If you’re reading this blog you have an intimate familiarity with the tendencies, biases, and at times irrational peeves that swim around in my head. My condolences.
But what turns you off as a reader? When you’re reading a book, what drives you up the wall?
KingM says
Poor writing drives me crazy. I don’t mean weak plots or inadequately drawn characters, I mean bad writing on a sentence by sentence basis.
So many published books–bestsellers, even–sound like they were written by a high school kid. Ludlum is wretched this way.
Jana Lubina says
Oh god, this could be quite the list! But if I were to choosejust one: knowing exactly where the plot is going. Predictability is DULL! Then again, so is going so far outside the box that you’re not even making sense anymore in terms of events and characters.
Oh and stock characters. Hate ’em.
eric-paul says
I really hate when an author uses a ten dollar word like strabismic and then two pages later uses it again. Once is enough, and in some cases more than enough. I can just see them sitting there having just perused their thesaurus, thinking, “Oooooo, I love this word, it’s so shiny and new, I just have to use it.” And then an hour later, “Once more won’t hurt.” Yes. Yes it does. Just say squint.
Kathleen says
I’ve said this before, but my pet peeve is found in the romance that I would otherwise love. I HATE it when a hero makes a resolve not to you-know-what the heroine… and then can’t find the strength to stick to it. It’s supposedly because the passion is so great and all that, but it just makes the “hero” look totally weak in my opinion. If there’s ANYTHING a hero should have the strength to stand by, it should be his own resolves! Come on!!!
The other thing that gets me is the reversed sentences. Such as, “Gazing at her, he thought…” It has its place, but I find who paragraphs where the vast majority of the sentences are written like that! It makes me feel like I’ve got to do hopscotch to keep track of what’s happening when!
Lauren says
I can’t deal with style-less prose. “Workmanlike prose,” as I’ve seen it called in some places. It moves the story along, gets the job done, but doesn’t wow you. Or me. Or anyone. I love language, and I read as much (or more) for knock-me-over sentences and surprising word choices and painstakingly constructed character voices as I do for story. If I pick up a book and am not hooked by the narrative style within the first few chapters, it’s unlikely I’ll finish it.
Similarly, I don’t like it when characters don’t have individual voices. Everybody has verbal tics and pet phrases and strange ways of speaking. Those should absolutely be reflected in literature. One instance of “holy crow” doesn’t count. Ahem.
A much pettier one: I can’t stand it when a main character is mentioned as having a pet or pets, and then those animals have almost no role in the character’s life or story. Like, a dog comes bounding down the stairs in the first chapter, and then we never hear from him again. Feed and play with your dogs, o characters of the world!
LeeAnn Flowers says
Inconsistency bothers me. Changing the spelling of names between books in a series, forgetting dates, dates that don’t add up, these are my pet peeves.
Kiersten says
Imprecise language use. Words are your tools, make sure you use them well. If you’re not sure a word means exactly what you think it does, LOOK IT UP. Or just don’t use it.
I also hate repetitive metaphors or descriptions. We get that the love interest is amazingly good looking. You don’t have to mention it every other sentence.
Anonymous says
What about when a character does something ridiculous, inexplicable, or just plain indefensible because the plot requires him to? Stop him! He wouldn’t do that! That doesn’t make sense! That and bad writing, always.
Anonymous says
“Sure enough”
I don’t know why it bugs me, but it does.
spyscribbler says
Starting a sentence with “for.” I HATE it, irrationally despise it. I have no idea why, but it absolutely irks the crap out of me.
Ex: “For John was quirky fellow who liked to eat apples dipped in guacamole.
It’s the only nit-picky pet peeve I have. I’m almost embarrassed to admit.
Lehcarjt says
Being preached to drives me crazy. And it doesn’t matter if the subject of the preaching is something I personally agree with or not. The moment a writer takes a fiction novel and uses it to promote a belief/judgment/etc, I am done. (I’m reading a book now that is anti-organized religion. I read one recently that was using the story to teach the author’s personal religion. Lately I’ve seen pro-gay marriage and pro-changing the legal age of drinking.)
Anonymous says
Characters who take a beating or a bullet (often detectives) and then refuse pain medication. This nonsense shows up even in otherwise very good books.
Give me an effin break. People in pain generally take the pills.
ORION says
I love being fooled but I hate being set up…i.e. the long lost cousin nobody knew about ending up being the murderer…
other than that I can be amused for hours reading the backs of cereal boxes…
Oh the pain of all those carbs, sodium levels and daily minimum requirements.
Susan says
Exclamation points! Especially after sentence fragments! Or two at a time!! Like this!!
They distract me right out of the story.
I’m always amazed when I see it again, which is usually in a thriller or romance story. If I could be a fairy or demon for just one night, I swear I’d visit all the printing machines of the world and destroy their exclamation-ability.
I mean, !!!!!!!
Joanne says
Repeatedly using “said” in a dialogue. We know they’re talking, don’t need to be told in every sentence. It strikes me as very amateur. Just let the conversation flow uninterrupted.
Travis Erwin says
This list has changed since I started writing and now it ticks me off when I see lazy writing that got published. Stuff like characters looking into a mirror and describing themselves, dialogue that is serves as an info dump, glaring holes or errors in the plot, …
Lil says
not to get too technical, but I get annoyed when there’s little control over psychic distance.
I figure I can read an essay if I’m looking to have something explained to me. I’ll read the newspaper for an objective summary of events, but I want to be captured by a story.
Precie says
–Info dumps
–Mr/Ms Exposition (i.e., characters who exist mainly for info dumps)
–Blatant authorial manipulation of the reader
–“He saw his own {emotion} reflected in her expression.” I cry “Foul!” at twist on telling vs showing and have begun to see it far too often.
Not so much a pet peeve as just something I’m seeing more often that disappoints me…Books that don’t seem to fulfill the promise of their early chapters. They start out wonderfully written but then fizzle out toward the end with something trite or predictable.
(You can probably guess I’m not a HEA kinda girl.)
Susan Helene Gottfried says
Stilted dialogue and too much telling of the backstory. I’m reading one right now that has both and I’m ready to throw it across the room.
And yep, you guessed it: it’s a best-selling author who’s well-regarded.
Scott says
Final chapters that wrap everything up in a neat little package can destroy a book for me. Not many years ago, I read a successful novel by a prize-winning author (I won’t mention his name because of your rule against that kind of thing when the author is alive). I enjoyed the book quite a bit, despite some factual errors about some settings near where I lived. I could deal with those errors. But the final chapter wrapped everything up too neatly, epilogue-style.
I’ve never read anything else by him, including the award-winning novels.
Eric says
Flawless characters.
Annalee says
Describing sequential actions as simultaneous: “Putting his bike against the wall, he ran across the junkyard and dived behind the car.” It makes me go “wait–how long are his arms?”
Also head-hopping. The Alex Rider books do both of these a lot, unfortunately. Which is sad, because they’re otherwise good cracktastic fun.
Dave F. says
Sections of the story that don’t advance the plot. I’m thinking of long, deep character studies that masquerade as excitement. I feel cheated when I get to the end of the novel and find out that whole sections could be reduced because one of the characters is a minor participant or nearly non-essential. I’ve read too many chapters outlining current personal difficulties that begin in never revealed “deep, dark pasts” but cause irrelevant struggles between two characters only to find out that the plot doesn’t need one of those characters to reach its climax. That’s wasting my time.
I also don’t care for tedious detail. It usually happens in historical novels where the writer is obsessed with painting a scene and forgets to write an engaging story. Details of houses, furnishings, geegaws, tea sets, manners and all that get out of hand.
This also happens in Sci-Fi where whole chapters can be devoted to scientific trivia – an example might be the collapse of a sun into a neutron star or white dwarf. The effects of this was an entire chapter in one of my recent books. Like Gee Whizzies, I wanna be a scientist, so teach me…
(take note, I am a scientist. I can teach you.)
In romance, I hate when the two son-to-be lovers procrastinate like silly children with never-ending excuses for not getting together. The premise of “When Harry Met Sally” was cute. It made a good story, but not everyone goes years and years before they realize the person they keep seeing is their mate. not everyone has episodes of “self-doubt” that prevents them from making a life time decision. Our divorce and remarriage statistics argue for my side of this arguement.
Laurel Amberdine says
Interesting peeves people have.
Mine (I’ll stick to things I find in published novels):
– Artificial tension created by hiding from the reader important information which is known to the POV character.
– Blatant emotional manipulation. (I always fall for it, but I’m ticked-off afterwards.)
– Concluding a novel, then tacking a chapter on which is the start of the sequel.
– Rape scenes.
– Lame science in SF, especially if it’s dealing with quantum mechanics. Man, does that ever tick me off. GRRR. (How’s that for a personal peeve?)
– Immature, irresponsible, stupid characters, especially if they’re supposed to be the good guys.
Amy Nathan says
I hate when subplots are dropped, never seen or heard from again.
It bothers me on two levels: 1) I’m vested in the storyline and want it played out, and 2) How could something like that slide past everyone involved in having a book published?
moonrat says
-“creative” dialogue tags
-narratives that rotate from third to first person to present to past tense
barf.
Kristi says
Dialogue that a real person would never say outloud. The written word and the spoken word are very different, and if an actor in the (potential) movie version of the book couldn’t deliver the line effectively, then it shouldn’t be in quotes.
nomadshan says
When a character is “surprised” something has happened, when that something was obviously created by the author to direct the plot, as in:
John was surprised to have encountered a hurricane in Kansas.
Yeah, me too, John.
Dan says
I liked the quote I heard on a commercial for Lewis Black’s Root of all Evil where one of the comedians says, ‘blogging is to literacy as Facebook is to fornication’ (my euphemism).
This is not to say all blogs are terrible – some can be very funny, satisfy voyeuristic tendencies, or provide insider information. Or in your case, all three.
My biggest turn offs as a reader are when the author fumbles over words enough that you have to reread a sentence 3 times to make sure you’re *not* the stupid one.
I don’t mind reading that I’m stupid – I’ve grown quite used to it. However, I hate discovering that I’m reading something someone stupid has written!
Julia says
Historical inaccuracies. Oh, how I hate that.
Or geographical inaccuracy. Or embarrassing inaccuracies relating to science, the arts, cooking, language…you name it.
In deference to your “de vivis nihil nisi bonum” policy, I’ll name two Old Hollywood chestnuts: the movie Krakatoa, East of Java (not unless you sail around the world first) and all of Joan Crawford’s lines from the godawful proto-cougar epic Humoresque, where she plays a patroness of the arts who, when asked what music she most enjoys, says, “Symphonies, mostly. Or any type of concerto.”
JES says
I’m with Lehcarjt (@10:59), I think. In my case, it’s not just overt preaching (some of that I don’t mind, if it’s well-written enough). I really don’t like passages in which the author — not even a character — goes on for whole chapters at a time with a sort of heavy-handed oracular voice, as though s/he imagines speaking on the stage following the presentation ceremony at Stockholm.
Anonymous says
Sick sadistic authors who dream-up sick sadistic sh*t for their sick sadistic characters to do to other characters, likely providing inspiration for real-life sick sadistic dullards who can’t satisfy their sick sadistic tendencies by writing sick sadistic books.
I am so disgusted with authors trying to outdo one another in this vile filth.
Joshua Skurtu says
Internal monologues.
Josh thought, (Italics here…)I sure hate it when people do this stuff. It’s a cheap way of hiding telling in the story and passing it off as a character’s thoughts.
Hate hate HATE it.
-Josh
Tannat Madiran - The Darkest Grape says
In no particular order, since you asked:
• He said she said dialogue. I don’t mean I need “he quipped” or “she stammered through her mouthful of undercooked rice” but when it becomes as monotonous as a marathon ping pong match, no thanks.
• New York, it’s as if the only city in the literary world is zip code 10001, same holds true for Los Angeles in film. This is why I love a crazed man like Cormac, who chooses to live in the godforsaken butt-crack of America that is El Paso. Go there and you will never be at a loss for real characters, not the “subway tokens” that populate the pages of 80% of what I am told to read.
• Lack of authority. I don’t need limp wristed unsure characters (unless this leads to something better) but the lukewarm caught in the middle “Woody Allen Impotence” types are getting crowded in my head. Stop!
• Great premises with poor writing. I know Dan Brown is an easy target, but good grief, if you were submit random chapters to a 6th grade English teacher, you’d be there a few years until you got it right. I’d love for someone with care for craft versus product to rewrite that entire book. What a waste.
• The trend towards smaller books, same price. I’m not asking for Pynchon, but when I see a book that’s under 200 pages, I’m thinking, would I still pay ten bucks to see a 45 minute movie? You can’t tell me anymore about your life story or greatest work than that? And before you start with “but the bookstores are asking for smaller spines…” bull. If it rocks, it stocks. Period.
• What I call “The Andromeda Strain” ending – the dues ex machine effect, whatever, the oh so simple and fortunate ending to what was, up until about the last ten pages, was an elevated heart rate ride. I also hate that these books tend to be heavy, and will often dent my drywall as I heave them across the room. These should be jacketed in bubble wrap or something from the Nickelodeon labs. It’s just responsible marketing.
• Cover art that leaves you wondering what the..? I know it isn’t why you buy the book, but it is. First impressions and all. I like subtle, I don’t need a color coded flow chart on the cover telling me the plot twist begins on page 72, but sometimes I wonder these days…
• The words “now a major motion picture” in the title. I’m pretty sure we all know by now that a book and the film version share precious little. All that tells me is that this guy/gal has a damn good agent or some movie star’s personal phone number.
• Black Slave Ghosts or any derivative thereof. They are the new vampires.
• Writers who think that the economy of words equals the economy of syllables or the use of a smaller thesaurus. Use the whole language, I bet if you explore the whole universe that is English, you will learn an entirely new definition of economy and minimalism. Thank God for Amy Hempel.
• Hourglass books. They are built like a Monroe or Mansfield, and just as vacuous. Great promise up front, you think to yourself, this is going to be good, turn off the phone! Then you hit the sahara straddling the continent. Pages upon pages of dialogue, flashback (yikes) and other thinly supportive narrative. This kills books for me, and they often rarely get to show me the bottom half of the figure. They become dents in the wall. From a book perspective, I need a book built like the proverbial brickhouse. Solid.
• Any children’s book that deals with magic. It seems that is all that kids are told to read. Not to be confused with imagination, mind you. But outright magic. Call it a preference, again though, the new vampires. Show them there is more instead of grooming them for Anne Rice reprints or else they may wither and die in a life without Harry. Think of the clinics across the world, little ashen faces with sunken robs of deadness looking up at the librarian, “I need a book about sorcery…anything man, anything, you got Puff the Magic Dragon on dvd? What’s a Newberry Award?”
MH says
– Shallowness in general; characters who act and never think, especially when it feels like the author wrote the book that way to keep the reader interested
– Too much showing and not enough telling; it gets exhausting. Use both.
– So much fear that backstory will slow the novel that the author fails to include any backstory, so the characters appear to have no history at all
Backstory is good when it’s woven in; a character’s past says a lot about her
– The belief that good description means describing fluffy clouds and sunbeams (this is only excusable if the author is on LSD)
– “Likeable” characters
Nobody is that good. And if we were that good, everyone else would hate us.
– Characters in YA novels who seem like the embodiment of one giant teen cliche, spewing every contemporary slang term the 40-year-old author could overhear at her daughter’s cheerleading contest. That might be fine for one character, but not all of them in the same book.
TALON says
It’s amazing what a difference there is between a book that is written well and one that is full of glaring problems. With one you simply read and enjoy, with the other you become distracted by all sorts of things.
My number one pet peeve is when I’m reading a book and I think I know what’s going to happen (though the idea I have is improbable and ridiculous and totally out of character) and, low and behold, it happens. The best fiction writing, in my opinion, rings true. It’s the false notes in poorly written books that trip me up.
Oh…and I detest typos in books. Not only are they distracting, but unprofessional.
MH says
tannat made me think of another one:
YA novels set in Seattle. I know many authors live in Seattle, but I feel like I’ve seen enough of the place and I’ve never even been there. Move the setting somewhere else!
Diana says
Poor editing. There have been more than a couple of books I’ve read during the past few years that were full of misspelled words. I am not the best speller in the universe, but when my eyes hit “consceince” or “wich” (two of which I’ve seen recently), it feels like I’ve been driving along a road (the story) and suddenly slammed into a brick wall.
When writers from California forget that most people outside of California do NOT refer to a highway as “the (insert number or name).” For example, if you drive around L.A., it’s “the 405,” “the Santa Monica Freeway,” and “the 110.” If you’re driving around Kansas, it’s just “I-35,” “I-70,” or “U.S. 50.” (Exception: The Turnpike.) So when I was reading a book set in Minnesota, and the narrator kept throwing “the” in front of every road, I lost that sense of setting. I thought, this writer must be from California. And indeed, she was.
When a comedy writer feels like every sentence has to be a punchline. This one is definitely a personal preference. I love fun and funny writing, but when every single line is a joke, and there isn’t even a lead-up to it, it wears me out as the reader.
Erik says
Anytime I suspect that the writer believes he or she is more important than their story, I simply stop reading.
There are many reasons I reach this conclusion, including but not limited to: preaching, big words, distorted sentence structure, purple prose, characters built to sneer at, and inappropriate use of French.
I firmly believe that a writer is only as good as their ability to communicate, ideally through the heart and brain both. Writers who are “too cool for the room” need to find another room as far as I’m concerned.
Erik says
Sick sadistic authors who dream-up sick sadistic sh*t for their sick sadistic characters to do to other characters …
May I also add that I wish I had said this first? Thanks, anon.
the Amateur Book Blogger says
Annalee’ comment – yes, that kills me too – I recently reviewed something that had a line “he began by making five rows of tiny cuts all over his upper torso” – his upper torso must be really small to be able to cover it all over in just five tiny rows… –
Similes that don’t really work – “palpable enough to be breathed in like a floral arrangement..” (he had reaaallly big nostrils.)
Mixed metaphors.
Worse still, is when I am editing and find I have made these mistakes in my own writing in moments when I’m not paying enough attention….
Kristin Laughtin says
Inconsistent characterization. It drives me up the wall when an author sets up a character’s personality in a certain way over a book (or two or three), only to have them act or think completely the opposite in some situation for no good reason. They don’t act contrarily because they’re under duress, or have had a change of heart, or something explainable, but only because it suits the author’s purpose.
Sam Hranac says
Great stuff already mentioned. I’ll go with one I didn’t notice on the list already. Too much “ly.”
She smiled knowingly.
He drank noisily.
The rat swam vigorously through water running rapidly over chillingly high falls.
I see this more in British authored stories than US. Guess I’m just a product of my environment, not surprisingly.
LisaC says
I hate the phrase “more than a little,” as in “she was more than a little scared.” Applying the laws of math, “more than a little scared” just equals “scared,” which isn’t that interesting. Just show me what scared looks like instead.
Ken says
I’ve seen perfect prose, fantastically realized characters, heavy plotting and heavy petting, sometimes at the same time, and still I’ve been turned off for one simple reason: the story isn’t king. Folks, we sometimes forget, don’t we? In our efforts to juggle the myriad elements of style, cultivate substance or indulge in deliberate substance abuse, all the things we worry about, if I’m not caught up in the story, I’m done. Ahh, for a strong story I’d tolerate many literary sins.
R.J. Keller says
Overly descriptive passages. I usually skip ’em. Tell me basically what your character looks like, basically where they live, and let me fill the rest in for myself.
Jared X says
I’m with Julia. Factual inaccuracies make me want to put a book down faster than anything else. Authors owe their readers research.
Recent example: in a commercially successful political satire by a major author, a character who was a member of the House of Representatives recalled something he had said in a filibuster. Only Senators can filibuster.
Don’t draw me in with a promise of biting political satire and then botch a fact taught in high school civics classes.
Anonymous says
Any book wherein a character “nurses” another character “back to health.”
Ugh!
Margaret Yang says
Books written in present tense.
Just, yuck. I refuse to read them. Sometimes I can make it through an entire short story in present tense, but not 400 pages of a novel. The narrative always sounds like stage directions and the description sounds stupid.
Past tense is the natural method of storytelling.
Furious D says
Writers who know that they’re important, and hit you with it on every page. Especially be editing out all humour, even true to life humour, because they fear it might dull their importance.