Pet Peeves as a reader

Detailed food scenes certainly haven't hurt George RR Martin.

I completely agree that how much is too much (for me, at least) depends on the nature of the story and the way it's being told. I like stories where people are doing things and experiencing a full range of emotions, but I also like little slices of life in the story world to be woven in. They help me see who the pov character in question really is and what's important to him or her.

Some of it's down to character. I tend to read and prefer stories that are told from a character-focused point of view. So how much detail feels right depends so much on the person I'm riding around inside.

I think I'm really getting worn out on so much angst lately. Even if is a YA story I feel like angst is sometimes ramped up in place of other types of conflict a story could have...

Some of it's down to character. I tend to read and prefer stories that are told from a character-focused point of view. So how much detail feels right depends so much on the person I'm riding around inside.

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I seem to write a lot of hungry or food minded, fashion forward characters most of the time, so I'm thoughtful about the whole thing (but not so thoughtful it reads like a 2d rich cheerleader stereotype villain in a high school sitcom or anything XD)

I have a few.

1. Too much ‘scripting’ direction, where the author is a control freak movie director: “He pushed open the door and took two steps into the room. He glanced down. The floor was wet. He looked to the left, the window was open. Looking up, he noticed that there was a hole in the roof. He took another step and scanned the room again. The walls were dirty. Looking to his right, he saw a corridor. He walked that way…”

A corollary to this is pointing out that a character is silent when the character doesn’t have any dialogue. “John yelled at me. I looked over at Mary but she was silent.”

2. The author telling me what I should be thinking and how I should be reacting by adding comments after dialogue or action: “Funny, right?” “Nice, huh?” “Him saying that was certainly ironic given what he told me yesterday.”

3. Too much detail on minor characters that we only see once and who don’t move the story ahead. I know that the level of detail is very much a matter of taste, but when every character introduced gets a long history, background, description of what they look like and what they are wearing, it is often hard to figure out whether this will be someone we should be really paying attention to or whether they will be gone in a few pages.

4. Too much drama in everyday actions. “Harry slammed down the phone.” (Doesn’t anyone just click the end button anymore?). “The car roared to life.” (Maybe in 1965). And the bashing up the furniture thing when hearing bad news. (Have you ever seen anyone do this in real life?)

When an author spends several pages, every couple of chapters, reminding me on how lover boy needs to find his one true mate, or never be whole, never see in color, and will eventually walk into the sun to seek his death.
Pfff.
You could have filled those pages with interesting plot!

When an author has become so huge, they no longer apply themselves to the craft of storytelling. Instead, we're left with drivel.

And don't even get me started on how some are now overlapping their characters into the YA genre. Okay. Cool. Spread your wings. Except, NOW, the ADULT version of their books are on a back burner, the writing--mediocre.

LessonsToLiveBy said:

“The car roared to life.” (Maybe in 1965).

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Thankfully, you don't know my neighbor then. He starts up his car with the pedal to the metal. Scares the &$^# out of us.

My pet peeve is when I have to flip back pages to recall who someone is. They were introduced in the second chapter, but then not mentioned until several chapters later. Just a few words to remind me that he was the ex-husband of a friend or whatever would be nice. Or maybe it's just my mind acting like a sieve. What else is new.

Repetition. Especially, as someone previously stated, of an elaborate word. A few pages in a row. All of a sudden we get a "mercurial" three times in five pages, and then we won't see it for the rest of the novel. Like.. what the hell?

Lack of dialogue. Dialogue has never been my strong suit, I know that, but I'm reading a YA trilogy right now where there is like.. 1% dialogue in each book. Maybe less. And the lack of dialogue really showcases the telling of the narrative too.

So much crying. I'm an overemotional person myself, so I think I pick up just how much "tears prick my eyelids", "I force back tears", "my eyes feel hot" comes up. As an overemotional person, I tried my best to make my own MC stronger by not being overemotional. (The conditioning and the interaction of the story also calls for it). But over any altercation that comes up? I mean, come on!

LessonsToLiveBy said:

I have a few.

1. Too much ‘scripting’ direction,

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I call this "moving the mannequins".

LessonsToLiveBy said:

A corollary to this is pointing out that a character is silent when the character doesn’t have any dialogue. “John yelled at me. I looked over at Mary but she was silent.”

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Tho that can be valid if there was an expectation that Mary would pipe up -- so being silent is unusual enough to note. In this case, perhaps the expectation was that Mary would speak in my defense. Or perhaps to establish that Mary doesn't speak up. But often it's just filler (used as a substitute for nonexistent dialog).

I have an argument between characters where this applies -- she's a perverse smartass, and when the other party pauses in the expectation that she'll object, she stubbornly clamps her mouth shut.

There's another reason to do this, tho, and that's when you have more than two characters present and you don't want the third (or more) to *POOF* vanish until the next time you need them, whereupon they fall from the sky and startle the reader, who had plumb forgot they exist.

LessonsToLiveBy said:

2. The author telling me what I should be thinking and how I should be reacting by adding comments after dialogue or action:

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I see this even with a lot of well-known and oft-published authors, and it annoys me too. But apparently some readers prefer it, as if they don't get how they're supposed to feel unless after showing them, you also tell them. I once had an interesting discussion about this with someone I'd exchanged betas with -- as a reader, she truly preferred the redundant telling.

LessonsToLiveBy said:

3. Too much detail on minor characters that we only see once and who don’t move the story ahead.

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Naming every bloody spear carrier, yeah.

LessonsToLiveBy said:

4. Too much drama in everyday actions. “Harry slammed down the phone.” (Doesn’t anyone just click the end button anymore?). “The car roared to life.” (Maybe in 1965). And the bashing up the furniture thing when hearing bad news. (Have you ever seen anyone do this in real life?)

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Um, yeah, there's a certain kind of Really Pissed where you have to break something, and it doesn't count as broken unless it's something you'll regret breaking, or at least something valuable.

But I think the "drama" gets over-acted in fiction because, well, we're told over and over to just hit the highlights, and there's the result -- bashing and slamming!

OTOH what I see too much of is the opposite problem, where we dwell on day-to-day life under the theory that it's "establishing" when in fact it's just boring.

Conversations that go on for pages and pages and pages. Good dialogue shouldn't have to work that hard.

LessonsToLiveBy said:

And the bashing up the furniture thing when hearing bad news. (Have you ever seen anyone do this in real life?)

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Well, I threw a pen at the wall when the Dolphins missed what would have been the winning FG in a playoff game against the Chargers in 94. Does that count?

Stories written in first-person that are also written in present tense. It's a very limiting method of writing to me. I actually HAVE put down books when I've seen this style used.

Example: The entire Twilight series. IE: Edward takes a look at me. Then he turns, looking wistfully at the sky.

It feels more like reading a list than a story.

My biggest one is words that are obviously unnecessary. Example: When someone says "strange and unusual." You don't need both. That annoys me and I start to get angry.

I think perhaps one of my biggest pet peeves in a book is when someone has something that they say, like how Gatsby says "Old Sport" or Lady Brett Ashley says "chaps," but they get SO OVERUSED. It's like I understand s/he says it a lot, but we don't need to hear it every time. At some point, it begins to seem a bit lazy to me, because it's just like reminding us that it's THAT character again. It's like, I know it is. Don't worry about me keeping up with the novel.

Another pet peeve of mine is when you have a scene with absolutely no description. I'm a heavy-duty description writer; frankly, it's one of my favorite things to do. I'm a little Dickens-y when I write description, which a lot of people hate, but too bad. I've read books where the characters are in a place they have never been before and the only thing I can picture it as is a white box. I mean, at some point, tell me what it looks like, even if you just say it's a cave with an oddly-flat floor! Something has to help me believe that these characters are actually in a place, not just in space.

I apologize for the rant-ness of my pet peeves! But they are pet peeves, after all

gothicangel said:

I'm 50 pages into a new book and I'm already being irritated by the author constantly giving detailed descriptions of other knight's/earl's clothing (would a male POV really do this?) and the constant (historical) info-dumping.

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God I hate what this is like. Describe one knight and then go ahead and make a statement like "...and this was because every knight dressed that way..." and be done with it! At some point, please haha. And no, I don't think a man is typically obsessed with clothes...especially another dude's clothes.

Historical info-dumping I don't mind AS LONG as it actually tells me something I need to know for the story. I mean if it goes on for pages, I'll skip it, but if it's relevant and only like three paragraphs, then that's alright with me.

Depends on the guy,surely? I know guys who are waaaay more clothes concious than I am. When my Mum wanted to go clothes shopping she always took my brother, not me, because he would be into it* while I would be bored after approx 20 mins He's also pretty wassname about other dude's clothes as well.


*He can spend half a day shopping for socks to make sure they are just right....They are socks! Just buy some black ones and have done with it!

Ofc you can go too far with anything Too much clothing description bugs me, whether it's a man or woman doing it. My eyes always glazed over those bits in Lies of Locke Lamora. Too mch any description tbh. I need a bit, just to set the scene, but two pages of description....get on with the story! Or I'll have forgotten what was happening after half a page description of an implement -- including who made it and history of ownership -- that will never appear again.

JacobS.Tucker said:

And no, I don't think a man is typically obsessed with clothes...especially another dude's clothes.

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Historically speaking... yes, dudes (those who could afford to be, anyway) have often been obsessed with clothing, theirs and others'....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaroni_(fashion)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fop

http://www.victoriana.com/Mens-Clothing/mens-clothing-1840.html
(this one is fun!)

http://www.esquire.com/style/style-archives-0908

http://theday.co.uk/arts/men-s-fashion-shows-herald-peacock-revival

...and that was just from the first casual search!

But I think it depends how you handle it. If every guy who walks past is described in terms of hat, coat, knickers, shoes, and buckles, you'll soon weary of it. But if the author just hits the highlights that point out how it's Some Other Place Or Era, and thereafter only informs the reader how some new arrival differs from that established norm... and then only if the POV guys would notice it...



[eyeing wardrobe]
I think I need to upgrade.

Biggest eye roll for me is reading a series of books and it's cut and paste plots. Some of my favorite romance authors hooked me with their writing style, but it kills me when I see the same plot line in a bunch of their books. Boy meets girl, boy and girl flirt or fight, boy and girl fall for each other, boy or girl keeps secret, other person finds out about secret and gets mad, boy or girl has to win back their affection and trust.
I mean, come on, throw a zinger in there some times. Make something happen that'll make me go, "whoa, didn't see that coming".

taeray said:

Biggest eye roll for me is reading a series of books and it's cut and paste plots. Some of my favorite romance authors hooked me with their writing style, but it kills me when I see the same plot line in a bunch of their books.

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I've seen this one so many times that I'm sick of it:

Historical romance. They're both young, single, gorgeous and well-off if not rich. He wants her, and she decides sex would be OK since she's not going to marry (she'd rather paint or run an orphanage or whatever). So they have lots of unprotected sex.

By then he's fallen in love with her and asks her to marry him. But he hasn't said the L word and she could never marry a man who doesn't love her (forget that he's protected her and taken care of her and all that). So they have lots of unprotected sex because he's trying to make her change her mind.

It's completely manufactured, unrealistic conflict, and when it happens in book after book after book to the same carbon-copy characters, it drives me nuts.

I get annoyed, or I mean, bored quickly when the character's seem aimless and the inciting incident is weak, and the biggest killer for me is loads of backstory dumped into the first 3 chapters.

I have put books down within the first 20 or so due to the description drivel. Such as likening eyes to 'orbs of multifaceted gems'.

My biggest pet peeve is repetition. Granted, a few reminders of what's gone on previously isn't such a bad thing, but not when it's nearly word for word and every few pages.

When I run across something like that the first thought is, 'ok, I get it already.' the second is wondering if the author is padding their word count.

I love horror and books with a lot of action. I enjoy stories with well developed characters, elaborate plots and over the top villains. But I hate it when the hero/heroes thwart the villain or resolve the problem with a weird or puny action. I'm looking at you Stephen King, particularly "It" (group sex stops the evil ancient all powerful being, wha?) or "Needful Things" (you stop an demon with a cheap magic trick?). If you're make an exciting and unique story line, your ending has better match it.