Book/Reading Pet Peeves

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Agreed. Allergy to "said" is one of my pet peeves about both books and fanfiction, cuz sometimes a character really is just saying something. No need to regurgitate a thesaurus; don't be afraid of "said".

Same. Being trained as a creative writer myself, it was constantly beat into our heads that "said" is not meant to be anything other than a tag to allow the reader to naturally be informed of who is speaking. You're supposed to use the wording of the dialog itself to imply how they are saying it. If you really can't, adjectives or a descriptor after the dialog tag is better. Nothing bothered me more than my freshman year where I would get story after story filled with "exclaimed" "yelled" "screamed" "whispered", not one "said." Also, because there are only so many words that are speaking verbs, people would start to use verbs that are not SPEAKING verbs, like "gasped" "laughed" "giggled." You can do those things while speaking, but you don't laugh out words.

One of my peeves is a writer who creates a character who's obviously a complete sociopath, but the author means for them to be thought of as a hero or romantic lead.

You mean like 50 Shades of Shit?

Frink: "Yes, over here... in Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please do explain it!
Lucy Lawless: Uh, yeah, well, whenever you notice something like that...a wizard did it.
Frink: Yes, alright, yes, in episode AG04-"
Lucy Lawless: Wizard!

*cackle*

[BlaqueKatt]

2. Overhyped publicity: There is nothing that turns me off to a book faster than it being the most advertised thing ever. If there is a media frenzy behind it, I have already become annoyed by it. Thus, I have never read anything Harry Potter or Twilight.

It's one thing if you at least try to read it and don't like it, your blaming the publisher, and discounting what may be fantastic writing*, because it's advertised? That's judging a book by it's publishers advertising budget, and not even looking at the cover.

"The man who refuses to read what he might not agree with is no better than the man who cannot read."


For me, I hate stories that have glaring factual errors that under 30 seconds on google would fix.

unrealistic violence(yes I read a lot of "end of humantiy" type stories), a 9mm handgun will NOT make anyone's "head explode", rotted or fresh, from 50 yards.

recycling "character sheets"-
By this I mean, EVERY main character in any zombie novel is ex-special forces/sniper/military/black ops, recently returned home from war, recently upgraded their home to be "self-sustaining/off the grid", driven to find/protect HIS family, and any and all other survivors. Any women are either "rescued" from certain death/roving gangs, and become amazing marksmen within minutes of first picking up any implement of death(FFS I read one story where a 6 year old had become a "crack shot" with a .44 magnum-not that plausable, too much kick for a child), yet are unable to dispatch any loved ones, and disintegrate into a bowl of mush at the very thought.

Can we have an "average Joe who lucks their way into survival"?

*twilight, not so much, the Harry potter books have interesting plots/character development.

[ArcticChicken]

One of my peeves is a writer who creates a character who's obviously a complete sociopath, but the author means for them to be thought of as a hero or romantic lead.

You can do an enjoyable sociopath, but it's very difficult.

[Ellain]

Historical inaccuracies are a big one for me- if you're going to talk about the Spanish influenza, don't act as though it was vomiting and diarrhea, for instance.

Also, the media frenzy about certain series bugs me. Yes, I read both HP and Twilight. IMHO, neither are particularly good. But I read them.

[dalesys]

Authors that wander off and die. They're supposed to live forever, dammit!

[Kheldarson]

My biggest pet peeves are internal inconsistencies and a lack of...learning, shall we say?

I may get irritated if you have definite anachronisms in your historically based setting, but I will throw the book if you start ignoring your own rules for the sake of what you think the story is. And if you're writing a series and your heroine (granted, the hero can do this too, but I've seen it far more with the heroines) can't learn how to improve herself, either in power or logic or whatever, then you have a problem.

[MoonCat]

Experienced writers advise newbies to put down the thesaurus and stop using every possible substitute for "said." The point of that word is to convey the action of speaking, and as Arctic Chicken points out, you're not really supposed to notice it. That's actually one of my pet peeves. I read a book once in which every single synonym for said was used, to the point that one character didn't just reply to a simple question, he "chortled". I cringed. You don't even really need dialog tags like "said" all that often.

I also hate anachronisms. Don't put a bar of soap into a medieval story. It sounds too modern. Don't have characters saying "okay" if the story takes place in the 1400's or the characters are aliens.

And for the love of FSM, writers, please stop putting zombies and vampires into everything!!! Steampunk does not need zombies or vampires!! I don't find either one interesting or scary.

I also passionately hate stupid characters. If there are horrible screams coming from the basement, there's no light down there, you've been warned by the owner of the house to stay out of the basement, and you're a 5 ft. tall skinny girl with no martial skills whatsoever....why the f*ck would you go in the basement anyway??

ETA: Don't you hate it when people overuse question marks and exclamation points?

[wolfie]

One that tends to bug me is when the author hasn't done their homework when it comes to real-world items, places, or concepts that are in the story. Now if it's something minor and inconsequential that's one thing, but when a key plot point revolves around something that is flat wrong it just takes me right out of the story.

Tom Clancy, I'm looking at you here. In "Debt of Honor", a trucker entering a fogbank sets his clearance lights to bright flash. I'm a trucker - clearance lights have 2 settings: "on" and "off". In "Sum of All Fears", a trucker heading from an eastern seabord port to Colorado with a 40 hour deadline stops for breakfast. Even with a team (or a "cowboy" running 2 logs), you don't have time for that. Also, he glosses over a "weight and balance" issue with containers by saying that they're all loaded to the legal maximum that can be carried by truck. No way - a "weighed out" container needs at least a 3-axle chassis, and puts the truck over the 80,000 pound "no permits" limit. Not only that, but in the SAME BOOK the bad guys load a bomb into a container as its ONLY cargo - then transfer the bomb to an ordinary van. Clearly he knows that, depending on the cargo, a container can weigh FAR LESS than the maximum that can be carried by truck.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

And for the love of FSM, writers, please stop putting zombies and vampires into everything!!! Steampunk does not need zombies or vampires!! I don't find either one interesting or scary.

I actually don't mind vampyres (zombies I'm rather meh about) as long as the story is well written and doesn't revolve solely around the fact of "Here is a vampyre, ISN'T HE AWESOME! Now the whole story will revolve around him either trying to control his blood lust/not be found out/not be killed/girl main character falling in love with him, omg he's so hot." (You know, everything Twilight did wrong.)

Oh, and the fact that the vampyre is a vampyre is supposedly enough to make up for the fact that it's a flat, boring, cliched character. (You know, like Edward in Twilight.)

I actually have a novel I'm writing that does have vampyres (and other super natural creatures like ghosts, banshees, etc. so forth) but the fact that they are vampyres is just one of their character traits and while the main character becomes confused and scared after initially discovering this, after that it becomes part of the background noise of the novel and isn't brought forward to be the main focus of every conflict and plot point in the story.

So just because it's got a particular over used... creature? Setting? Isn't enough to peeve me off immediately, it's when I see it's being used poorly, as a stop gap, as a crutch, that I get peeved.

[Gizmo]

ETA: Don't you hate it when people overuse question marks and exclamation points?

I've been known to de-friend people for it... I have one person I work with who does this a lot in official correspondence with customers and sees nothing wrong with it - I have to resist giving her a clue-by-four!

[Mikkel]

I'm in the use-said-dammit school. I hate when the characters exclaim, groan, laugh et cetera through the dialog.

I'm not that good at remembering dates and historical facts, but when two characters several centuries apart is described as contemporaries I have been known to put the book down.

Then there are horrible translations. You English speakers don't have so much of a problem, but I remember reading a book where the translator, English to Danish, had translated "hydroelectric power-plant" as three different words to "hydroelektrisk kraftplante" making it sound as some strange growth producing electricity.

[Lace Neil Singer]

You mean like 50 Shades of Shit?

Exactly that. Basically, Christian is being painted as "omg the most perfectest man evar!1!eleventy", yet his actions lead me to believe that he's a complete psycho who ought to be put in prison. Then again, seeing as he's based on Sparkledick, I guess that's not surprising.

You can do an enjoyable sociopath, but it's very difficult.

I don't mean characters like Hannibal Lecter, who are quite clearly written as sociopathic; more characters who the author thinks is wonderful, yet his/her actions show them to be a couple cans short of a sixpack. See above. XD

[Divra]

There are three little words that will make me drop a text like a hot potato.

"As you know."

If whoever is being adressed already knows this, why the hell are you them it again!?

[BroSCFischer]

If I feel like reading something, I will, the hype machine be damned.

It's one thing if you at least try to read it and don't like it, your blaming the publisher, and discounting what may be fantastic writing*, because it's advertised? That's judging a book by it's publishers advertising budget, and not even looking at the cover.

Most of the time, by the time a book or series of books gets to "overhyped" land, I am familiar enough with plot and characters to realize that it is just not my cup of tea.

Where the problem comes in are the people who insist I must read it, and that my life is without meaning until I do read it. THAT is when my stubborn streak really kicks in.

SC

[LillFilly]

Overall, I hate historical fiction. You have fictional characters interacting with real historical figures, and I can't stand that. The only exception I can think of, offhand, is Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell. Another problem I have with historical fiction is that the characters, all of them, behave like modern people. Caleb Carr is particular bad in this respect. His books are train wrecks in print.

Have you read 'Her Majesty's Dragon'? It's about if, during the Napoleonic wars, each side had a dragon 'air force.' I like how they go into how different countries specialize in breeding certain types of dragons; France for size, China for intelligence, English for speed, etc.



Heehee. Sparkledick! I have to think how to begin using that as an insult...