or 20, or ten, or two.
3. When all character internal thoughts are put in italics. It makes me feel like I'm being jerked back and forth between close and distant third person POV.
4. "Look how much research I did!" - Books where you get info dumps on topics so the writer can convince you he did lots of reaserch--something like a fast-paced suspense story that grinds to a halt while you get a five page treatise on how to make your own bullets, or how a GPS correlates satellite signals to calculate a position. Sometimes the stuff is even interesting, but it can be like switching over to the Discovery Science Channel in the middle of The Shining.
5. The infamous head-hopping. If you have any interest in having me enjoy your novel, at least start a new scene when you change POV's, or preferably a new chapter. If you want to really make me happy, take a look at how George Martin handles the Fire and Ice books.
posted
Well, I hate long stretches of italics, especially (!) if it's an entire prologue.
I also extremely dislike books that happen mostly in the character's head. Internalizations slow the pace of the story, which is fine in moderation or when you want a breather in a fast-paced action novel, but AS the story? No. Which also doesn't mean that I haven't read novels where that technique worked, but it's very advanced writing and should not be engaged in by most writers. In my opinion, of course.
posted
Oh, I have a laundry list of little things that scrape my nerves like nails down a chalkboard. (I'm sure most professional editors do.) One day, maybe I'll post it. For now, It's just fun harping about it at conventions.
The one at the top of the list, though, is Illogical Suspension of Disbelief: something that usually occurs because the author is too lazy (or too much in a hurry) to think things through.
Here are two recent, real-life examples from bestselling authors (whom I, for the record, did not edit):
******************************
Example #1: A woman in financial trouble inherits over 80 million dollars from a despicable relation. At the end of the book, she takes out a loan to deal with her finances and donates the entire inheritance to charity (so as not to tarnish her mother's memory).
a.) 80 million dollars is never handed over in large suitcases. People worth 80 million dollars usually have assets tied up in land, stocks, bonds, etc. that are not quickly and easily liquidated. By the time the heroine got rid of the money, she would have made enough in interest to live comfortably.
b.) If I was her dead mother, I'd be yelling at her from beyond the veil to take the worthless sod's money and spend it as frivolously as humanly possible. Don't make your life HARDER, for goodness sake...stupid, proud girl...
******************************
Example #2: Our shape-shifting heroine is whisked away by the rich hero on a "date" to a secluded island. When she laments that she had no time to prepare for the journey, the hero tells her not to worry -- his maid has bought her a bathing suit, and it is up in her room. The bathing suit is a size six, and fits like a glove.
a.) Any woman who has ever gone bathing suit shopping knows that it is easier to climb Mount Everest than it is to find the perfect bathing suit. There is NO WAY that one woman could buy another woman a bathing suit HAVING NEVER LAID EYES ON HER and have it fit. Huh-uh. Forget it.
b.) Hello? Our heroine is a SHAPE-SHIFTER. Would it not have made more sense to have her SHIFT herself so that the suit fit perfectly? I might have chuckled at that scene and kept reading...instead of putting the book down at that point and never picking up that author again.
******************************
I am a genre reader. I have no problem willingly suspending my disbelief. But even magical, escapist worlds are still subject to certain rules of common sense and logic.
Don't insult your reader by ignoring them.
(Of course, these books still went on to sell buckets of copies, without my two cents...)
posted
I hate when the villains are cartoon characters. (A disservice to the characters in cartoons---most are more complex than that.) I remember reading somebody's book written in the waning days of the Cold War (yet set about a hundred years from now) where late in the novel the Communist villain at one point brutally raped the heroine---without any prior buildup suggesting he was inclined that way. Yet the writer in question had previously written books with similar villains with more subtle characters. I'm not sure I read any of his books after that, come to think of it.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hate picking up books that are one-in-an-endless-series. I can tolerate a series, but I expect everything that comes up in the book to resolve itself within the confines of the book, and let the sequels come where they may.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
I hate getting to the end and saying, "what was the point of that?" This seems to be worse with short fiction than with novels. I can't tell you how many short stories I've read -- literary and genre, by the way -- where I have an investment in the characters, I'm interested in the plot (or, if there's no plot, at least the vignette or the idea), and when I get to the climax, I say, "was that all? What are they trying to say?" Or worse, "Who cares?"
Maybe I feel that way because I'm an unsubtle simpleton, but I often feel like I've wasted my time. I don't need resolution, by the way -- just a point.
There's a podcast called "The Writer's Block" that did that to me a lot. I stopped listening when I discovered that only one out of every ten readings actually had a point.
posted
oliverhouse, you hit the proverbial nail on the head. I hate movies like that, too. The whole time, you're thinking it's gotta get better but it doesn't!
I hate when prose is so full of technical jargon that it becomes like reading an instruction manual.
Or when four pages of beating around the bush interupts a character's hurried walk to a necessary destination.
And when the author makes stuff appear when the hero needs it, using the tag that he had gotten in town or that she gave him before he left.
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 10, 2007).]
quote:And when the author makes stuff appear when the hero needs it, using the tag that he had gotten in town or that she gave him before he left.
no doubt, especially when you consider that in most cases, you can backfill the information into an earlier scene. Case in point, my character needed duct tape in a recent short story. I gave it to him five pages earlier, lo, he has it when he needs it.
What i dont like is when the book gose on and on and on, like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it rambled to much, also Jane Eyre that book made me want to burn down england. OMAGAOFTHEALPHA
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 10, 2007).]
posted
I can certainly understand the temptation, tnwilz.
But there are fictions and there are fictions. I would like to continue the polite fiction that we can control ourselves around here and stick to the topic.
posted
And on that note, I guess I should offer of a couple of what-I-hate-mosts.
I hate cliff-hangers that are inserted just for the sake of cliff-hangers, especially when the next chapter jumps to an entirely different set of characters who have had their own cliff-hanger a few chapters ago.
I hate giving someone feedback on something that is not working and being told that they did it that way on purpose (they honestly wanted it to "not work" in that particular way? yeah, right).
I don't exactly hate stories where something is supposed to have a particular impact on me as a reader, and that impact is not earned by the writing, but I stop reading them and never manage to get around to finishing them. (For example, I have put down books that other people find hilarious because while I can see quite clearly that the things in the story are supposed to be funny, they just don't make me laugh. And the writer doesn't make me care about the characters in any other way, either.)
posted
I dislike many of the same things mentioned above, mostly pointless stories.
There are a couple of things I would use the word Hate for.
I hate work that graphically describes evil for entertainment.
I hate books and TV that promote socially destructive behaviors as normal. Society IS destroyed by moral decline. Nobody ever overthrew the Roman Empire it destroyed itself through moral decay. As an example, most men don’t want a threesome but “Friends” made an entire generation believe that it’s every man’s desire and not really that abnormal.
there has been a lot of thinly-veiled political chest-thumping here lately.
One thing I don't like in a story is when you feel like you're never going to be surprised, like everything is going to go plodding along in predicatble patterns all the way to the end.
PS: On KDW's last point. Me too. won't mention 'discworld'.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited March 11, 2007).]
posted
Having just finished the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, I have to say that I hate when books in a series don't really wrap up any of the plot threads before the book just ends. This is especially true for a FIRST book in a series. If it's going to a be a 7 book series and book 6 ends with a bunch of cliffhangers, I can accept that. Maybe you just need 2 books worth of material to finish the final struggle between good and evil (or what have you) but if you can't even write a the first book in a series to have some kind of overall resolution, it's not a book. It's the first half, or third, or tenth of a book. Just like "Fellowship of the Ring" isn't a book, it's the first third of a book. Or maybe I just expect a forwarning at the beginning "WARNING: this book isn't actually a book, in that none of the story threads will be concluded for 5 more volumes, and the book will end in a bunch of cliffhangers, just like chapters do."
What I hate most, though, is that the story is encaptivating enough that I want to run out to the bookstore and buy the next one right now.
posted
I really don't like stories that are excessively arbitrary in the plotting or the circumstances. Fantasy is especially prone to this because arbitrary "magic tricks" can be contrived to meet whatever situation the characters confront.
I also dislike it when a character has contradictory natures to him. That's not to say that he doesn't have contradictions. Contradictions can be in the nature of a character. A character who believes in the ten commandments, but justifies theft of food for his troups has an inner contradiction. But a man who outwardly protects and cherishes life, yet slaughters every man, woman, and child in a village has a contradictory *nature*, and unless he is obviously insane, he is not a credible character to me.
I once tried to make a character of a family man who had complete integrity within his family, but was full of larceny on the outside. That is pretty extreme and it at least flirts with a contradictory nature. I had to scrap the character. It would take an exceptional writer to accomplish it, I think. (Or at least a much better writer than me.)
I can only recall one time when these kinds of extremes didn't hurt the story, and that was in a novel written by a Nobel Prize laureate.
I generally agree with oliverhouse regarding the "say what?" factor of some stories. The exception is when a story leaves me with a strong sense of mystery and/or wonder. But that only happens when the story is very exceptional, and most of the time authors that try to do that just come off as pretentious to me.
I also hate gratuitous anything. Gratuitous sex, gratuitous violence, gratuitous gazing, gratuitous suspense, gratuitous surprises, gratuitous angst, gratuitous fuzz, etc.
posted
I hate it when an author gets stuck on a particular phrase that might have sounded clever the first time, but after multiple repetitions it begins to sound stupid. Case in point: I read a story years ago where the author wrote the character was standing with "arms akimbo." Now, the first time that was sort of clever. But this heroine was "arms akimbo" at least several times a chapter after that. Another example is a book that had had the hero "running his finger through his hair" over, and over, and over. Bleah.
I hate it when the villain's motivation is simply because he's "evil." I used to like Mercedes Lackey, when I first began reading her Valdemar series. But eventually she degenerated into cookie cutter heroes and villains. Same with Anne McCaffery.
I hated the last couple of books in Jean Auel's Earth's Children series because she kept repeating the same basic (and non-essential to the plot) scenes over and over again. That last book was so bloated with repetitive scenes that didn't move the plot forward, it was ridiculous. I put the book down and won't go back.
I hate it when an author tries to impose their own cadence of speech into the text through italics. It's so annoying when the author uses italics for artifical emphasis in the dialog. Really.
[This message has been edited by Elan (edited March 11, 2007).]
posted
...it took me over twenty years to figure out just what was meant by "arms akimbo."
I hate it when I read a book---fiction or non-fiction---where I come up to a stated fact that I know beyond any doubt is wrong. Sometimes I can't ever get back into the flow.
posted
What is a dictionary? Haha, mine is packed away now. Cliff-hangers also make me mad, the Manga Wolves Rain ended as a cliff-hanger as well as the anime. It was quite depressing. They never made it to paradise. Rommel Fenrir Wolf II
posted
Arms akimbo is like "I'm a little teapot" but forgoing the spout for another handle. I learned that one from my dad, who would then say "Oh #*@&, I'm a sugar bowl!" which always made us laugh. I can't read the expression "arms akimbo" without thinking of that.
I dislike intensely logorrhea. I have it, so I can't say I hate it. I just dislike when an author uses 10 words to say something that could have been said in 5. I'm all for description and painting the environment for us, but there's a limit! I've read two authors recently who seem to have this problem. One uses excessive technical/academic lingo and very long words to communicate himself and it drives me bananas. The other seems to have the repetition thing that others have mentioned on this thread. Yes, she feels badly that she's going to be leaving her parents, we get it. I think I counted 4 cases of foreshadowing of that emotion in 1 page alone!
I dislike cliffhangers, only because I'm slightly obsessive compulsive about my reading and therefore must read the remainder of the volume(s) just to get to the conclusion.
I don't like endings with a twist unless I truly saw them coming. I like a little forewarning. None of this "and then I woke up." garbage!
I dislike it when writers don't include a diagram or map of their invented worlds, yet seem to expect us to know the lay of the land. Diagrams or maps aren't always needed or necessary, but if you're going to spend a lot of time telling us about the mountain range that is West of the Deep, Dark Woods and north of the Ice Palace, draw it out for us. I've had to sketch my own more times than I can remember. Curse of being a visual learner. If it doesn't matter where something is, don't bother making a big deal out of it.
I dislike completely invented, not-based-in-anything-you-can-relate-to fantasy or sci-fi. I have trouble w/sci-fi set 1M years off in the future, and fantasy where the sky is orange and melts. I think part of the enjoyment of reading comes from mentally situating oneself in the story. Environments that are that foreign are too hard to situate myself into. I give up easily.
I also echo the gratuitous violence point someone else mentioned. I will put down a book/walk out of a movie that relies upon violence to the exclusion of actual plot, character development, themes, ideas. Seems worse in movies, but I think it's a cheap shot in general. Most people's lives are not filled with violence day in and day out. Why is it such a common element in our culture and media? Even fear and fright. I've read a lot of books lately that seem to be playing heavily on fear as the primary tension/conflict. It's annoying me to the point where I probably won't continue on reading one particular author's books (odd for me, I tend to read author-by-author as much of their work as I can put my hands on. Obsessive, did I mention?) Since my own life has little fear and fright as a daily thing, I have trouble situating myself into a story/imagined world where this seems to drive all of the characters. Isn't there something a bit deeper you can tap?
I thought when reading this thread originally that I wouldn't have much to add but apparently I've had some bones to pick. LOL
posted
I think I have only two or three gripes with authors, them being:
Excessive use of cursing, I hate it in real life, I hate it in writing. If you are clever then create your own sayings and words, not simply change one word and phrasing.
Another one of mine is when an author explains every, little damned detail about the action that's taking place, where "his foot slid on the curved side of the rock that jutted out from the sand" or "when his sword fell from his hand after being hit in the back of the head where his neck meets his head, the sword missing his little toe."
And my last gripe is people who expect to know every word in the theasaurus and actually know what the word means. I like to keep my writing simple, easy to read so that a person who may not be all that entirely knowledgeable can actually understand what I'm conveying.
Profanity. Graphic violence. Pornographic scenes. Pushing the line for its own sake with any of the above, rather than pushing the line for more creative endeavors. If certain characters have to indulge in certain actions, cut away! I am not a voyeur. Allow the character some privacy.
posted
On similar grounds...I hate books that have a great cover and the contents don't deliver on its promise.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mary Sues. I cannot stand characters who are more than perfect despite their 'tragic' upbringing. One person cannot save the day on their own everytime! Any flaws they have are purposefully grafted in as the author's last ditch attempt to persuade the reader to like them.
Also- I hate it when the storyline follows every step of the Hero's Archetype. (Eragon drove me crazy)
posted
Another thing I hate in fiction is when the author writes about military battles and gets things all wrong. Especially then it comes to the weaponry. I read this book a few weeks ago and it was all sorts of jacked up. Rommel Fenrir Wolf II Posts: 856 | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hate it when there are a bunch of characters I can't tell apart, that get killed one after another.
I hate fantasy that has the medieval setting but no magic.
I hate stories that are just there to push thru a political point.
I hate SF in which I get to the end and think, OK, so it took place on another planet. Why didn't they just set it in Cleveland? It would have worked fine.
I hate people who list more than four things that they hate in a single post.
I hate any writing that draws attention to itself. Don't mess with style thinking you're cool. Just write the book.
I hate books that don't go anywhere. I read Orphans of Chaos, and the story ended as it started: a bunch of orphans with super powers are still imprisoned. The sequel, Fugitives of Chaos, implies by its title that they escape, but shouldn't something have happened in the first book? At all?
BTW, I have a hard time putting any book down, no matter how bad. I don't know exactly why, but maybe it has to do with the idea that I've already invested my time in it and I want to finish. If a book does let me down, I won't read anything else by that author. John C. Wright (author of Orphans of Chaos) has been black-listed. I will never read anything by him again.
quote: I hate fantasy that has the medieval setting but no magic.
Funny, I haven't read too many like that. It impressed the hell out of me when George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones limited its magic to almost nil. I don't think fantasy needs to be just Swords&Sorcery--in fact--I think it's more difficult to believably conclude the plot without magic.
quote: BTW, I have a hard time putting any book down, no matter how bad.
I definately don't have that problem. I'll drop a book in a minute, if it starts sucking.
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 12, 2007).]
posted
I'm a horse person. I've read a couple of novels by BNAs that really bothered me when they spoke with authority on horses--their conformation, blemishes faults, way of going etc.--(and I'm talking about normal horses not fantasy super horses that may require some build up and explanation) And they get it WRONG. If they're going to go into that detail they should do better research. A good percentage of their readers may not make heads or tails of what they're saying but I want the tail on the right end.
[This message has been edited by spcpthook (edited March 12, 2007).]
posted
Naming characters alike. Even twins are questionable, unless it's boy/girl where they are easily distinguishable (as L. M. Montgomery's Gerald and Geraldine.) With any other characters it is unforgivable!
Changing characters' hair or eye color inexplicably. Hasn't the author pictured the character any better than that? I see them as clearly as I can see an actor on a TV screen at least. And why don't editors catch these things?
Writers who stretch credulity when they're not even trying to be funny, they just don't know how certain things work in the real world.
Main characters who are just mean! Ever tried to read Sidney Sheldon's work?
Characters who are shallow. I know that's not fair as it reflects so many people in real life. I just don't want to read about 'em. This and poor construction of prose and scenes spoil John Jakes's work for me.
Twisting history to fit a fictional work. Maybe that's just me. I'm not sure the excellence of the work ever justifies it. I haven't made a close study of their works vs. the real events, but as I understand John Jakes is pretty respectful of history and Larry McMurtry is just terrible.
Writers who sell a gazillion copies whose work is so bad I can't even force myself through one book of theirs. Unfortunately this includes most of the bestseller list.
posted
On yet another similar note---I hate it when a writer deals with something I actually know something about and gets it wrong. This extends to the movies as well.
Not that I'm completely innocent of this crime. Of late I've decided to step back from making use of characters in military or quasi-military settings---I've never been in the army (or navy, or marines, or airforce), and my work lacks that kind of reality that comes from an intimate knowledge of that kind of world. (I know a great deal about working for the government, though---but things aren't organized in the same way.)
posted
Should'a mentioned it in the above, but I forgot...my latest finished-in-rough-draft work requires me to do a little research into, of all things, hotels and hotel management. I know them only as a guest. I like the way the story ran, but I don't want to be caught in a gaffe as I (and others) spoke about above. (Not that the story is perfect in every other way, either---for one thing, it's too damned long.)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
What twists my shorts in a knot are novelists that don’t understand or respect the reader’s intelligence and feel compelled to recap all events leading up to the present.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hate books when humans are fighting aliens and the aliens loose. The way I see it is if the aliens have been traveling the galaxy for thousands of years and humans just jump in and boom there is a war and the aliens are blamed then the humans win. It is mind boggling. OMAGAOFTHEALPHA Posts: 26 | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hate when an author refers to his own Text. The capital T in text is could be heard three rooms away.
Terry Pratchett does this and it works 'OK' because its satire, but when Robert Jordan does this, I spend 20 min thinking about why and how it ruined my emersion in the story.
I also hate the word gelding. Most people don’t know a stallion from a gelding. If my horse is castrated, what difference does it make to the story, unless you have a problem with your stallion trying to mount every mare he sees. At least give me a reason for it, otherwise just say, "He road a horse".
[This message has been edited by Alye (edited March 13, 2007).]
posted
Actually, Alye, I think most people do know what a gelding (horse) is. I have more problems with horses being ridden at a gallop for hours on end or being fed 100% grain or various other highly unreasonable things.
The things I hate are:
-Details that are the focus of or important to a scene that are not correct.
-When the author writing a POV character who Knows Something but does not let the reader know what that is. The book I'm thinking about had the POV obsessing about the Green Item but didn't let the readers know what it was until halfway through the book.
-Novels that delibrately end with a cliffhanger to make readers buy the next book.
-When the author kills off a main character that the reader has grown to love because 'someone has to die.' That death must become a major driving force in the story (the MC's reaction to the death changes something) or I just get angry.
-Rather than having the MC deal with the natural consequences of her or other people's action, the author drops various calamities and sorrows on the character just to have some adversity. Don't give her an injury, kill off her kids before her eyes while she's unable to do anything, and have her husband kidnapped and presumed dead when we know that she would have risked her life to help others even if this hadn't happened. And a depressed character isn't much fun.
-Politics/Morals taken too far in the story. If you want your characters to sleep around all the time, fine. If you set up the world so that the 'other' characters refuse to have sex with anyone except their marriage parnter and so will be destroyed by the invading army without the MCs help AND the MCs refuse to help 'those backward dolts,' you've lost me as a reader.
And that's my 2 cents.
[This message has been edited by DebbieKW (edited March 13, 2007).]
posted
When they recycle an old plot or story without anything truly fresh or new, and make claims of bieng a 'great writer' afterwards.
Posts: 51 | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
