What truly ANNOYS you in books? And not in a good way.

folclor said:

Dudley didn't end up being bad, though. If I remember correctly he ended up wanting to make amends and was sad when he and Harry parted ways.

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I'm only thinking of the first book. For various reasons, I have not read all of them.

Buffysquirrel said:

I'm only thinking of the first book. For various reasons, I have not read all of them.

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Fair enough ^^

Mr Flibble said:

Um, me (a while ago admittedly) And a fair few people I know are either living with their folks, or are folsk who have adult kids who came back to live with them

It's really common.

housing/renting is vvv expensive here so...

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I should have written "hometown" instead of home. The folks in these books tend to move back to their town but still have the means to rent a place of their own or they rent the top floor of a lovely Victorian house owned by a kind elderly person.

Books with no conflict. Or one's that seem horribly contrived.

Another thing that annoys me: MCs that always come out of impossible situations not only without a scratch, but somehow in a better position than they started in. And i'm talking All. The. Time.

If the hero is ridonkulously outnumbered, out-gunned, out-witted and injured to boot, then I just don't buy it when he and his rag-tag band of faithful chums battle it out to the last enemy standing, then collapse in a heap and pant 'phew! I didn't think we'd get out of that one!'

No, because you should fucking well all be dead. Fucking cheating author. Ugh.

Kallithrix said:

Another thing that annoys me: MCs that always come out of impossible situations not only without a scratch, but somehow in a better position than they started in. And i'm talking All. The. Time.

If the hero is ridonkulously outnumbered, out-gunned, out-witted and injured to boot, then I just don't buy it when he and his rag-tag band of faithful chums battle it out to the last enemy standing, then collapse in a heap and pant 'phew! I didn't think we'd get out of that one!'

No, because you should fucking well all be dead. Fucking cheating author. Ugh.

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This.

A pet peeve of mine in HF is when you have a novel set during an historical event, and the author has the MC heading off in the other direction. Why? The history is a much better story, why pad the book with made up stuff? Good example, I'm currently reading a title which the blurb tells me is about the Claudian invasion of Britain. So why is the MC heading the other way through Germania Magna? Which I have to be honest is pretty boring. Just get on with the good (historical) stuff, will you?

Info dumps.

Info dumps.

Info dumps.

I dislike books that has poor plot. One of the things that turns me off reading is poor plot, or boring plot.

Lot's of things annoy me. Here's another thread on the topic.

Probably the thing that annoys me the most is repetition or redundancy of any kind:

• Redundant phrases like "nodded his head," "blinked her eyes," and "shrugged his shoulders"
• Scenes that are very similar to previous scenes (repetition of effect)
• Same words or phrases being used over and over
• Every character reacting to everything with a facial expression or small gesture, especially when they all use the same expressions and gestures (everyone rolling their eyes at everything, everyone sighing all the time, everyone "quirking" an eyebrow)

Beyond these, here are some other annoyances:

Main character Too Stupid To Live (TSTL) -- the plot is based around the character's idiotic, immature decisions yet it's not a slapstick comedy about an idiotic, immature dweeb. In other words, don't tell me the main character is smart, then have her make really stupid decisions to move the plot.

Main character is too perfect (a Mary Sue). Nothing is ever her fault. All of her problems stem from people being unnecessarily mean to her, because they are just plain mean, or because they are jealous of her beauty/talent etc.

Stakes too low or nonexistent. What will happen to the main character if he fails to attain his goals? If the answer is anything from "not much" to "nothing, really" I can't be bothered.

Quite the opposite of that last one, stakes that are too large in scale bug me too. I hate high concept save the world/save the universe/save mankind/save faerie-kind types of stories, but that's just me. I like a relatable story, and when the stakes are enormous and all encompassing, I can't relate.

Here's another one for me - overuse of said-bookisms. The occasional "whispered", "shouted", "asked", "replied" or "murmured" is fine.

But if your characters are growling, snarling, snapping, spitting and hissing, the story's going to sound like five minutes before feeding time at the animal shelter.

When a love interest (typically male) has gone around banging tons of girls because it's supposed to show how all of the other women in his life pale in comparison to the MC. Or something.
It's a little hard to explain, but I've been seeing it a lot lately. . .

Kallithrix said:

Another thing that annoys me: MCs that always come out of impossible situations not only without a scratch, but somehow in a better position than they started in. And i'm talking All. The. Time.

If the hero is ridonkulously outnumbered, out-gunned, out-witted and injured to boot, then I just don't buy it when he and his rag-tag band of faithful chums battle it out to the last enemy standing, then collapse in a heap and pant 'phew! I didn't think we'd get out of that one!'

No, because you should fucking well all be dead. Fucking cheating author. Ugh.

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YESSSSSSSS
This, one thousand times over. Is the author even going to try to make things a little realistic? Rough the MC up some!

Kallithrix said:

Another thing that annoys me: MCs that always come out of impossible situations not only without a scratch, but somehow in a better position than they started in. And i'm talking All. The. Time.

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Ahhhgh. I just finished reading a book like this. By the end the only reason I was reading was to see if the MC would actually fail at ANYTHING he did. Even when he did something bad that EVERYONE else would get their ass kicked for, he was just so amazingly smart and talented that he was rewarded for it instead...and he was just. so. good. at. everything.

Die book die!

Oh, man didn't even see how old this thread was. Sorry. Delete, whatever.

Since someone resurrected this thread, could I put my two cents in?
Things that annoy me in books:
1) the "sexual tension" relationship between two main characters that drags on waaaaaay too long without anything happening. Jim Butcher, I'm looking at you.
2) characters who are presented as bad-ass commando types who are presented as having served in a military occupation that would NOT make you a bad-ass commando type. I've read many "adventure" type stories where the main character was a Navy or Air Force fighter pilot in his previous career and is presented as having all sorts of tactical skills for which a pilot is not trained. Dirk Pitt is the most famous example I can think of. Also Jack Reacher, who was an MP OFFICER (their real duties mostly involve paperwork, the enlisted do almost all the footwork and warrant officers do most of the investigating) and is presented as a bigger bad-ass than special forces NCOs.
3) Info-dumps. I can't stand pages and pages of exposition and my favorite genre, science fiction, is lousy with info-dumps.

RikWriter said:

3) Info-dumps. I can't stand pages and pages of exposition and my favorite genre, science fiction, is lousy with info-dumps.

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Oh this is so annoying! I love learning about worlds when the characters are shown interacting with aspects of their societies/cultures/geographies. But when there's ten pages about the history of XYZ, it's sooo annoying. I love sci-fi and fantasy for its colorful or interesting world building, but sometimes, some writers just don't know how to implement them in subtle doses.

When things happen too suddenly, especially on subplots involving unlikely or forbidden romance. Even love at first sight has some sort of build up.

When the characters make clearly dumb decisions to keep the plot rolling forward (we all make mistakes but let's try not to make them look deliberate). I'm talking about villains or "Chosen One" types of MCs.

Poorly written miscommunication as a plot device to keep things tense.

Laiceps said:

Oh, man didn't even see how old this thread was. Sorry. Delete, whatever.

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lol looks like you revived it. No worries, it's an interesting thread and I always enjoy reading what bothers people. Threads like this are such good learning tools for my writing, so I'm not worried that this got revived.

#1 Poor editing. I'm able to overlook some errors, but I have my limits. One recent example was a mistake where the eldest daughter was suddenly called by the youngest daughter's name... in narrative... for an entire chapter, then back to her own name again. Nope.

#2 Perfect characters. I was just reading a fluff book where the MC was a mail order bride. She arrived from the city to a ranch out west and was instantly able to keep the house spotless, cook from scratch, care for her new husband (who incidentally dies in the first chapter), begin running the ranch, learned how to shoot a gun (with a broken arm), made friends with everyone in town (except the Bad Man Everyone Avoids, of course), learned to sew.... please.

#3 Books that don't end. I should not have to buy Book 2 (or 3 or 4) in order to feel satisfied by a book on its own. Make me WANT to rush out and buy the next book because I'm invested in the characters/world, don't force me to buy the next book to get closure.

#3a Books that don't make it clear they're part of a series. I absolutely hate reading a great book to discover it's Book 5. (I'm really anal about reading books in order, even if they're stand alone.)

Telling me a character's oh-so smart/brilliant by having their opponents being either hugely incompetent or a stereotypical baddie. Or just plain idiots. That's just lazy, man. Show me an actual challenge.

Stagnant characters, especially ones that start out whiny and insufferable, and continue to be so no matter how many times they get exactly what they want. One book in particular was like this, and I couldn't tell if the author intended the MC to be like this for whatever reason, but it annoyed me to no end. He was never satisfied with anything.

play-by-play.

I got up. I stretched. I pushed the covers back. I sat up. Then I walked into the bathroom where I looked in the mirror for a long time. Then I took the lid off the toothpaste tube and squeezed the tube. I made sure the bristles on the brush were coated thoroughly. Then I scrubbed my teeth in a side-to-side motion and then again up-and-down. I did this for two minutes. Then I turned the water on, filled up a paper cup, and rinsed my teeth.

(And you want to die at this point because your soul is crying out.)

I just posted this exact question a few minutes ago, before noticing that this thread had been resurrected. Hopefully a moderator will delete that thread, so I'll repeat what I said over there:

I HATE IT when a character who has had no training and has never killed anything larger than a wasp blithely leaps into a fistfight or gun battle as though it were the most natural thing in the world. And they hold their own or win! GRRRRR! That's not how it works! Getting lucky in a situation like that happens, but that's the same as saying that getting struck by lightning happens; it's dead rare, and it probably ain't gonna happen to you.

Fighting, shooting, any other martial art are skills, like any other, that must be learned. You don't just pick up a sword and make like Errol Flynn and expect to be un-skewered at the end of it all. Moreover, pretending to hit somebody in a nice, safe dojo is NOT THE SAME as actually attacking somebody with the intent to hurt them. It requires an adjustment of mindset that is never addressed in this sort of poor writing.

Well, jallenecs, that's somewhat true, but really this does happen on a regular basis. People who've never had any real training or just minimal training wind up defending themselves with a gun or with their hands and win all the time. Training really isn't as important as the will to do anything to survive, UNLESS the guy you're fighting does have training and the right mindset to kill you. I'm not saying some schmoe could take on an SAS commando and win, but some average Joe taking on a street criminal in a gunfight or a fistfight and winning? Happens all the time.

RikWriter said:

Well, jallenecs, that's somewhat true, but really this does happen on a regular basis. People who've never had any real training or just minimal training wind up defending themselves with a gun or with their hands and win all the time. Training really isn't as important as the will to do anything to survive, UNLESS the guy you're fighting does have training and the right mindset to kill you. I'm not saying some schmoe could take on an SAS commando and win, but some average Joe taking on a street criminal in a gunfight or a fistfight and winning? Happens all the time.

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The book that set off today's rant, in it the main character has never handled a gun in her life. But at a crucial point in the story, she picks up a pistol and shoots it with amazing accuracy. The book says she figured it out from watching the others in her little group (that only formed 24 hours before; she figured this all out in a day? No, seriously....).

People do get lucky, I'm not denying that. People discover that they can hold their own, or wing it well in extreme circustances? Yeah, okay, rare but not unheard of. But going from Ghandi to Rambo in the course of three or four paragraphs? No, I'm not buying it.