# What turns you OFF?



## luckyscars (May 8, 2019)

I thought an interesting topic would be to discuss what, as a reader, makes you either put down a story or _want_ to put down a story within the first few lines/paragraphs/pages? 

Too much description? Too complex/too simplistic language? Something about the voice? The pacing? The setting even? What are some of your pet peeves?

Try to be as specific as possible.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (May 9, 2019)

A voice that's very obviously trying to sound clever or smart-alecky. 

A first person narrator who starts with, "Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is. . ." or who starts off whiny and complaining ("God, I hate my family. . .").

Description of setting that I have trouble picturing, either from too much or too little detail, or inexact word choice. 

"Philosophical" starts that try to sound deep but have very little actual depth.


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## dale (May 9, 2019)

porn. and let me explain what i mean when i personally use that word. because i don't mean necessarily hardcore sex. it could have 
nothing to do with sex at all. it could be gore. what i would call "horror-porn". i kind of like a book to start off drawing me in to imagery
and welcoming me to a character or something meaningful. show me there's actually a damn story before you throw gratuitous shit my way. 
whether it's sex or ripping someone's intestines out with a power drill or anything. i can't stand it when books or movies do that. i don't mind
"cheap thrills" within a book or film....but don't think you're immediately gonna grasp my undying attention right in the beginning like that.
because i'm probably just gonna toss it aside or turn it off as deemed "stupid".


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## luckyscars (May 9, 2019)

Realized I didn't give mine...

1. I hate when there feels like a presumption on the part of the writer that I, as a reader, know what is going on from Page 1 and give a flying flip. I'm all for immersive, challenging writing but I don't like to be thrown into a jargon-cluttered, overly-busy scene and expected to figure it out because the writer felt their idea warrants that kind of legwork. 99.9% of the time it doesn't. 

2. Nihilism. A thoroughly boring 'philosophy' that screams of laziness when used for characterization. Literally nothing more irritating than a character who 'looks after their own' and 'does what they want' and is supposed to be the paragon of masculine virtue.

3. Characters who are described in an overtly sexual way/gratuitous sexuality generally.

4. Heavy use of description that somehow manages to still not actually offer much visual: Descriptions that pack on abstracts "A soft, cold, lingering sound".

5. Shitty, unrealistic dialogue.


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## bdcharles (May 9, 2019)

The worst thing for me is to be bored. Whether it's the voice of the character, or the scene, or the event, or anything, if it's something interesting, or exciting, or curious, then I'm in. Too generic, too slow, too beige and I won't engage. There are many mainstream and well-regarded authors that fail to engage me in this way, but I'll name no names.  Aside from that, sometimes too little detail can put me off as much as too much. In fact I rarely see too much detail, though I do see some overwriting, making the same point over and over, or belabouring some trivial thing. But depicting a rich world can take some extra words so as long as they're strung together in an interesting way, I don't mind. I don't want to be rushed everywhere. I like to savour my reading time. I don't need loads of choppy, short sentences.

An unlikeable MC is also a bit of a turnoff. Why would I want to spend any time with someone with few redeeming qualities. Good Q


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## Plasticweld (May 9, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> Realized I didn't give mine...
> 
> 1. I hate when there feels like a presumption on the part of the writer that I, as a reader, know what is going on from Page 1 and give a flying flip. I'm all for immersive, challenging writing but I don't like to be thrown into a jargon-cluttered, overly-busy scene and expected to figure it out because the writer felt their idea warrants that kind of legwork. 99.9% of the time it doesn't.
> 
> ...




I would type out my list but you pretty much nailed it.  The top of the list would be shitty dialog. I often wonder if writers actually listen to what people say. I mean that.  There is nothing worse than a ridiculous story being supported by things, no-one ever says. 

Being partially deaf, I read lips, which means I really have to pay attention when people talk. People talk in full sentences, they don't ever let another person finish talking before starting themselves. They start in the middle of a thought, and then add context. They assume you know what they know...They grunt or go huh...thousands of times in agreement or disagreement. Most writers never add the body language that goes with the dialog, which just as in real life is more than half of what is being said.


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## luckyscars (May 9, 2019)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> A first person narrator who starts with, "Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is. . ."



Yeah I fuggin hate that. I call it the Door Salesman approach. The only time I can kinda get on board with it is when the voice is supposed to be somebody either very young (Lovely Bones) or mentally challenged (Curious Case Of The Dog In the Night Time). Even then its barely tolerable. 



> "Philosophical" starts that try to sound deep but have very little actual depth.



Oh god yeah. “I’m fourteen and this is deep”.


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## bdcharles (May 9, 2019)

Plasticweld said:


> Most writers never add the body language that goes with the dialog, which just as in real life is more than half of what is being said.



Yep I think body language is a great complement to a character. Have them twitch about, scratching and looking around. Have them fiddle with a pen. It's proper puppet-master fun, writing body language is.


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## Jacqui Jay (May 9, 2019)

Lack of continuity. I just stopped reading a book where a character walked into a room wearing a white coat, then took her crimson jacket off and hung it on a chair. How did that ever get past an editor?


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## JJBuchholz (May 9, 2019)

There are very few things that would make me put down a book, but here they are:

1) Repetition. If I keep seeing the same theme over and over with little hope of story advancement.
2) A slow build that is way too low. If the book is thirty chapters, and the author uses twenty-nine for his slow build, I'm out.
3) The first line. If it starts with 'It was a dark and stormy night', I won't just put it down, I'll throw it in the recycling bin!

-JJB


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## SilverMoon (May 9, 2019)

- When writers demonize their demons. 

What happens is that they become one dimensional characters. Without _any _attributes you might find yourself sympathizing with them and view the author as being the demon.

- Sarcasim, the lowest form of humor. I find it only acceptable if the "character" happens to be sarcastic.

- Too much dialogue. There should be more meat to the story than exhanges. I find back to back lines very distracting[FONT=Roboto, arial, sans-serif].

[/FONT][FONT=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]-  Scant or poor descriptions. There should be a certain "vivacity" to a story in order to keep me engaged.


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## SueC (May 9, 2019)

I have a few things - 

1. Spending too much time on how beautiful/handsome a MC is. And because they are so beautiful/handsome, they steal the scene, adored by all, making no mistakes in their delivery, everyone lusts after them, yadda, yadda, yadda. Their hair cascades, and the shade is like none other. Well, I could go on, but then I hate what I wrote and I'd have to delete it! 

2. Terminology that no one except those "in the know" would understand and spending more time than I want trying to figure out what the doohickey is and why it's in the story.

I'm sure there are more, but these two things would make me put a book down. Good question!


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## Bard_Daniel (May 9, 2019)

When the writing feels forced, generic, boring, without depth, and trite.


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## Cephus (May 9, 2019)

dale said:


> porn. and let me explain what i mean when i personally use that word. because i don't mean necessarily hardcore sex. it could have
> nothing to do with sex at all. it could be gore. what i would call "horror-porn". i kind of like a book to start off drawing me in to imagery
> and welcoming me to a character or something meaningful. show me there's actually a damn story before you throw gratuitous shit my way.
> whether it's sex or ripping someone's intestines out with a power drill or anything. i can't stand it when books or movies do that. i don't mind
> ...



Agreed. Anything gratuitous in a book or movie turns me off immediately. If you do it just to shock, you lose me. It's why I hate jump scares in modern horror movies. It's cheap. It takes very little effort or ingenuity to throw something at the screen. It doesn't take much intelligence to get someone naked on screen to titillate the audience. Anyone who does this is shooting for the lowest common denominator. They aren't making good movies, or writing good books, they are trying to get the kids to react.  I'm not a kid. It just makes me walk away.


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## Cephus (May 9, 2019)

Here's my list:

1) When the writer tries to push an overt real-world political message into their work. It doesn't even have to be political, anything real-world, outside of a historical thriller or something like that, needs to go away. I'm not reading this to have my mind changed. I'm reading it for entertainment. Keep your politics to yourself and write the book. If you can be intelligent about it, fine. If it's not screaming at you from the page, okay, maybe, but when they're effectively writing "orange man bad" on every page, they can take a flying leap.

2) Nothing postmodern. This is a massive problem today and it needs to die. If no one has any recognizable values, then I'm not interested in reading it.

3) No cheap scares or blatant sex scenes for a buck. I don't mind if there's sex in a story so long as the story calls for it. When it's just thrown in to titillate the reader, forget it. When it's just there so that the young kids will buy the book, no. I will never understand why so much supposedly "adult" content only really appeals to kids. Mature adults simply aren't interested.

4) Bad focus characters. If I'm going to live in their head for several hundred pages, I have to at least understand them. I don't have to like them necessarily, but I have to be able to relate to them. If I can't, the book goes away.

There are probably others, but that's what I could come up with off the top of my head.


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## MzSnowleopard (May 9, 2019)

Sue C, you just described the classic Mary Sue character. I've read some decent books but the most glaring problem was that Mary Sue, look, I just picked up and master a martial art in a day characters. I can't remember the male term for these brats but they are just as bad.

Other things that make me close a book are unnecessary descriptions. One book I bought was supposed to be suspense. In the first few pages of chapter one he spent more than a page describing what was on the breakfast table. Who cares? If he had a word count preset, he spent way too much of his word budget on that one scene. I was like 'well, no wonder this is self-published. I can't see any editor getting past this point."


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## Amnesiac (May 9, 2019)

My biggest pet peeve, is authors who don't do their homework/research. I was reading a book that sounded promising. In the first chapter, the author was acquainting the reader with the family. The line, "Her brother looked so handsome in his uniform as he marched off to basic training," had me slamming the book straight into the trashcan.

A Soldier/Airman/Marine/Sailor isn't issued uniforms until they ARRIVE for Basic/Boot. Likewise, they don't learn drill and ceremony, (aka marching) until they are IN TRAINING! Even the most cursory fact-checking would have kept the author from making such a mistake.


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## bazz cargo (May 9, 2019)

Oh please, I love 'It was a dark and stormy night.' As long as the next part of the line is a dilly. 
Boredom
Too many words I have to look up
I have yet to get past half a page of Romance.



JJBuchholz said:


> There are very few things that would make me put down a book, but here they are:
> 
> 1) Repetition. If I keep seeing the same theme over and over with little hope of story advancement.
> 2) A slow build that is way too low. If the book is thirty chapters, and the author uses twenty-nine for his slow build, I'm out.
> ...


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## Bard_Daniel (May 9, 2019)

...but looking up words is fun! :read:


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## velo (May 9, 2019)

Telling instead of showing. Bad grammar unless it has a clear purpose in the story.  Too much description; let my imagination do its job, don't spoon feed me. 

Check out epimethus' winning entry in last month's LM for an example of what I consider doing it correctly.  The story doesn't get bogged down in description, it only has what it needs to get the point across.


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## Cephus (May 9, 2019)

MzSnowleopard said:


> I can't remember the male term for these brats but they are just as bad.



Gary Stu.


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## Stygian (May 9, 2019)

Deal Breakers: 

1) Too many characters! I have a decent memory, but I can't be arsed to remember two dozen characters. It literally makes books go from awesome to slog 

2) MC is perfect. I hate "superman" protags. I want to see someone relatable; otherwise, the MC will just get drowned out in white noise

3) Author spends way too long setting up scenes. If the payoff is good, I will wave this, but it's killed my interest in several books, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six comes to mind.

4) Character/setting/story makes me think "Does anyone really give a S--t?". This is largely why I can't get into Romance. Not a knock on it, but it's not my cup of moonshine. I love a good story with agency and impact. This is a personal choice for me.

Pet Peeves:

1) Author takes no chances. I will gladly slog through an attempt at being philosophical or emotional than reading the author try to please the common denominator via hollow characters

2) No half measures! If you want to do action, do action. If you want to romance, by all means, go for it. Just don't mix everything together. I do not expect a spicy makout scene or a philosophical debate while bullets are flying. You can have all that in the story, but once the defecation hits the ventilator, it's time for action!

3) Too many disposable characters. Sometimes you need to make X character to perform a one time function, and that's ok, but try to limit them to an as-needed basis. Otherwise, you risk having a muddled cast in a scene.

That's about it for me. This was oddly cathartic.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (May 9, 2019)

Cephus said:


> 2) Nothing postmodern. This is a massive problem today and it needs to die. If no one has any recognizable values, then I'm not interested in reading it.



Yes, this is also really bad. But usually it's not a first-page turnoff because it's something you realize later in the story. . .like that movie Natural Born Killers: in the first scene you're like, "Oh, this is kind of interesting," but later on you realize that there's actually _no point _to the events of the story. Valueless stories are essentially plotless, because they can't go anywhere if the author doesn't believe there's anywhere worth going.


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## dale (May 9, 2019)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> Yes, this is also really bad. But usually it's not a first-page turnoff because it's something you realize later in the story. . .like that movie Natural Born Killers: in the first scene you're like, "Oh, this is kind of interesting," but later on you realize that there's actually _no point _to the events of the story. Valueless stories are essentially plotless, because they can't go anywhere if the author doesn't believe there's anywhere worth going.



lol. i'm kind of going to disagree with this because there WAS an actual point to that movie. the point to that film was on how media manipulations
mold the general population's minds like clay. the media actually had a lot of the public believing these sickos were some kind of heroes. with the ending
being that one of the top media personalities who had grossly sensationalized their "myth" had to pay the ultimate price for it.


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## Ralph Rotten (May 9, 2019)

My turn-off is bad writing.


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## JJBuchholz (May 9, 2019)

Stygian said:


> Deal Breakers:
> 
> 1) Too many characters!



^This as well. Don't. Even. Get. Me. Started....

-JJB


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## Bard_Daniel (May 9, 2019)

Game of Thrones got pretty crazy with the amount of characters. Am I the only one who thought that? Just curious.


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## luckyscars (May 9, 2019)

I don't think there is such a thing as too many characters, just undeveloped or poorly utilized ones.

A Song Of Ice And Fire has something like 500 named characters but it never feels like too many because GRRM knows how to create character and how to fill a scene. 

The whole 'too many characters cause problems' argument is clearly nonsense because we - all of us - meet thousands of people in our lifetimes and yet have no mental breakdown as a result. However, if you were asked to meet AND get to know AND remember 100 people in the span of a single event you would have problems with that. Same with books.

Me, I try to never write more than three or four characters in a scene and I think that's a good number. I may have many more _people _in a scene, but as far as actively-talking-actively-doing-hey-will-ya-pay-attention-to-me characters...I see _approximately_ four as being basically the limit. More than that and it starts to feel busy. I don't recall there being many scenes in A Song Of Ice And Fire that feature a lot more characters than that, either.


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## dale (May 10, 2019)

Bard_Daniel said:


> Game of Thrones got pretty crazy with the amount of characters. Am I the only one who thought that? Just curious.



i actually don't know hardly anything about game of thrones. but i'm supposing it's a series the way people are always talking about it.
and that can work in a series. like "the wheel of time" had a lot of characters to keep track of. but if you were into that series? you kind of
cared what happened to most of them. but in a single book or short story? yeah. probably better off not clouding up the issue with too many characters.


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## Newman (May 10, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> I thought an interesting topic would be to discuss what, as a reader, makes you either put down a story or _want_ to put down a story within the first few lines/paragraphs/pages?
> 
> Too much description? Too complex/too simplistic language? Something about the voice? The pacing? The setting even? What are some of your pet peeves?
> 
> Try to be as specific as possible.



Nothing, if executed well.

Perhaps horror turns me off, but that's a personal thing.


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## BornForBurning (May 10, 2019)

Anything that makes me feel like the author was jacking off when they wrote it.

Arrow sort of covered this already but an author who tries to cargo-cult their way into convincing you they are some kind of philosophical genius is always annoying, but this is sometimes redeemed by the fact that it can also be really funny. 

Long blocks of first person narration, journal entries and by far my least favorite way to start a story, the History Lesson. Rarely do I encounter something so monumentally boring as dry, uninspired paragraphs detailing a world I never cared about to begin with. 

Anything that tells rather that shows us what the main character is like is always a terrible way to start off.


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## Aquilo (May 10, 2019)

Pompous writing style: thinking that the more formal and long-winded a complex clause, the more intelligent the writing and how humble I must be to read it.
Flat imagery via relational clauses: X was this, X was that...
Flat dialogue, where each character uses the same phrases, the same word choice that show no diversity with voice, so all characters sound the same.
Unrealistic dialogue: see Pompous style.
Flat atmosphere: weather to open a scene, weather to portray character feeling and atmosphere.
No Location: Characters talking in a vacuum without grounding the reader where characters are.
All speech tags, no action to carry the speaker.
All body language action (smiled, frowned, nodded) and no real action (Sue sat at the table and let the clatter of spoon hit her plate).
Not being placed in the scene with the character, just told I'm there.
Boring word choice.
Boring sentence structure.
Boring world-building.
Boring relationship-development.
Inability to get creative with language and at least tease me that way.

But a really huge pet peeve: spoonfeeding every single minute action to me and not realising I'm a living breathing person with my own experience that works with an author to... fill in the blanks. If I'm not interacting and being allowed to run wild with my own imagination over details I'm given, I'm out of there. I want room to think, to be able to piece the actions together and reach that "Oh, Christ, that's why he's doing that, then."

But the list really is endless on why I'll put a novel down within the 1st para, lol. Don't get me started on the lazy authors....


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## Bloggsworth (May 10, 2019)

A small press-switch beneath the silver foil cap I wear...


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## Stygian (May 10, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> I don't think there is such a thing as too many characters, just undeveloped or poorly utilized ones.
> 
> A Song Of Ice And Fire has something like 500 named characters but it never feels like too many because GRRM knows how to create character and how to fill a scene.
> 
> ...



Meeting people in real life is completely different than reading words on a page. You can at any moment stop reading, but in real life, you can't stop interacting with people. Using the IRL example, imagine meeting, say, 5 people. You might remember all their names and a bit about their background. Now lets say 10, 20, 30...etc. As the numbers go up, the less impact each person leaves on you. Personally, I'm terrible with names, unless you have a unique name, or do something memorable, I will forget it 15 seconds after you telling me.

Now lets use the same example, but written in a book. Lets say there are 5 important characters. Assuming the book is good enough to keep you reading, you'll likely care about these 5. Lets double it to 10. The impact of the first 5 gets lessened, but it's still manageable, but as the total number goes up, the impact goes down, and you'll stop caring. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, but damn hard to pull off for most writers.

P.S. I need to learn to read. I completely missed the part that said first page turn offs. My bad


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## Bard_Daniel (May 10, 2019)

Stygian said:


> P.S. I need to learn to read. I completely missed the part that said first page turn offs. My bad



Oh, damn. Yeah, you're not the only one.


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## meegads (May 10, 2019)

JJBuchholz said:


> 2) A slow build that is way too low. If the book is thirty chapters, and the author uses twenty-nine for his slow build, I'm out.
> -JJB



I agree completely in most cases.  Although, there is an author who writes slow-burn romances that I just LOVE.  I am a sucker for a good love story and having the characters not get together until the very end is extremely satisfying to me!



Amnesiac said:


> My biggest pet peeve, is authors who don't do their homework/research. I was reading a book that sounded promising. In the first chapter, the author was acquainting the reader with the family. The line, "Her brother looked so handsome in his uniform as he marched off to basic training," had me slamming the book straight into the trashcan.




YESSSSSS.  Research.  Do it.  That's a huge turn-off for me as well.



Aquilo said:


> Flat dialogue, where each character uses the same phrases, the same word choice that show no diversity with voice, so all characters sound the same.
> All body language action (smiled, frowned, nodded) and no real action (Sue sat at the table and let the clatter of spoon hit her plate).
> Not being placed in the scene with the character, just told I'm there.
> But a really huge pet peeve: spoonfeeding every single minute action to me and not realising I'm a living breathing person with my own experience that works with an author to... fill in the blanks. If I'm not interacting and being allowed to run wild with my own imagination over details I'm given, I'm out of there. I want room to think, to be able to piece the actions together and reach that "Oh, Christ, that's why he's doing that, then."
> ...



I agree with all of these!  Especially over-description of a scene or a location.  Some detail is nice, but I like to picture things for myself instead of trying to cram the author's excessive details into my own imagination.


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## luckyscars (May 10, 2019)

Stygian said:


> Meeting people in real life is completely different than reading words on a page. You can at any moment stop reading, but in real life, you can't stop interacting with people. Using the IRL example, imagine meeting, say, 5 people. You might remember all their names and a bit about their background. Now lets say 10, 20, 30...etc. As the numbers go up, the less impact each person leaves on you. Personally, I'm terrible with names, unless you have a unique name, or do something memorable, I will forget it 15 seconds after you telling me.



I don't think it's that different. Unless you're in prison or something, you can generally stop interacting with people. 

Anyway, Dunbar's Number has proposed that the average person can sustain about 150 relationships - relationship in this sense meaning people whom you know well. His exact definition was '"the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar". 

I suggest if a human can comfortably get to know 150 people in real life (most of us, of course, have far fewer close acquaintances than that) then keeping track of the number of characters on a short-term basis in the context of a book is not really the problem. It's not the number of characters, it's the inadequate way they get written and implemented.


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## Stygian (May 10, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> I don't think it's that different. Unless you're in prison or something, you can generally stop interacting with people.
> 
> Anyway, Dunbar's Number has proposed that the average person can sustain about 150 relationships - relationship in this sense meaning people whom you know well. His exact definition was '"the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar".
> 
> I suggest if a human can comfortably get to know 150 people in real life (most of us, of course, have far fewer close acquaintances than that) then keeping track of the number of characters on a short-term basis in the context of a book is not really the problem. It's not the number of characters, it's the inadequate way they get written and implemented.



We'll have to agree to disagree on people interaction. Anyone with a job and responsibilities will be forced to interact with others. Walking away mid sentence in a conversation or avoiding human interaction is just weird. If I go to work, get groceries and maybe grab a drink, I'll meet at least 50 people. None of which likely leave any impact. Well, unless I get chewed out by my boss lol

I do agree with you on characters needing to be well written to be memorable. That's the hallmark of an exceptional writer.


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## luckyscars (May 11, 2019)

Stygian said:


> We'll have to agree to disagree on people interaction. Anyone with a job and responsibilities will be forced to interact with others. Walking away mid sentence in a conversation or avoiding human interaction is just weird.



My point was that the quantity of characters in a book, whether its Game Of Thrones or War & Peace or whatever else, is clearly not the issue whatsoever. Or shouldn't be, anyway. I think a lot of times when people pick faults with books over things like 'too many people' or 'too much going on' it's simply that they are lazy bastards. Lazy bastards wanting the immediate, mindless satisfaction of a single-track plot line following a single-cell character (Hi Bella Swann) and not reflective of any real problem with The Book Itself. 

Consider the number of characters who appear over the course of something as challenge-free as a long running soap opera and it often numbers in the hundreds, even the dummies who make up most of the recurring viewership of that sort of thing can rattle off all kinds of information about them. 

So, there is biologically speaking no reason why any person of normal intelligence could have trouble with a book because of _number_ of characters. Just isn't. On the other hand, throwing in endless, forgettable characters or overwhelming the reader by inserting 50 at a time into a scene is a whole different dog-show.


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## dale (May 11, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> My point was that the quantity of characters in a book, whether its Game Of Thrones or War & Peace or whatever else, is clearly not the issue whatsoever. Or shouldn't be, anyway. I think a lot of times when people pick faults with books over things like 'too many people' or 'too much going on' it's simply that they are lazy bastards. Lazy bastards wanting the immediate, mindless satisfaction of a single-track plot line following a single-cell character (Hi Bella Swann) and not reflective of any real problem with The Book Itself.
> 
> Consider the number of characters who appear over the course of something as challenge-free as a long running soap opera and it often numbers in the hundreds, even the dummies who make up most of the recurring viewership of that sort of thing can rattle off all kinds of information about them.
> 
> So, there is biologically speaking no reason why any person of normal intelligence could have trouble with a book because of _number_ of characters. Just isn't. On the other hand, throwing in endless, forgettable characters or overwhelming the reader by inserting 50 at a time into a scene is a whole different dog-show.



but would you also agree that throwing too many characters into a project would be artistically lazy of the artist? because my novel now is divided 
into "parts". and each "part" has many chapters. but i separate the "parts" by having different 1st word narrators. and my first concept when beginning
this novel was that only 2 narrators were gonna do this. but now the novel has a 3rd narrator for part 4. and i really did wonder if i was being artistically
lazy by bringing in this 3rd narrator. so i promised myself i wouldn't do it again. because in my heart it felt like i was bringing in different narrators when
i got "stuck". know what i mean?


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## Stygian (May 11, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> On the other hand, throwing in endless, forgettable characters or overwhelming the reader by inserting 50 at a time into a scene is a whole different dog-show.



Thats exactly the point I'm trying to make. You can't have a gigantic cast of characters without cramming too many in a scene. The more characters you have the less special they are. This makes them forgettable. 

I'm specifically talking about a single book that isn't part of a saga or multiple book story arch. That of course is a perfectly fine since you can spread your cast out.


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## AdrianBraysy (May 11, 2019)

Purely expositional dialogue. One character telling another something they both know. Often starts with "Remember when..."

Just non-dramatized exposition in general. "The house was X. The grass looked very Y. Laura wore a Y dress with X buttons..." who cares? Where's the conflict? How does this move the plot forward or tell us something about who the character really is?

This kind of ties into the previous point, but I hate filler and scenes that do not create meaningful change. If a character is in a similar position at the end of the scene as they were at the start, then what was the point? I'm talking about this type of scene: There is a happy village. Bandits attack the village. They defeat the bandits without much of a loss, growth or anything else. 

A much better scene would be: a group of villagers share a naive belief in their own safety, until bandits attack. They defeat the bandits, but one of the villagers is harmed. They now understand that the world isn't safe.

That was my list. I'm not too bothered by some bad grammar and spelling, so long as it's not super distracting.


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## Arachne (May 11, 2019)

Excellent question Lucky.

For me, the main reasons for giving up early on a story are - 

1 - Info dumps, I can't stand them. I read to relax and don't want to have to work out or remember something every sentence or two (too many characters included). New info should be spread out throughout the novel, and for me in short stories it just doesn't fit full stop.

2 - Flowery, over-wordy writing. It always feel like the writer is showing off their vocab, or skill or something. I know plenty of words, too, but I don't feel the need to use 'em all at once; less really is more for me. It takes a lot more skill to get something across subtly and with fewer words imo. 

Arachne


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## luckyscars (May 11, 2019)

Stygian said:


> Thats exactly the point I'm trying to make. You can't have a gigantic cast of characters without cramming too many in a scene. The more characters you have the less special they are. This makes them forgettable.
> 
> I'm specifically talking about a single book that isn't part of a saga or multiple book story arch. That of course is a perfectly fine since you can spread your cast out.



My point is it is down to writer competency, not sheer size of cast that dictates whether there is a problem of 'cramming'. 

Tolstoy's "War & Peace" has 559 characters in a 1225 page standalone book. That averages out at about 1 new character being introduced at every 2 pages. I would imagine 1 new character every 2 pages would be a huge red flag in a book by a lesser writer - I sure as hell wouldn't write with that kind of bandwidth - but it works because Tolstoy is one of the greats.

Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot has a lot of characters as well. I can't find the exact figure on google but you can see how many here and bear in mind that book is *only* a single volume of 400-some pages. I didn't find that book had too many characters either, and they were mostly as memorable as they needed to be.


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## luckyscars (May 11, 2019)

Arachne said:


> Excellent question Lucky.
> 
> For me, the main reasons for giving up early on a story are -
> 
> ...



Agree on both of these. I don't tend to mind flowery writing so long as it is genuinely good quality and sustains credibility. 

What I cannot stand is when you can tell a writer has their thesaurus open and every time they would normally use an ordinary word they are deliberately seeking out more arcane ones in order to sound clever or literary.


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## Stygian (May 11, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> My point is it is down to writer competency, not sheer size of cast that dictates whether there is a problem of 'cramming'.
> 
> Tolstoy's "War & Peace" has 559 characters in a 1225 page standalone book. That averages out at about 1 new character being introduced at every 2 pages. I would imagine 1 new character every 2 pages would be a huge red flag in a book by a lesser writer - I sure as hell wouldn't write with that kind of bandwidth - but it works because Tolstoy is one of the greats.
> 
> Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot has a lot of characters as well. I can't find the exact figure on google but you can see how many here and bear in mind that book is *only* a single volume of 400-some pages. I didn't find that book had too many characters either, and they were mostly as memorable as they needed to be.



Both of those authors are world class in their craft. I haven't read either, so I can't comment on the quality. W&P is largely regarded as a chore to read by the average reader. That cast sounds way too daunting for me to get into, personally.

I suppose it largely depends on your audience. If you're already published and well known, there is a good chance you'll get more people to put effort into reading. For most, reading is a form of escapism, so they don't really want to put in the effort.


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## MzSnowleopard (May 12, 2019)

I have what I call The D Rating... D for Dictionary. 

When I review a book, I typically start with this. The number represents the words I had to stop reading the book because I needed to refer to my dictionary.

This is distracting, stealing my enjoyment of a book. 

KIS - Keep It Simple!

I once read a book where I had to stop 6 times to look up a word. The only reason I finished reading was because I was close to the end. It seem liked the closer to the end, the more the writer felt she had to insert complex words.


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## Amnesiac (May 14, 2019)

"The alarm clock sounded and...." I HATE that! 

"The cumulus clouds rolled in. Black Bart looked up and saw the approaching storm. There was a 46% chance of rain, with 30% on Wednesday. Dew point was 56F."

If I want the fking weather report, I'll turn on the frickin' weather channel!

Or: "He awoke, realizing it was just a dream." Come on: I've invested time and my interest in this story and characters, and then the ol' glass of cold water in the face: "Haha... It was just a dream!" Grrrrrr......


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## luckyscars (May 14, 2019)

MzSnowleopard said:


> I have what I call The D Rating... D for Dictionary.
> 
> When I review a book, I typically start with this. The number represents the words I had to stop reading the book because I needed to refer to my dictionary.
> 
> ...



I don't know. I mean, I see what you're getting at with this - that endless or unnecessary use of esoteric language is a pain in the ass - but we have to be a little bit careful with saying that simple = better, don't we?

For one thing, certain characters/voices will speak in a register for which complex vocabulary will be necessary in order to sound authentic: An upper-class Oxford Don is unlikely to describe a meal as 'not bad' or 'pretty awesome', right? They're going to more likely use a more elaborate adjective. So we need to write that character authentically.

For another thing, I actually enjoy discovering new words through reading. Not every page, certainly, but looking up a word with the internet takes seconds if it is needed at all (often the context hints at meaning) so I would hate to only read books that are written in words I already know. How are we supposed to learn new things if everything is written 'simply'?

So long as they feel as though they are used appropriately and non-pretentiously, I don't have any issue with complexity of language.


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## luckyscars (May 14, 2019)

Amnesiac said:


> "The alarm clock sounded and...." I HATE that!
> 
> "The cumulus clouds rolled in. Black Bart looked up and saw the approaching storm. There was a 46% chance of rain, with 30% on Wednesday. Dew point was 56F."
> 
> ...



Writing weather gets a bad rap because most people do it extremely unemotionally. 

It doesn't have to be bad though. I write about weather sometimes. Here's a good piece of weather writing. Bronte. The Bronte's loved to inject pathetic fallacy into weather and nature generally.



> _About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building: a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the east chimney-stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen-fire_.



I've written about the 'it was all a dream' issue before on here. Still unsure why people get so enraged by it. I mean, yeah, if it's used lazily or as some piece of cheap deus ex machina then I hate that - but some stories it works great for.

Different folks, different strokes i guess.


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## Amnesiac (May 15, 2019)

> Writing weather gets a bad rap because most people do it extremely unemotionally.
> 
> It doesn't have to be bad though. I write about weather sometimes. Here's a good piece of weather writing. Bronte. The Bronte's loved to inject pathetic fallacy into weather and nature generally.]/quote]
> 
> ...


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## MzSnowleopard (May 15, 2019)

Crutch phrases. I'm not taking about catch phrases like- one character in my YA series likes to say 'deuces' instead of the normal "right on". I'm talking about phrases the writer uses in the descriptive / content- things outside of characters speaking. 

I used to work with a writing team on a project. One of the ladies didn't work out because the team had issues with her writing style. She habitually used the phrase "once again". When she was asked to stop doing this, she agreed but then continued to use it.

To this day, over 10 years later, I cringe at the site of the phrase and try to avoid using it myself.


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## Phil Istine (May 15, 2019)

It was a dark and stormy night when page one of the manuscript floated onto the slush pile.  If only he had known that the slush had magical properties.


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## L2me (May 15, 2019)

Not exactly tangible but any time i feel the story is driven by plot over characters. Might just be me but give me two fascinating characters in a mundane situation over two mundane characters in a fascinating situation any-day.


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## Amnesiac (May 16, 2019)

MzSnowleopard said:


> Crutch phrases. I'm not taking about catch phrases like- one character in my YA series likes to say 'deuces' instead of the normal "right on". I'm talking about phrases the writer uses in the descriptive / content- things outside of characters speaking.
> 
> I used to work with a writing team on a project. One of the ladies didn't work out because the team had issues with her writing style. She habitually used the phrase "once again". When she was asked to stop doing this, she agreed but then continued to use it.
> 
> To this day, over 10 years later, I cringe at the site of the phrase and try to avoid using it myself.



Once again, you've hit the nail on the head.  Seriously, every once in a while, I catch myself doing it. "After a moment," seems to be mine. When I go back to a piece of my writing to actually start editing, I often just groan and start chopping those things out and substituting other phrases that mean the same thing, to get away from repetition.


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## tessana.m (Jun 14, 2019)

Vile language. When people have their characters swear just for them to swear.


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## JustRob (Jun 15, 2019)

Poetry. In fact any item included primarily to showcase the writer's other skills.

Poetry and prose adjacent to each other are like oil and water except where the poetry is the main work and the prose is just there to provide an initial context. Including poetry with prose is usually just the writer drawing attention to another of their skills. They might as well go the whole hog and include photos of themself juggling or winning a yacht race. Perhaps they could also mention that they know twelve languages but couldn't contrive to work all of them into the story so felt obliged to tell the reader openly. 

In fact one novel that I read was prefaced with extensive boasting by the author about the amount of research that he had done including consulting people whom he no doubt considered to be impressively important. As much of the research related to military matters I simply wasn't interested in it. Being a British civilian myself and therefore having virtually no knowledge of guns and such, the alleged realism in that aspect of the story had no impact on me at all, only the story itself. Now if the author had written an entertaining poem about the armaments I might have been more impressed, but maybe that skill wasn't in his arsenal. At least if he'd only mentioned the tedious details about armaments in poems I could have skipped over them, as I usually do with any poetry, and focussed on the story proper.

There are some justifiable inclusions of other skills within prose works; illustrations  in a children's story are one example although whether the writer or  some other artist created them is, or at least should be, unimportant to  the reader. In fact when Charles Dodgson wrote the original version of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_  he illustrated it himself as it was a personal gift to the real Alice, but the later published version was  illustrated by someone else and there have been many other versions  illustrated by famous artists since, so the fictional Alice's appearance has  changed regularly. However, when I glanced through a collection of these versions a while ago I felt that the  illustrations had taken prominence over the text, making them a different  kind of work from the original.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Jun 15, 2019)

I actually don't mind when a writer intros a work with poetry, as long as the poetry is good, haha! The Man Who Was Thursday started with a poem. Didn't turn me off at all.


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## Megan Pearson (Jun 18, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> what, as a reader, makes you either put down a story or _want_ to put down a story within the first few lines/paragraphs/pages?



Clearly derivative, unoriginal works. Books, movies, even music (unless _really_ well done). 

(Excluding, of course, Jane Austen-themed rewrites, due to preferential bias!)

Writers who write down to their readers. 

(We're not stupid.)

Writers who don't know what they're talking about advocating poorly researched positions/opinions. 

Flat characters who all speak in the same voice.

Characters who serve the plot instead of creating the plot. 

Lack of treating setting as vital to the mood and tone of the story. 

Stories whose outlines show like undergarments. 

Stories without heart. In the opposite vein, stories that are sappy. 

(There is a happy medium.)

Being able to predict the ending to the point of growing bored--especially early on!

Writing that is not concrete, focused, or purposeful. 

Stories where I can't forget I'm reading and not living out the story. 


Hmm. I'll stop here. My 'put down' list is clearly longer than my 'pick up' list.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Jun 19, 2019)

Megan Pearson said:


> Writers who write down to their readers.
> 
> (We're not stupid.)
> 
> Writers who don't know what they're talking about advocating poorly researched positions/opinions.



Agree strongly with both of these. I find the "writing down" turn-off happens most often in children's books, which is a special pet peeve of mine. I remember as a kid I could not get through A Series of Unfortunate Events because I didn't get that Snicket's narrative voice was meant to be humorous and I felt VERY condescended to every time he said "dear reader. . ." or defined a word mid-text. Probably a misinterpretation of his intent but still. . .have not yet gone back to those books. When I see people writing down to children it feels like a disregard for their intelligence and even dignity. Like those parents who answer questions directed at their children or talk about them like they aren't there.


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## Megan Pearson (Jun 19, 2019)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> Agree strongly with both of these. I find the "writing down" turn-off happens most often in children's books, which is a special pet peeve of mine. ... When I see people writing down to children it feels like a disregard for their intelligence and even dignity. Like those parents who answer questions directed at their children or talk about them like they aren't there.



In other words, as a reader, you want the author to treat you with dignity, too. It's like the politician who imagines his constituents as apathetic and uneducated. I won't vote for such a person. I wonder why they do this? (Rhetorical. I think the answer would strictly reflect the person(s) who do this and not the reading audience.)


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## JustRob (Jun 19, 2019)

Megan Pearson said:


> Clearly derivative, unoriginal works. Books, movies, even music (unless _really_ well done).
> 
> (Excluding, of course, Jane Austen-themed rewrites, due to preferential bias!)
> 
> ...



While I may agree with you about some of these I wonder whether your selectivity limits your experiences.

One item that did set me thinking was "Flat characters who all speak in the same voice" as this criticism has been directed at my writing. That is understandable as I have never been a people person and I write more about situations using "Characters who serve the plot". That description doesn't just apply to the humans in my stories though but also all the other servants, e.g. the buildings, vehicles and other settings. An office block, aeroplane or a wood is a character, an "actor" to use computer gaming terminology, to me as much as any human and they are all there just to serve the plot. In fact the central character in my sole novel could be seen to be a completely unidentifiable entity that merely embodies a collection of characteristics and it is even given a name purely for identification purposes despite nobody knowing what it really is, if anything.   

As for the flatness of the characters, each is inevitably just a facet of the writer's own character. A character cannot have any characteristics, except for physical ones, that do not exist within the writer's own mind, so every character is less than the writer's own. Hence minor characters may well appear flat and major ones will tend to be similar to the writer's because they require so much of it to become rounded. If this were not so then the writer would be a far more interesting person than any of their characters and might as well just write an autobiography better to entertain their readers. Writers are after all nothing more than actors playing all the parts in the plays that are their stories. How many real actors can actually do that? 

So, do only characters who are _both_ flat _and_ speak with the same voice turn you off or do those who are _either_ one _or_ the other also do so, because little else is possible for a single writer to achieve. Of course one can duck the issue by saying that the similarities are a result of the writer's style rather than the characters' traits. I am not defending my own deficiencies but simply observing that they are inevitably universal to varying degrees. A writer is always more than their characters. Also, when exploring the human condition to its roots, as my writing attempts to do, aren't we likely to discover that everyone is fundamentally the same? All the characteristics that we have used to embellish our varied characters just fall away in the final analysis and mister and mistress potato-head become just potatoes.


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## Aquilo (Jun 19, 2019)

JustRob said:


> While I may agree with you about some of these I wonder whether your selectivity limits your experiences.
> 
> One item that did set me thinking was "Flat characters who all speak in the same voice" as this criticism has been directed at my writing. That is understandable as I have never been a people person and I write more about situations using "Characters who serve the plot". That description doesn't just apply to the humans in my stories though but also all the other servants, e.g. the buildings, vehicles and other settings. An office block, aeroplane or a wood is a character, an "actor" to use computer gaming terminology, to me as much as any human and they are all there just to serve the plot. In fact the central character in my sole novel could be seen to be a completely unidentifiable entity that merely embodies a collection of characteristics and it is even given a name purely for identification purposes despite nobody knowing what it really is, if anything.
> 
> ...



It's an interesting point, Rob. I've to admit, when I say flat characters, it means they show no personal growth or dimension, and it does turn me off. For example: take a secondary character, any secondary character from any context. If all she's doing on a scene is forwarding the main guy's story, then she's not a real character herself. Take the stereotypes here. E.g., the female who's always best friend to the gay guy. If all she is doing is asking: hear you guys had an arguement, you made up yet, how's your mom, you out toniight, how's your job going.... we're learning nothing ahout her: she has no dimension of her own, no life outside of the main character. If the main character isn't seen to ask about her life and breathe some dimenion into her character, then he comes over as a self-centered and only focused on his own life. Great if the MC is a prick and self-centered, but if he's meant to give a damn about his friend, he'd be asking how she's doing.

I see that so many times, to be honest. It's a content-level edit on characterization and relationship-building. Readers need to see that building from both sides in order see characters in all their colour.

Yeah, we all take something of ourselves into a character, but one character is always a mosaic of other pieces at best. Your mechanic won't just be a mechanic: he could be a lover, father, asshole to his neighbours.... and to add to all that colour, his language should change and show his mosaic pieces there too. E.g., I use a mechanic in mine. He's Cockney, pure Londoner, and general local thug and carjacker in his youth. Yet he's a sub as an adult, soft... tender around the riight people, and less likely to use a baseball bat around his Dom. How he speaks to his employees won't be the same as he talks to his Dom or his lover.

It's argued that some characters don't need that detail, but to be honest, I'd ask: why not? In just a short para and some dialogue, you give one secondary character all the colour they need, and have a novel that has rich characterisation and relationship-building throughout. Everyone has a history...


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## MzSnowleopard (Jun 19, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> I don't know. I mean, I see what you're getting at with this - that endless or unnecessary use of esoteric language is a pain in the ass - but we have to be a little bit careful with saying that simple = better, don't we?
> 
> For one thing, certain characters/voices will speak in a register for which complex vocabulary will be necessary in order to sound authentic: An upper-class Oxford Don is unlikely to describe a meal as 'not bad' or 'pretty awesome', right? They're going to more likely use a more elaborate adjective. So we need to write that character authentically.
> 
> ...



I get what you're saying. Of course it'd be expected that the more education, or even age of a character the more well versed their language / diction should be. 
What I'm talking about is descriptive content not character quotes. I shouldn't have to grab a dictionary to learn about a word the writer chose to describe a scene / setting.


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## Megan Pearson (Jun 19, 2019)

JustRob said:


> While I may agree with you about some of these I wonder whether your selectivity limits your experiences.



In a way, it does. I've actually gotten over a lot of my complaints in my old(er) age. It all ties back to a moment of clarity & revelation in my early twenties when I realized I didn't want to become that kind of writer. Therefore, I didn't want to read those kinds of books. This was quickly followed a library dump and re-homing of boxes & boxes of books. Having the goal to be the best writer I could be radically changed my reading preferences. <<<BUT>>> now that I'm old(er), I have a happy collection of books remarkably similar to everything I ever dumped, so I guess it doesn't get to me like it used to. While it still turns me off (and I still may put it down), if I do try to read such a work, I have learned to skim the fluff. A lot depends on why I'm reading it.



JustRob said:


> One item that did set me thinking was "Flat characters who all speak in the same voice" as this criticism has been directed at my writing. That is understandable as I have never been a people person and I write more about situations using "Characters who serve the plot". That description doesn't just apply to the humans in my stories though but also all the other servants, e.g. the buildings, vehicles and other settings. An office block, aeroplane or a wood is a character, an "actor" to use computer gaming terminology, to me as much as any human and they are all there just to serve the plot. In fact the central character in my sole novel could be seen to be a completely unidentifiable entity that merely embodies a collection of characteristics and it is even given a name purely for identification purposes despite nobody knowing what it really is, if anything.



That's how I see setting, too--as a character. It influences how the characters with agency act & respond & also influences the reader tremendously, such as by affecting the mood through framing the scene. (I have an unproven theory that setting is a most overlooked character today.) I'm not sure I understand why gaming tech would call the inanimate an "actor." Since it has no agency, it can have no motive. (How did you write a novel around an unidentifiable entity with no agency? You will have to message me sometime.)



JustRob said:


> As for the flatness of the characters, each is inevitably just a facet of the writer's own character. A character cannot have any characteristics, except for physical ones, that do not exist within the writer's own mind, so every character is less than the writer's own. Hence minor characters may well appear flat and major ones will tend to be similar to the writer's because they require so much of it to become rounded. If this were not so then the writer would be a far more interesting person than any of their characters and might as well just write an autobiography better to entertain their readers. Writers are after all nothing more than actors playing all the parts in the plays that are their stories. How many real actors can actually do that?



Well, we don't see eye-to-eye here. I pretty much know who the MC in one of my stories is, personality-wise. But over the years, as I've learned more about military leaders and leadership styles, I've come to realize that in order for him to be believable in his role, he needed more than I could give him myself. I've spent some time learning about real generals & watching movies to see how others have approached his type of character, and am confident that by the time I publish his story he--at least--will be a believable military figure. 



JustRob said:


> So, do only characters who are _both_ flat _and_ speak with the same voice turn you off or do those who are _either_ one _or_ the other also do so, because little else is possible for a single writer to achieve.



I sure hope we writers can achieve rounded, interesting characters! I try to.



JustRob said:


> Of course one can duck the issue by saying that the similarities are a result of the writer's style rather than the characters' traits. I am not defending my own deficiencies but simply observing that they are inevitably universal to varying degrees. A writer is always more than their characters. Also, when exploring the human condition to its roots, as my writing attempts to do, aren't we likely to discover that everyone is fundamentally the same? .



I do like universals, so you still have my ear. If I may summarize here, I think our biggest difference is that you see the writer as the character's end-all, and I see the writer as the story facilitator. If I don't know, I go find out. Therefore, my writing ability is limited not by who I am but by what I can research. 



JustRob said:


> All the characteristics that we have used to embellish our varied characters just fall away in the final analysis and mister and mistress potato-head become just potatoes.



Well then, why write? We'd all be better off gardening instead. :wink:


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## JustRob (Jun 20, 2019)

Megan Pearson said:


> Well then, why write? We'd all be better off gardening instead. :wink:



You'll have to answer that question yourself because I don't write any more, apart from these posts, and never actually intended to. My fiction writing proved to be just a way to prove to myself that my mind was capable of sensing events that existed in my own future. When people suspect that their dreams contain premonitions about the future they are advised to write them down in a journal to discover whether it is just an illusion in the long term. This is a catch-22 situation though because such a person must already be biased towards believing in their ability and therefore this bias can be used as criticism of them. My situation was different because I felt compelled to write certain things down but didn't know why or what they meant, so I conceived a science fiction story as a context for them. Only later did I suspect the truth and start my research, which paradoxically gave me the inspiration and skill needed to write the story that I already had. I never had any ambition to be a writer searching for something to write though. My only ambition now is to have written the story that I already have, which is evidently why I did. 

Referring back to my allergy to poetry embedded in prose, it was triggered just a short while ago today while my angel and I were putting away our shopping from the supermarket. Our female cat Raquelle was sitting quietly on the kitchen floor patiently waiting to be fed and my angel remarked, "She doesn't resort to shouting and squealing; she simply turns up and looks appealing." In my mind the alarm bells rang as I thought, "This is poetry, not conversation." She had said it without giving her words a moment's thought, so the poetry had just been a coincidence. If I had read it in a novel I might have felt differently about it though. One of the rules of writing fiction is apparently that coincidences shouldn't happen because they implicitly reveal the writer at work behind the scenes. Apparently the writer of reality doesn't know this rule, which is why my angel can speak in poetry spontaneously and I can spontaneously write about future events. 

Yes, why write fiction so that people can escape from reality for a while when reality is itself actually far more intriguing? It isn't just that I don't write fiction nowadays but that I seldom read it either and all my contributions to discussions here are now hypothetical. However, I did take the precaution of illustrating the majority of them in the novel that I wrote years before joining WF, which is why I make references to it so often. As an example, for an illustration of poetry coincidentally, or many be unconsciously, embedded in prose in my novel see HERE. The way that the rhythm of the words created a covert pun on the word "tattoo" appealed to me when I noticed it, so I left them unchanged. If I got a frisson from recognising it then some readers might too. When reading there is always a sense of achievement when one notices something that the writer may not have intended.


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## JustRob (Jun 20, 2019)

My apologies for consecutive posts but I appear to have several responses to tackle.



Aquilo said:


> Yeah, we all take something of ourselves into a character, but one character is always a mosaic of other pieces at best. Your mechanic won't just be a mechanic: he could be a lover, father, asshole to his neighbours.... and to add to all that colour, his language should change and show his mosaic pieces there too. E.g., I use a mechanic in mine. He's Cockney, pure Londoner, and general local thug and carjacker in his youth. Yet he's a sub as an adult, soft... tender around the riight people, and less likely to use a baseball bat around his Dom. How he speaks to his employees won't be the same as he talks to his Dom or his lover.



As with most of my writing there's a depth to my mechanic's character that makes me wonder just how it came about. He is just a motor mechanic servicing cars but his ambition was to be a proper engineer creating "things" although he didn't know what. In the story he appears to spend all his time reacting to events rather than causing them. In Megan's terms he therefore may appear to serve the plot rather than create it. Had I written the entire trilogy of novels the reader would have discovered the truth, given that the story is about time being non-linear and concepts of past and future meaning virtually nothing. Far from simply experiencing his fate my mechanic turns out literally to be the engineer of it. As with myself and my novel writing, his past life has been influenced by his future decisions in complex ways. Readers need to suspend their disbelief and trust and be patient with the writer, but if they perceive him to be a novice that is unlikely to happen.


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## Bard_Daniel (Jun 20, 2019)

Prose without purpose-- when the words are inconsequential to what the author is trying to, ultimately, write.


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## Megan Pearson (Jun 20, 2019)

JustRob said:


> ...I don't write any more, apart from these posts...



Oh. How sad. I rather like your sense of rhythm and think you have a rather writerly way of expressing yourself. 

Perhaps you will someday reconsider.


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