What bugs you...? - The Review Revolution: Stories Forum

YourRedDoor's Forums » The Review Revolution: Stories

Topic Subscription

Forums » The Review Revolution: Stories » What bugs you...?

Author

Post

YourRedDoor

Topic: What bugs you...?

When reading a story, what bugs you the most?

For me it is when there is a M/Gary S/Tue, and also when an author writes a story without doing the research first and they get a whole load of facts wrong.

#1 Mar 05th, 12:29pm

FreakierThanThou

What bugs me is when the author obviously thinks that one small fault is enough to make their character realistic, and that regular people can be described in two words or less. And for the last time, clumsiness is not a personality flaw! Also when they won't accept criticism, no matter how politely it's phrased, and get offended if people don't like their story. If you can't take criticism, unless you're a perfect writer the first time you touch a keyboard (which you're not, nobody is) then you shouldn't be writing.

#2 Mar 05th, 4:21pm

diesoz

Unreality. One story was where a girl fainted and come to find out it was because she was going to labor, but lo and behold she ddin't know she was pregnant. She also almost forgot about the only guy she'd ever slept with. Or another story where she meets a random celebrity for like two seconds then gets devastating news about her mother, but decides it's more important to stay at work...at a movie theatre. Granted there is a premiere, but she works the ticket counter! But naturally the celebrity is really worried about her, even taking her to the hospital later. All this after their stimulating two second conversation. When does life ever, ever happen like that? I understand it's fiction, but there's such thing as plausibility. I mean the greatest TV shows are the ones that make you believe that what's happening, might just be real. Stories should be the same way.

#3 Mar 06th, 8:38pm

FreakierThanThou

Oz, I completely agree with you. Those are both ridiculous examples. People should at least be paying attention to what they're writing, if not researching it a little bit. I ended up doing about half an hour of research on pathological lying, to come up with one paragraph for a story. (One character thought another character was a pathological liar, and I wanted to make her sound like she at least sort of knew what she was talking about.) If you're writing about a pregnant character, you should have researched it enough to know that you can't go into labor randomly without even knowing you were nine months pregnant!

Here's another one: melodrama. Don't get me wrong, I love it when it's used for comedy. But when you're being serious, after a while, it gets to the point where it's too stupid and funny to be heart-wrenching, or whatever you were going for. Here's a hint: a general reaction to sadness is not beating one's head against the desk saying "stupid, stupid, melodramatic, stupid, stupid..."

#4 Mar 06th, 8:57pm

YourRedDoor

I hate melodrama used wrongly, but I hate no drama just as much. I hate it when an author thinks they know how to put in emotion, but they just slaughter the whole scene.

#5 Mar 07th, 9:09am

Tamerai

Twitch...melodrama in romance...twitch.

What squicks me is when an author stereotypes everyone. You have the dumb blonde with big boobs, the gay that is totally feminine with a lisp, the Christian who thinks everyone who's not a christian will go to Hell, the guy that is ripped with a perfect tan, blue eyes and black hair but at he same time he is a total sweetheart (okay, I guess this one goes into the category of being unrealistic rather than stereotypical). But this just scratches a nerve within me that shouldn't be scratched (perhaps the gag reflex?).

And YourRedDoor already said this, but an author who fails to do research about the thing their writing about. Especially period pieces. There's this little ticker in my brain that wants to take a pen and scratch at the screen when a period piece has something that's not in that time period. Such as France in the 1700's with a guy walking down the street in a military outfit that looks like it came from Nazi Germany. DX.

#6 Mar 09th, 1:49pm

Dr. Vox

there're a lot of genres I avoid, like fantasy and romance, because of all the unrealistic and sue-ish stuff that goes on in them :[ I'm not a huge fan of either to begin with, and so in order for me to like a story in those categories, they have to have LOTS of verisimilitude. bah.

also, this is more a pet peeve than something the author did wrong, but I can't stand names with apostrophes in them xD like, for fantasy or alien races. I realize it could be a part of said race's "culture" or something but they always look weird and unneeded to me. not to mention the names themselves could be very hard to pronounce to begin with.

I guess I like being too simple with names, but eh.

#7 Apr 13th, 4:26am

Moderator(s):	YourRedDoor, diesoz, Blackeri,
Rule(s):	Forums are not to be used to post stories. All discussions, language and content, must be suitable for teens. The owner/moderator(s) of this forum is solely responsible for content posted within this area. All forum abuse must be reported to the moderator(s).
Members:	Forum admin/moderator Fanatic (on site for more than 2 years) Fan (on site for more than a year) Regular (on site for more than 6 months) Camper (on site for more than a month) Apprentice (on site for more than a week) Newbie (on site for less than a week)

All times are GMT -8, US Pacific Time Zone.

Return to Top