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?
Too much back story in the beginning. It’s irritating because writers are discouraged at every turn not to do this, yet I find it in published books all the time.
I can’t stand repetive story points… where the author keeps telling us something and telling us the same thing again… okay… I get it, the character is obsessed. Now MOVE ON!
austexgrl said…
Bad writing! Today I was reading a mystery by a well known author, a best selling top ten author. The writing was so bad.. alliteration all over the place..what was he thinking? where was the editor..please! I can understand poor plots, or slow plots..but poor sentences, over and over?? ..and then some agent wants to reject a query because a new author uses a well-worn phrase. Kinda messes with the credibility
I think we’ve all learned that we’ve got to produce the best work possible in order to get to the point where ‘allowances’ can be made for us. Now this is not me trying to be arrogant or anything, but seriously, it’s the only time any writer is going to be able to get away with less then they can do. I respect your decision to not name any names. I probably wouldn’t either. It’s just my opinion – the opinion of an unpublished writer.
I read a lot of music-influenced fiction (as this is what I write). I really hate it when writers don’t really know their shit about music. I read a novel where a guy is supposed to be a super-popular indie rocker, but then he’s covering John Mayer at a show? Come on!
There’s a certain show culture within indie music, and I like it when writers do it right (ie Nick Hornby), but most of them don’t.
Oh yeah. I also really hate long, elaborate flashbacks.
A flashback can be a few paragraphs, I don’t mind if there’s a particular purpose for it. But when it lasts pages and goes on about crap that isn’t even that important to the main story (eg, it’s a subplot that really doesn’t need that much time), it gets frustrating and I start skipping pages.
I use flashbacks in my writing, and I don’t necessarily knock them, but I think they should be short and sweet.
I also hate shock writers. I mean, they always tend to be way popular with college students and young adults, but I feel like it’s a cheap form of getting readers.
“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.“
Perhaps a better way of describing shock writers…. And though he’s an excellent writer, I think everyone knows whom I’m referring too.
* The word preternatural. Ever, in any context. Yes, I know, this is irrational of me.
* Suddenly limiting an omniscient pov in order to manufacture suspense.
* An author writing themselves into a fictional plot-line.
I detest novels written in the present tense. It might have been experimental thirty years ago, it isn’t now. Do writers think it adds a ‘literary’ gloss to their book? Or immediacy?
It doesn’t.
Leave the historic present to the historians: “Richard’s cavalry advances on the left flank” works for them, but how it irritates me in fiction.
In no special order:
*Poor writing (well, actually, that is my top!)
*Info dumps
*People on the same horses for days on end who do not pee and do not have a horse founder under them
*Climactic scene shown off stage
*Someone badly wounded or roundly beaten up who immediately gets up and finishes sleuthing, riding for days (see above) or even talking naturally and making sense
*Endless numbers of adverbs
*Poor writing
Jane Yolen
Novels written in the present tense. If I pick one up by accident in a bookstore, I put it right back down again. The only book I like that’s in the present tense is Ida Vos, *Anna is Still Here,* and I forgive it because the book is translated from the Dutch and Dutch writers all use the present tense.
Anachronisms in historical novels. Not so much details of setting or clothing or whatever, but anachronistic attitudes and frames of reference.
Limited third-person viewpoint in long, long books. It gets very tiresome. I name no names but after SEVEN long, long books you just want to scream, “enough already! Can’t we just have the scene from that other person’s viewpoint, instead of an account overheard from under the bloody invisibility cloak?”
Ultra-catchy opening lines that were clearly crafted to grab an agent or publisher’s eye, followed by an ordinary or even mediocre story.
Sentences that clunk as if they’ve been mixed and matched and chipped and chopped into eezeereader soundbites. Yuck.
I will put up with quite a lot, but TOO many mistakes and inconsistencies drive me nuts. I read a story last week where the protagonist’s dead son was later referred to as his daughter. Ugh!
But I still like the author and will read more of his work.
Getting the details wrong. If the character is an expert in something the author is not, the author needs to get the details right, because a reader will spot the mistake. I no longer buy a certain best-selling author because one of his main characters gets facts/methods so wrong!
I’ll overlook most stuff but I the one thing that can jar me out a book is an inappropriate or silly simile.
One well know author of a Mars trilogy compared someone or something (I can’t quite remember what, but I’m sure it was someone) to a toilet.
Yuk.
‘Nuff said.
5. A writer who latches on to an odd word, “roiling” I’m looking at you here, and uses it at every opportunity in every book. Or unique descriptions of a person and referring to him or her as that over and over. It’s all right to use him or her.
4. The writer who invariable winds up with his heroines fighting naked and then glaring if anyone looks at them. You just fought off twenty armored men with your bosom heaving and doing heaven knows what while you wielded sword and sorcery with skill and aplomb. I gave that one three chances before I realized it was his standard formula. The good bits interspersed with the naked warriors and sorceresses weren’t worth it.
3. Inserting chapters of boring backstory. George R.R. Martin can insert backstory and make me ask for more, but most authors simply aren’t that skilled.
2. Inserting gratuitous sex, violence and language just for the shock value. Yes, it’s wonderful you learned how to spell *insert four letter word of choice*, but do you have to use it in every sentence?
1. *drum roll* Characters who miraculously come up with abilities never hinted at before just in time to save the day.
“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.”
Yep. I detest this and won’t even give them a chance.
Minute details that sound good, but in actuality don’t fit in the story.
For example, (this is pretty nit-picky, but it drove me nuts) there’s a book I read a few months back by a woman who uses a beautiful writing voice.
But in her book, that took place in the springtime, had cicadas singing and hurricane warnings in May. As far as I know, that stuff doesn’t happen at that time of the year, and it really bothered me.
Adaora (5:51)–
You said it Gets. On. Your. Last. Nerve.
Uh, I just turned in a YA ms to my agent and I was writing certain sentence In. This. Manner. To. Make. Several. Points. And she said, THAT was getting on her last nerve! 🙂
Maniacscribbler (5:11) How cool is it that you want to be a copyeditor! Honestly, I’d rather go to the dentist, but that strikes me as such a talent, that inbred attention to detail. I think it’d be a harder job than writing, really. Good luck!
Misused or misspelled words! I just came upon this twice last week, and it was the SAME WORD – once in a magazine and once in a novel.
In the magazine, the article was about gourmet foods, and where they meant palate, they put pallet. Then just a day or two later I was reading a novel, and where the character was thinking about colors and thought palette, guess what the word in the book was? You guessed it, pallet.
It drove me up the wall.
Other pet peeves – your and you’re, misused apostrophes, and the new favorite lose and loose.
Head hopping and mundane action (a half page of the heroine walking down the hall with a cup of coffee and setting it on the counter before she got into the shower – this is first-draft stuff that NEEDS TO BE CUT)
“Will someone please explain what “head-jumping” is? Thanks.”
Might have been answered and I missed it.
That is point of view switching, frequently.
You see something happen from one person’s perspective and then immediately jump into someone else’s thoughts or perceptions.
Re the emerald green eyes, my brother and son both have them. My mother has very odd, bright blue, almost sapphire eyes. They don’t always come with contacts.
Irrational ability to control pain? It depends. Some people are just tough.
*Reading a scene in one characters view, and then we turn the page and read the SAME DARN scene in a different character’s pov.
-keri, who has one of those odd eye colors-amber. And they are best described as honey.
a story that has, at the end, the random romance happy ending.
early Heinlein was famous for this, but I’ve even seen it in “romance” novels and other places where you just scratch your head.
Just because you have a male and a female character does NOT mean at the end of the book they’re going to suddenly randomly agree to marry out of nowhere. PLEASE.
When the writer assumes the reader shares their back agenda -political or prejudice or soapbox anything.
Go write articles, please, run for office, but unless it is part of the plot, don’t think to assume I share your agenda.
I read an otherwise good book by a certain class of author that throughout the book was smug that her body, clothes, intelligence, man-appeal, and so on just put another certain class of author in her place. Can you spell chip-on-her-shoulder? It wasn’t a book about that kind of tension either. It was a chic lit novel.
Violence. Don’t.
Gratuitous Graphic sex or violence.
Author fantasy (not the genre). I know this obnoxious guy who writes himself into relationships with all these women who wouldn’t date him.
Yucko.
I have a lot of patience with writers figuring out how to write, though. I am trying to figure that out myself.
I really enjoyed how JK Rowlings became better and better with each book. I liked watching her grow. I also love writers who experiment and, yes, sometimes it doesn’t work, but I appreciate the boldness of it.
I just finished a book that was a true page-turner, but felt completely cheated when I reached the climax. The resolution was so wildly improbable that it spoiled my enjoyment of the rest of the book. (I mean, even the characters talked about it being a miracle…) I love plot twists, but don’t make it one that would never, in a million years, actually happen.
Jane Yolen? The Jane Yolen? Just wondering, cause I love to read Jane Yolen books to my youngin.
My new pet peeve in writing (which mostly seems to happen in blog writing) is overuse of cutesy words like charming and smitten.
My husband and my border collie both have amber colored brown eyes.
I think I would be suspicious of anyone describing someone else’s eyes as amber or emerald other than a familiar though.
Being beaten over the head with a) description–please do NOT tell me how hot/fine/gorgeous your characters are ten million times and don’t continually remind me about their washboard abs and beefy forearms. Once is plenty.
b) do NOT beat me over the head with conflict/character issues.
And last but not least, stories whose first 50 pages are loaded with info-dumps. Yes, in published novels. Most particularly (lately for me anyway) urban fantasy. *sigh*
Mostly bad editing. Continuity problems. Typos. Poor grammar, especially misuse of who/whom, nominative-case pronouns used in plural objects, and misplaced modifiers.
And, of course, sloppy writing, shallow characters, plots that have gaping holes, anything that breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.
Last but not least, prejudice or lack of homework done on the part of the author, especially when it relates to things I know a lot about. I just finished a Jodi Picoult book that is all about religion and she made some real howlers about Christianity. That really bugged me. I probably won’t read her again.
Book one of a trilogy that doesn’t stand alone, when books two and three may never be released. Unless it’s LOTR, it needs to have a satisfying conclusion versus simply stopping because you ran out of pages.
Ludlum is wonderful, btw.
Mostly, I hate books with too many words. If it can be said in 3, why use 6?
Just sayin’
What drives me crazy are type-o’s. It messes with the flow of the story and make my fingers itch to grab the red pen and fix them.
Headhopping. Using a comma where a semicolon ought to be. Typos in the main characters’ names. (Harlequin, I am looking at you.)
Prologues of the serial killer’s tortured childhood. Or really, almost any prologue…. most of them don’t deserve to exist. Epilogues, too.
Cover art that makes me embarrassed to be seen with the book in public. (Saturn’s Children is a current example.)
A few have already said it, but I don’t like it when an author puts in too much of a good thing. Mainly, descriptions. I love descriptions, but when I put the book down and move on to another because it’s going on and on and on. . . well, that’s bad, and I probably won’t read books from that author again. I like to READ! I want to get through the book! I want to disregard everything I have planned because the book is so good that I have to finish reading it now!
Writers who write almost exclusively about characters who are writers.
Inconsistent characters. This is the worst for me. I can’t stand it when a writer takes a character and has them do something that they just wouldn’t do.
My second major pet peeve is experimental writing. I hate when authors throw out convential writing styles without any reason except to confuse the reader. I read a book that was enjoyable up until a chapter when the author decided to throw out convention and write in stream of consciousness from an unidentified character’s point of view where the character continually made references to things that I didn’t understand (and no, these did not become any clearer when I finished the book)
Plots where it turns out its all a dream, like “Zeroville”.
Caroline Steele- How about Titus Groan from Gormenghast? (https://www.amazon.com/Titus-Groan-Gormenghast-Trilogy-Mervyn/dp/0879514256)
Reading Gormenghast is the only time I’ve ever not gotten fed up a character with violet eyes, probably because everyone found the color creepy rather than omg so beeutiful.
Pet peeve:
When the good people are hot and the bad people are ugly.
Where are you people finding all these books that are so badly edited? I mean, I find typos from time to time, but you’re/your confusion? In a published book? Seriously?!
-o-
Elizabeth, I haven’t yet read any books that involve cloaks of invisibility, though some are on my to-be-read shelf, but I would wonder if the problem there isn’t the limited third person, but the fact that we never change *which* person we’re looking at. I love limited third person, and can’t stand omniscient narrators. But in most books I read, there will be an occasional scene that is still limited third person, but that focuses on a different person.
Wow. I’ve learned a lot by reading this list, it’s very good.
I think my saying about stocks also applied to writing: it’s much easier to know what’s crap than what’s good. Like stocks, however, that’s still very useful information when it comes to making something good because you simply leave out the bad. A decent plot will carry itself as long as you don’t do something stupid, as far as I know.
Oh, and anon of the Maya calendar and the riff against “sick sadistic sh*t”, I hope you’re not amused that I liked yer stuff just because I’m an impossible to please asshole. I mean … well, I am, but that’s entirely beside the point (unless you live with me, at which point it becomes an ongoing issue).
Seriously, I like you guys. Well, 90% of you, at least. I learn a lot here; I make my case directly and love it when you do, too.
superhero types that win every fight, sleep with every hot character of the opposite sex and have an all-encompasing knowledge of everything. In real life, most computer programmers are not ninja and most ninja can’t make a cell phone out of a pack of cigarettes a shoe lace and some spit.
Also, why do the subject books of all of your pet peeves have to hit the wall? You can do so much with a compact bundle of wasted paper like forcing your in laws to use it as toilet paper or giving it to the dog as a chew toy.
“Okay, excessive list. Sorry! I’m having trouble finding a good book I can get lost in this week. Anyone have some suggestions?”
Of course you realize everyone here is going to recommend their own books.
I’m sure this has been covered, I only skimmed most of the other comments, but I can not stand when I’m reading a book and read “their” when it should be “they’re”, or some silly mistakes like that. Any other easy to fix errors in grammar. Inconsistencies in the story. Misspelling a character’s name. All of those things make me want to put the book down and run away. Forever.
Chumplet
Of course you realize everyone here is going to recommend their own books.
I’d recommend my own, but it’s having an identity crisis. I don’t know what I’m going to call it so it’s hard to recommend. You’re safe from me.
I’m reading Game of Thrones now, when I have time. It’s intriguing, but I think I may be the last fantasy fan on earth to discover it.
Cliches. I can’t stand when I get to the end of the book and guess what’s going to happen, and that goes for films too. This is the reason I can’t stand Romance novels!
A lot of the ones that come to mind for me have already been mentioned, the most serious being internal monologue – especially italicized internal monologue. This is as much a problem with placement (usually jarring) as it is a problem with the quality of the monologues themselves. I also don’t think much of the apologists for “workmanlike prose”. If you’re not going to demonstrate any poetic craftsmanship at all, you might as well write an essay.
Some that I might add:
– Books that present things that are relatively common knowledge (or at least easily and publicly accessible) as secret truths that are only available to the few. This is one of the biggest problems I have with Dan Brown on the rare occasion that his research is accurate.
– Some people have complained about extensive exposition. Others have complained about present tense. Neither of those alone are too intolerable for me, but what I can’t stand is when a past-tense narrative steps into long passages of present-tense exposition. It’s like the author is asking you to ignore the story for a minute and listen to him lecture about his made-up facts.
– Direct quotations of the author’s favourite song, or whatever he/she was listening to while writing.
– Allegorical propaganda that makes no attempt to engage with alternative points of view, or sets them up as straw men at best.
– Meaningless, generic character names. I’m not saying that everyone has to use names to explicitly flag their characters like Dickens or Rowling, but some thought should go into them, at least.
– Speaking of names, this one is specific to sci-fi/fantasy: arbitrary apostrophes in names of people, places and things. “But then it sounds all foreign and made-up! Some sounds aren’t representable in the English language!” Uh, yes, but given that we’ve already accepted a certain suspension of disbelief in that the narration and dialogue of an alternate universe are being presented in English, I think we should recognize the fact that we transliterate unpronounceable names into pronounceable spellings all the time. And it’s not like punching apostrophe-shaped holes in everything is going to solve the problem.
When it comes to made-up languages and words, Tolkien’s imitators are often very obviously unlike Tolkien in that they clearly have no understanding of linguistics whatsoever.
– Chapters that trail off with ellipses to keep you in suspense…
If you’re trying to demonstrate poetic craftsmanship, write a poem. :p
I’m generally not in the mood to read poetry; I’m in the mood to read a story. I find overly poetic prose attention-seeking.
I totally agree with the others who railed against books written in the present tense. To me, it comes across as not only pretentious (“Look at me! I’m so edgy! I’m so original!”) but lazy. If you’re relying on the tense to convey a sense of urgency and immediacy, it means there’s something lacking in the writing.
Also, I hate it when authors are too cute for their own good. You can’t get a pass on an improbable plot twist just because your characters acknowledge how improbable it is.
A late response but I’m just catching up.
Whining.
Lately I’ve been beset by books which begin with women unhappy with their world. I could live with that, but they WHINE. *argh*
Actually, I’ve realised that I should have been more specific when I was referring to bad writing.
1. Protagonists named Kate or any derivation (Kat/Cat/Katie) or nu spellings (Cait/K8) of the name. No offense meant to the lovely Kate’s of the world, but this “everywoman” name has been done to death in novels.
2. Characters who sigh all the time, or do everything “slowly.” Slowly, Kate turned and sighed.
It’s tired.
Weak, unimaginative writing, as in first-draft stuff like repeated words, cliche phrases, passive instead of active voice.
It’s a sign of a beginner, but even with some established writers, their early work is great, but their later work, while still maybe strong in story, can be weak in the word-to-word writing.
Yes, build the story well. Yes, develop the characters well. But after all that’s in place, go through the manuscript a few more times and see if the words you’re using are the best words or if there are others that could be better.
I think this applies to beginners and pros — always strive for the best, the most imaginative, not the ok.
I’m a little late responding to this, owing to the fact I’m in Bangkok and out in the streets most of the time, interviewing prostitutes. But…chick lit with whiny, female characters REALLY bothers me. There’s nothing so demoralizing for a woman to read about a “heroine” who hates herself and everyone else.
“Info dumping” has been mentioned several times, but a particular pet peeve of mine is what I call “grocery lists.” If your heroine has researched several herbs and potions, listing off all the different herbs she knows how to use off the top of her head whilst failing to mention what they’re for or what relevance they have to the story is really the just the author’s way of saying, “Hey, look at me! I did my homework herbs and potions! You will be quizzed later.” If I wanted to read an encyclopedia entry, I would read the encyclopedia.
Another pet peeve of mine isn’t really specific to any one book or genre, but to the American fiction market in general. And my peeve is this: Sob stories. Yes, everyone has one. But do we really need to advertise the most awful abuse or neglect our protagonists endured as a child just to elicit sympathy? If overcoming abuse and neglect is what your story is about, then fine, but otherwise I really don’t need to know that little Johnny was always picked last to join the team at basketball camp when he was ten unless it has any bearing on his current actions or decisions in the story. There is a difference between rooting for protagonists to succeed and feeling so sorry for them that you hope they catch a break. The former keeps you turning pages to see what happens next, the latter encourages you to skip ahead since you already know the ending.