# What ticks you off when reading a book/story?



## Summerhaze

Seriously when I'm reading stories or books I seem to find things annoying. they may not be gramaticaly incorrect or anything it's just the general read of it.

What ticks me off the most is when a writer uses the same adverb more than once in a paragraph or two. Seriously, get a thesaurus! 

At the moment I'm reading Stephen Kings "The Mist". I just saw the new movie of it and whenever I see a movie based on a book I always want to read the book afterward. Like About A Boy I got the movie for Christmas from my brother because he lives for movies, and always wants to get me a movie but he also knows that I LOVE Nick Hornby. Yesterday I watched the movie before reaidng the book and now I REALLY want to read the book even thought I heard from many people that it was they're least favouite of them all.

ANYWAYS

As I'm reading "The Mist" I have noticed alot of this almost every page of the second chapter he used the same adverb, and sometimes even the same verb in the same paragraph.



WHAT TICKS YOU OFF WHEN READING?


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## ClancyBoy

I remember _The Mist_.  King used the word "acrid" a* lot*.

The thing that pisses me off the most is really transparent plotting.  I know how 90% of stories are going to play out and end just based on the first chapter.  

And yet the vast majority of creative writing classes and writing books tell you you _have_ to write that way.


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## imdead-goaway

I hate when they put long articles.
Like, if the character is reading a newspaper
And it just goes on, and on.
I loose focus, and just skip over them
And hope I didn't miss anything key.


J. K. Rowling is a bit guilty of that


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## The Backward OX

Like, if I'm reading a murder mystery, and some dumb cop is a redhead on Page 37, then on Page 154 she has black hair. That type of thing REALLY pisses me off.


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## Pete_C

The Backward OX said:


> Like, if I'm reading a murder mystery, and some dumb cop is a redhead on Page 37, then on Page 154 she has black hair. That type of thing REALLY pisses me off.


Why does a ginger bint trying to better herself by dying her hair a human colour annoy you so much?


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## The Backward OX

Pete_C said:


> Why does a ginger bint trying to better herself by dying her hair a human colour annoy you so much?


Perhaps you were jesting. If not, maybe I should have taken my usual amount of time over a post, and expressed myself more clearly. What pisses me off are obvious contradictions not picked up by the Copyeditor. Even when they are chapters apart I see them.


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## Pete_C

I once knew an Australian girl who, in a fit of boredom, dyed her pubes. When I expressed surprise at blue pubic hair, she reassured me saying: 'It's okay, they're not naturally that colour. I dyed them.'

No shit, Sherlock.


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## RebelGoddess

Anyway...

Agreed on the obvious contradictions and the rediculously repetitive words.

I really, really, really hate it when I'm reading a book and the main character is either one dimentional in every way or a complete cliche (sometimes both). 

It just really irks me when the character is moving through the plot like a retarded robot or something.

I also can't stand pages and pages of diologue or pages and pages of prose with not break up.

Racheal


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## howowiginal

It annoys me when authors use their characters to express their own opinions, especially if it serves no purpose to the story.

Unnecessary details are the most annoying. That's one of the reasons I couldn't finish Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.


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## Mr Sci Fi

I get ticked off when I realize that I can write twice as well as the author, and he's published.


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## The Backward OX

Mr Sci Fi said:


> I get ticked off when I realize that I can write twice as well as the author, and he's published.


This is probably a classic example of the truism "It ain't what you know, it's who you know."


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## SevenWritez

I hate unnecessary details, random tangents that stray from the plot to express an/a "ingenious/philosophical" opinion, or shitty plots that get praised by critics. I'm looking at YOU, The Thirteenth Tale. Ugh.


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## WTFtat

I hate when the main character knows everything.


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## Ilasir Maroa

I hate the use of the word "kloven" to describe anything but hoovs. I also hate when an auther writes a book with no conpletely randon tangenz having little to do with the plod, and a lot to do with the author's girlfriend boyfriend running awf with the next-door neighbor.  And also sepelling gramerr punctuuation erors.


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## boongee

I hate it when the narrator decides to give away something that's going to happen soon but withholds necessary information. It sounds really corny and cliche and reminds me a little bit too much of a Goosebumps book. For example, the last sentence in a chapter would be:

_But that would be the last time he would go in that building for a long, long time._


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## The Backward OX

boongee said:


> I hate it when the narrator decides to give away something that's going to happen soon but withholds necessary information. It sounds really corny and cliche and reminds me a little bit too much of a Goosebumps book. For example, the last sentence in a chapter would be:
> 
> _But that would be the last time he would go in that building for a long, long time._


_Au contraire, _my friend. I agree entirely that the wording as quoted by you is corny and cliche, however the concept, if expressed more better:-k, is a way to keep the reader interested.


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## The Backward OX

Ilasir Maroa said:


> I hate the use of the word "kloven" to describe anything but hoovs. I also hate when an auther writes a book with no conpletely randon tangenz having little to do with the plod, and a lot to do with the author's girlfriend boyfriend running awf with the next-door neighbor. And also sepelling gramerr punctuuation erors.


 
_Rounding the corner of the quarter-deck cabin, his wooden stump echoing hollowly on the bloodied timbers, his parrot on his shoulder squawking “Pieces of Eight! Pieces of Eight!”, Blackbeard came upon on a terrible sight. _

_There at the foot of the mizzen-mast lay the body of his foe Robert Maynard, his skull cloven by a spar that had obviously become dislodged during the storm. _

_“Damn ye, ye yellow-bellied sapsucker!” he roared, “Ye’ve done me out of a fight!”_


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## SevenWritez

The Backward OX said:


> however the concept, if expressed more better:-k, is a way to keep the reader interested.


 
Nah, it's just a cheap, shitty way to push the reader onward. So many contemporary writers today don't know how to make a character that is engaging, a setting that is unqiue, or a scene that is vivid. For this fucking ubiquitous flaw, paired alongside the growing rate of shitty writing taking up mainstream attention, we are handed little strands of, "Oh, look at this! But wait, there's more...just...just read fifty more pages first, ok? Please? Buy my next book? Yeah? I failed as a journalist?" 

Sorry, that was a rant, but it's been such a long time since I cared about a character in a story, and it's been eating away at me. I seriously don't enjoy reading as much as I used to.


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## Truth-Teller

boongee said:


> I hate it when the narrator decides to give away something that's going to happen soon but withholds necessary information. It sounds really corny and cliche and reminds me a little bit too much of a Goosebumps book. For example, the last sentence in a chapter would be:
> 
> _But that would be the last time he would go in that building for a long, long time._


 
This is the most egregious sin King commits. He tells you the main character is going to die, and then goes about telling you--in the next one hundred pages--he dies. :-?

He never goes with the flow, but, rather, wants to reveal everything beforehand--killing the surprise.


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## The Backward OX

Posters who use the word "egregious" in every second post


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## strangedaze

Dialogue that is only there to explain things to the reader.

That, and chicks who won't put out. Heh heh.

...
...
...


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## TheRaven

I hate it when the author has an extremely ambiguous ending, unless it has a sequel. It drives me crazy to read a really good book and then never find out what truly happened at the end. Unfortunately, my favorite author is bad about that.


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## SevenWritez

strangedaze said:


> That, and chicks who won't put out. Heh heh.
> 
> ...
> ...
> ...


 
Dude, if the girl ain't putting out, it's most likely your fault. *Runs away*

EDIT: To Raven:

Oh man, read Number9Dream by David Mitchell. That book is easily one of my favorite of all time. The writing, the story, the characters, the whole damn thing. But the ending...oh man, talk about leaving a reader crying.


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## Hawke

What ticks me off is spending money on what turns out to be a lousy, droning, pointless novel. What ticks me off the most is the reality that there are mad-skills talented writers on this site who should be on the shelves but can't get a break. Sorry. Done ranting.


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## Mr Sci Fi

The Backward OX said:


> This is probably a classic example of the truism "It ain't what you know, it's who you know."


 
I guess I need to attend more Cocktail parties with publishing snobs.


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## mlvwrites

There are three things that tick me off when reading a book or a story. They are:

(1) Bad editing and/or proofreading.

(2) Loosely disguised plagiarism and/or fanfic.

(3) Finding a book in one section, only it really should have been billed in an entirely different section that has a different mood/feel than what I originally wanted.


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## Theotherguy

SevenWritez said:


> Nah, it's just a cheap, shitty way to push the reader onward. So many contemporary writers today don't know how to make a character that is engaging, a setting that is unqiue, or a scene that is vivid. For this fucking ubiquitous flaw, paired alongside the growing rate of shitty writing taking up mainstream attention, we are handed little strands of, "Oh, look at this! But wait, there's more...just...just read fifty more pages first, ok? Please? Buy my next book? Yeah? I failed as a journalist?"
> 
> Sorry, that was a rant, but it's been such a long time since I cared about a character in a story, and it's been eating away at me. I seriously don't enjoy reading as much as I used to.



It's called foreshadowing, buddy, its a very common feature of great literature. If done correctly, it can add dramatic irony, which can make a book very emotionally involved as the plot unwinds.

i.e. Oedipus Rex


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## SevenWritez

Theotherguy said:


> It's called foreshadowing, buddy, its a very common feature of great literature. If done correctly, it can add dramatic irony, which can make a book very emotionally involved as the plot unwinds.
> 
> i.e. Oedipus Rex


 
"He did not know it would be the last time he ever saw her," isn't foreshadowing, buddy, it's a very common shit feature of craptastic writing. If done enough, it can give lower level of expectation from readers, which can make subsequent books as emotionally involving as a rock.


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## SevenWritez

The f***. Deleted.


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## Fixed

what ticks me off when I read a book is when the book is too predictable or the character's are invincible and inhuman and can scrape through everything even in impossible situations.


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## The Backward OX

Fixed said:


> what ticks me off when I read a book is when the book is too predictable or the character's are invincible and inhuman and can scrape through everything even in impossible situations.


Hahaha. "With one bound, Jack was free."

You've been reading Clive Cussler haven't you?


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## playstation60

The Backward OX said:


> _Au contraire, _my friend. I agree entirely that the wording as quoted by you is corny and cliche, however the concept, if expressed more better:-k, is a way to keep the reader interested.




More better?  LOL.


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## Pardot Kynes

I put down books that are guilty of most of the above things, so the only thing I can say ticks me off in the books I read, are when they kill off a character I have grown attached to.

I literally threw my HB copy of A Clash of Kings across the room when I got to the Red Wedding. Broke the spine, all the pages fell out- and despite my fury, I went to the store to get a new copy the same day. Hehe.
GRRM and I have a love hate relationship...

And, I have to say that I really enjoy Clive Cussler for light reading... His novels aren't classics by any stretch, but they ARE entertaining.


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## playstation60

See I love GRRM just for that reason.  All throughout the series I've wanted to throw the books, but haven't because that would just be wrong.  LOL.  The Red Wedding has got to be one of the most spectacular, surprising scenes in a novel in a very long time.  It took me utterly by surprise.  Just awesome.


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## Pardot Kynes

You mean evil, heartwrenching, and torturous. Hehe. But ya, I guess we wouldn't love him if he didn't pull shit like that on us from time to time.


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## playstation60

Exactly.  The "Red Wedding" was the perfect punch to throw.  I am so eager to see where he decides to take this, having all but destroyed the north in "killing" most of the Starks, and allowing the Greyjoys to invade from the Iron Islands. 

I just hope that A Dance With Dragons comes out before I die (Lol, melodramatic, I know), and that it isn't quite as boring as A Feast for Crows was.  

I kind of hope that he throws us into the head of Margery.


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## magpie

I'm reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and I hate how repetitive Rowling is about information that we received in the first HP.  It's awkward and it distracts from one of her attributes: lean, concise, fluid prose.  It's almost as though her editor had a problem with some things that happened in the first book not being recapped in the second book, and Rowlings threw in a few pages just to humor her.   It just doesn't work though--too much unnecessary telling.


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## iceguy303

Mr Sci Fi said:


> I get ticked off when I realize that I can write twice as well as the author, and he's published.


 
I would have to second that, but which one is better,  being shitty and published or being decent and having a bit of pride and not being known.


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## Unmasked_Journey

*I can't stand when...*

I don't mind chapter length as long as it can keep me mesmerized. But when they are longer because they are repeating things they've already said - like maybe I forgot- I get bored real quick and find another book.


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## Vee

Reading something that is written in first person when its not noir.

For me, Noir is the only acceptable way to write a narrative in first person.


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## ATragicOffense

Major plot holes, poor grammar, unrealisticly high levels of foul language and/or predictable plots.


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## Industrial

One sided-bias.


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## Mike C

iceguy303 said:


> I would have to second that, but which one is better,  being shitty and published or being decent and having a bit of pride and not being known.




Hah! You guys _SO_ make me laugh. Keep kidding yourselves.


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## JessicaVendetta

I'd say the worst thing in a book is when you are reading, blah blah blah words words words and then there is no punctuation on a sentense.

It's like...ok asshole, you are one of the lucky ones who got a published....YOU WROTE A FRIGGEN BOOK! There is no excuse whatsoever why someone who is making a living as a writer cannot take the time to make sure that this once sentence has a period at the end.
or at least hire a good editor.
That ruins the book for me.
Maybe Im too anal about that. If you are a struggling writer posting your stuff on the internet, I can understand some spelling mistakes or incorrect puncuation here and there.
But not in a book, not in something printed and sold on shelves. No excuse


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## FMK

JessicaVendetta said:


> I'd say the worst thing in a book is when you are reading, blah blah blah words words words and then there is no punctuation on a sentense.
> 
> It's like...ok asshole, you are one of the lucky ones who got a published....YOU WROTE A FRIGGEN BOOK! There is no excuse whatsoever why someone who is making a living as a writer cannot take the time to make sure that this once sentence has a period at the end.
> or at least hire a good editor.
> That ruins the book for me.
> Maybe Im too anal about that. If you are a struggling writer posting your stuff on the internet, I can understand some spelling mistakes or incorrect puncuation here and there.
> But not in a book, not in something printed and sold on shelves. No excuse


Books are written by humans. Books are edited by humans. Humans make mistakes. Therefore, writers and editors make mistakes. An unavoidable fact in every aspect of life.


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## JessicaVendetta

Like I said, maybe Im anal, but I view good literature as a piece of art, and I think a book should be checked to the wire about stuff like that. It makes the book seem sloppy.
The good thing is though there's only been 3  or 4 books in my life that have had errors like that.


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## TE4SE

*King indeed*

I have read a couple of Stephen King novels! And the problem I have found is Mainly all his books are basically the same, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent?
One thing I cant understand about. J,K,Rowling and Harry potter! Witches dont celebrate Chrimbo so why do they have Xmas at hogworts?


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## Krim

> J,K,Rowling and Harry potter! Witches dont celebrate Chrimbo so why do they have Xmas at hogworts?


 
Should they be celebrating...Satanmass or something? I must have missed the pagan ritual they go through upon their entrance to Hogwarts where they become the devoted followers of a god of energy or whatever.


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## JessicaVendetta

From what i gathered from the series.....it wasn't really related to any ritualistic/ordered witchcraft so much as saying funny sounding words and creating magic.
I liked the Christmas at Hogwarts thing.


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## Mishki

Coming out of longtime lurkdom (Hi!) for my own rant.  I constantly read about half of a book that looked promising in the store and is written by an author I've never heard of.  Once I come upon the halfway point I suddenly think, "this is an MFA novel!"  And then I read the note about the author and throw it across the room, because yes, it is an MFA novel.  I have never once been wrong about this in the past five years or so that MFA novels have become so common.

What is it about them that makes most so godawful?  (No offense to those of you that have acquired an MFA.  I'm sure I've read many MFA books I've enjoyed and just never realized it.)  I tend to think it's that these writers learn not to experiment--to write things that are "safe," usually in the "literati" way (i.e. excessive, masturbatory characterization).  Or perhaps they're writing according to some rules of academics that I just don't know about.  Maybe the workshop process is unhealthy, I dunno.

My #1 grievance in all writing, though, is the--I don't know what else to call it--"virginal maiden" stock character, such as Lucy Manette, Rowena, Lana Lang, Gwen Stacy, etc.  She's usually the object of the protagonist's affection, is extremely passive, is meant to be perfect in every way, is the ultimate symbol of femininity, tends to have no opinions or ambitions, is surrounded by a halo of light, etc. etc.  It's sexist and boring and I can't stand it.  That crap got old in the Victorian era, yo.


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## ClancyBoy

howowiginal said:


> It annoys me when authors use their characters to express their own opinions, especially if it serves no purpose to the story.



Paging Robert Heinlein to the thread.


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## ClancyBoy

Krim said:


> Should they be celebrating...Satanmass or something?



Beltane.


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## Tangent_string

grammatical errors due to mis-types that the editor never caught. In my case, terry goodkind's "wizard's first rule" is guilty of this on almost EVERY single page.

Also lack of subtlety. I don't like it when I know the themes and the philisophical points of a book early on, and I don't like it when they have a wise old character who basically spells it out.This is why I love Orsen Scott Card so much, you don't have a CLUE what he believes, because he writes every character with different beliefs as equally truthful. 

I hate predictability, and cliche'd plots. I don't like epic stories, because it can only go one of two ways, either good wins, or evil. And it's always good, so the end.


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## Tangent_string

Mishki said:


> Coming out of longtime lurkdom (Hi!) for my own rant. I constantly read about half of a book that looked promising in the store and is written by an author I've never heard of. Once I come upon the halfway point I suddenly think, "this is an MFA novel!" And then I read the note about the author and throw it across the room, because yes, it is an MFA novel. I have never once been wrong about this in the past five years or so that MFA novels have become so common.
> 
> What is it about them that makes most so godawful? (No offense to those of you that have acquired an MFA. I'm sure I've read many MFA books I've enjoyed and just never realized it.) I tend to think it's that these writers learn not to experiment--to write things that are "safe," usually in the "literati" way (i.e. excessive, masturbatory characterization). Or perhaps they're writing according to some rules of academics that I just don't know about. Maybe the workshop process is unhealthy, I dunno.
> 
> My #1 grievance in all writing, though, is the--I don't know what else to call it--"virginal maiden" stock character, such as Lucy Manette, Rowena, Lana Lang, Gwen Stacy, etc. She's usually the object of the protagonist's affection, is extremely passive, is meant to be perfect in every way, is the ultimate symbol of femininity, tends to have no opinions or ambitions, is surrounded by a halo of light, etc. etc. It's sexist and boring and I can't stand it. That crap got old in the Victorian era, yo.


 
I know this is probably a profoundly ignorant question to ask but... what's an MFA novel? I googled it, and couldn't find a clear cut answere.

Sorry to post a second time, but saw this after my other post.


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## Suzip

I'll probably get shot for this as the series is so popular but I really don't get Harry Potter.  I've tried reading it but it really doesn't interest me, I thought I would because it is the genre I like.  The woman has done so obviously well and good for her but I don't find it that well written.  I read about a third of the first book but couldn't go any further.


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## MerryLlama

what annoys me is when the main character you like suddenly does something really stupid and you just cringe as the make a fool out of themselves. Arg! I can't stand that in films either.
Also when the discription rambles on long after you've got the idea (i general just skip those parts but if the books full of it you tend to skip most of the book)


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## Crow

*Quotation coherency* and *disorienting point of views*. I found the most recent culprit in McDevitt's 'Polaris.' 

While it has a sound premise, too often I can't tell whose speaking or whose point of view I'm dealing with, and that takes away from the experience. It made me do something that I rarely ever do--stop halfway through and get another book. As an avid reader, I consider that a cardinal sin to do to a novel. Especially when you're a good ways through the book already. 

Another annoyance is *paragraph breaks*. I don't mind long paragraphs. Actually, I prefer them to shorter, choppier Grisham-style ones, as long as they are fluid and culminate to a point. Tom Wolfe does an excellent job with his paragraphs, they almost read like poetry.


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## Matt3483

Tangent_string said:


> What's an MFA novel?



I think it means a novel written by someone who has achieved a *M*aster of *F*ine *A*rts (majoring, I assume, in Creative Writing).


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## Adjective Ocean

Absurd wordy descriptions really piss me off. I don't give a damn about the rug the character's staring at! I don't give a shit about the curtains or the furniture! I don't give a fuck about that car! Tell me about something that _*matters*_! Uhhggghh, it just annoys me thinking about it, especially when they start giving off eras of the furniture. The fact is I don't know anything about chairs, cars, or interior decoration and I don't want to know anything about them, so why is their so much description in my book? Life is to short for me to devote any time to such things.


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## Sam

Pete_C said:
			
		

> No shit, Sherlock



Ha ha. Love it. I haven't heard that saying in ages. 

What really pisses me off about a novel? About sixty characters. I have a hard time remembering the main character's name, much less fifty-nine others. I also have no time for long-winded novels. 800-900 pages is my limit. I once tried to read Stephen King's 'The Stand' which is over 1800 pages long. The first part of it was okay, but after a while I just lost all interest. 

I like novels that move along quickly. If you want to know who I think is currently the best author in the world, it's Jeffrey Deaver. His novels never disappoint. Another good author is Michael Connelly. Their work moves along almost at breakneck pace, and they are usually always filled with with double-whammy endings.


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## Impressario

When a story is predictable I can hardly finish it. It bugs me to know end when I know where we're headed.


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## Adjective Ocean

Sam Winchester said:


> Ha ha. Love it. I haven't heard that saying in ages.
> 
> What really pisses me off about a novel? About sixty characters. I have a hard time remembering the main character's name, much less fifty-nine others. I also have no time for long-winded novels. 800-900 pages is my limit. I once tried to read Stephen King's 'The Stand' which is over 1800 pages long. The first part of it was okay, but after a while I just lost all interest.
> 
> I like novels that move along quickly. If you want to know who I think is currently the best author in the world, it's Jeffrey Deaver. His novels never disappoint. Another good author is Michael Connelly. Their work moves along almost at breakneck pace, and they are usually always filled with with double-whammy endings.



Yeah, name dropping pisses me off to. It's very difficult to remember 60 names of people who barely matter.


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## Mishki

Crow said:


> *Quotation coherency* and *disorienting point of views*. I found the most recent culprit in McDevitt's 'Polaris.'
> 
> While it has a sound premise, too often I can't tell whose speaking or whose point of view I'm dealing with, and that takes away from the experience. It made me do something that I rarely ever do--stop halfway through and get another book. As an avid reader, I consider that a cardinal sin to do to a novel. Especially when you're a good ways through the book already.
> 
> Another annoyance is *paragraph breaks*. I don't mind long paragraphs. Actually, I prefer them to shorter, choppier Grisham-style ones, as long as they are fluid and culminate to a point. Tom Wolfe does an excellent job with his paragraphs, they almost read like poetry.



Word to the infinite power.  The former is the reason that I can't read Neal Stephenson, try as I might.  The latter used to bother me, but I've learned to look at how much white space is in a book before I pick it up.  If there's too much of it, I never bother.

*Tangent*, it's a novel written by someone who has a master's in fine arts, like *Matt* said.  I believe that the degree process erodes something in the writer--perhaps willingness to take risks?  These novels read like an editor wrote them.  The best analogy that I can make is music: you ever hear an album that's just produced to death?  The later Jewel albums were, and was Neil Young's "Harvest Moon."  They have no edge to them at all, no rawness.  The writing is like that--it feels labored and strategic.


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## The Hooded One

I see alot of repetition in todays fantasy. Take Tad Williams "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" for example. It seemed to share alot of similarites with Gail Martins "The Summoner". Both in which I know are excellent books however the plot runs for the first few chapters almost parallel with one another.

- The Hooded One


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## lemonavenue

I hate it when an author introduces their main character by writing down their thoughts, word for word, in italics. Why didn't they just write this in first person? Heck, even first person would have been more sublte!

I have one book that used this method for exposition right at the beginning and never got to page ten. I couldn't stop thinking about how lazy it was.


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## flores

howowiginal said:


> It annoys me when authors use their characters to express their own opinions, especially if it serves no purpose to the story.
> 
> Unnecessary details are the most annoying. That's one of the reasons I couldn't finish Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.



Really? That's interesting to me

I think a writer should be voicing their own opinions through their work. Sure, maybe not as obviously as some tend to do, but if they aren't going to SAY something, why are they writing? I love stories to have ridiculous opinions, or extreme views, or subject matter

I hate sex in books most of the time. I hate sex scenes in most movies as well. Most of the time it just seems out of place, awkward and uninteresting

I also hate over the top pointless usage of punctuation. The scholarly "zomg I'm a genius and can use a semicolon obnoxiously for 300 pages!" type really, really annoys me. I prefer very meat and potatoes stuff when it comes to grammar


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## dilkara

I dislike when an author reveals all their research. Jean M. Auel's series set in the period of early man. It's great that she researched for the book, but she seems to want to tell us everything that she found out. I have to skip pages of her listing all the plants and animals from that region. 

I also dislike stilted unnatural dialogue.


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## Modest Me

Impressario said:


> When a story is predictable I can hardly finish it. It bugs me to know end when I know where we're headed.



i like to try and guess whats going to happen, and then see if im right or not..
i love being right (i am like 80% of the time)
but youve got something there, its always best when i dont see it coming


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## chimchimski

A predictable story has to be one of the worst annoyances for me...when I'm reading a novel and I begin to see where the story _might be_ going I'll give it some time but, when I know that my suspision is right...I'll flip through to the end, read it, and donate it to one of the local libraries.


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## kjetterman

ClancyBoy said:


> I remember _The Mist_.  King used the word "acrid" a* lot*.
> 
> The thing that pisses me off the most is really transparent plotting.  I know how 90% of stories are going to play out and end just based on the first chapter.
> 
> And yet the vast majority of creative writing classes and writing books tell you you _have_ to write that way.



I have to agree with you here.  What ways do you think transparent plotting can be avoided?


----------



## mi is happy

I hate it when I buy an entire series which ends up to just disappoint in the end. I especially hate flat unrealistic villains. (Example:  "Mwahaha!" laughed King Dragonia as he twirled his mustache. "I'm going to kill countless people and burn down their little village house, because I can. I'm so evil! Hahaha!") Ugh. I also hate it when authors try to force their views to much on you. I hate boring climaxes. I hate points that could have been great, but were either ended to early or just forgotten. I hate it when authors foreshadow something that never happens. I hate it when the main villain has a badly written death. Harry Potter 7 is a grand example. A back-fired wand? How stupid! Also it was unrealistic. If Harry had any emotions in him, he would have killed Voldemort the good old fashioned way. (Avada Kadavra)
I hate it when they kill a character and they come back to life. I hate it when......


----------



## PageOfCups

Main characters that are just far too nice or that have a hero complex. Like Harry Potter. I actually whooped when he died then violently swore when he came back to life. That book would have had a much more interesting ending if he had stayed dead and someone else killed Voldemort.


----------



## the_poison125

I hate when one conversation goes for a whole chapter. I usualy skip it and pray nothing to important happend.


----------



## Freedom Is Not Free

I can't stand cookie cutter characters. The type of character you can throw into any other story and realize that they are the same thing. I've noticed quiet a few authors out there that repeat character types in their books to the point where its basically the same story, but just in a different place with different names. A good example of this is          Lauren Weisberger. Her characters from "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Everything Worth Knowing" were exactly the same. A good, down to earth girl thrown into the crazy high end industry and loosing themselves only to have a close old friend bring them back to themselves with some big happening. The two characters could have been completely interchangeable and not have really changed anything. I was highly disappointed reading her second novel and find these same flaws. 

Another thing is when a story starts off great and then just kind of drifts off at the end. Almost like the author got bored by the end and was forcing themselves to finish things. If they can't get into their own story, how are they going to expect anyone else to? 

Transparent plots is another. In college, my writing teacher once told me that when writing you should offer a lot to your readers so they don't get confused. I knew by this she meant a lot of input into the main character, but not the plot. But it seems to me that this point is sometimes lost on others that lay all their cards out on the table.

Back Plotting. I hate this. When the first paragraph, chapter, sentence, whatever, tells you what's going to happen point blank, and the rest of the story leads up to it. Sometimes this is good, such as in the movie Moulin Rouge when you know from the beginning that a certain character is going to die. But this is, in my opinion, is a hard trick to get a hold of. It can either work very well, or bomb. And most of the times I've seen it, it bombs. I can't bring myself to read a story when I already know what's going to happen at the end. That's kind of the point of reading a story is to follow it from beginning to end. 

Useless characters also bother me. I can understand a story having a lot of characters if they have a point to the plot. But needing to stop and talk to the neighbors  brother that has nothing at all to do with the story and ends right after their short conversation, so annoying. 

Long tangents. I once read a story where they used 4 pages to describe breathing, and another five to describe eating cheese. By the end of the novel I wanted to cry from boredom.

There's more...but I'm running out of time. I like reading anything, but I am picky about the novels I read.


----------



## PageOfCups

Just remembered another pet peeve. Main characters that everyone wants to bed. Like Anita Blake. There is no need to have the majority of the other characters atracted to her. It just reminds me of the Mary Sue characters that crop up in badly written fanfiction.


----------



## LolliAdverbs

Word to that Page of Cups.

Also... Romances that have no bearing on the plot and are pointless and unbelievable. Those always bring me out of a story.


----------



## RebelGoddess

I don't know if these have been mentioned, but if they are I think they're worth mentioning again, LOL.

1. Many grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. 

So often a publisher is trying to rush out a book and the editing suffers. I hate that SO much. Unless it's a book I'm dying to read I drop it right away.

2. Cliches on every page. 

It is utterly annoying when a writer uses cliches all the time. After so many "her heart shattered like a mirror" or "It was a dark and stormy night"s my brain starts to hurt.

Racheal


----------



## PageOfCups

LolliAdverbs said:


> Word to that Page of Cups.
> 
> Also... Romances that have no bearing on the plot and are pointless and unbelievable. Those always bring me out of a story.


 

Like The Hermione/Ron that got rushed through int the last couple of Harry Potter books that was there one page and not there the next. I hate it when authors do that.


----------



## Jocelyn

I recently read _Prey_ by Michael Crichton.  There was a scene in which 4 or 5 characters were trapped in a shed and a swarm of intelligent micro-organisms were closing in on them.  It was very tense and it was clear that not everyone might make it out alive.  In order to confuse the swarm, they all had to move in unison as a group.  Then, Mr. Crichton, referring to one of the main characters, wrote "Anne would say later that we looked like we were doing a crazy dance." (I'm paraphrasing.)  That pissed me off, because that told me immediately that Anne was definitely going to survive, so my tension and concern for her was now eliminated.  What was the payoff for such an inocuous sentence that tipped his hand?  Grrrrrr.


----------



## Remedy

Jocelyn, I completely agree with you. I've seen that happen a few times, and it's so unfortunate. I actually saw one book start out with the main character dying; I couldn't care about the rest of the book, because I knew he wasn't going to die for another two hundred pages or so. His adventures became pointless for me. 

I have a rather long list of things that annoy me, but I'll try to just post the most obvious ones. 

1.) Perfect characters. They're brilliant, beautiful, have a wonderful family, do wonderful work on their career, never manage to die even if faced with situations where they bloody well should. 

2.) Repetitive plot lines. It might be good for one book, but if it gets to the point where I can predict everything that will happen in one author's books before I'm done with the first page, it's a problem. One series in particular did this, and it was such a let down; there was so much potential, but she just kept using the same plot with different character names. 

3.) Ending questions with periods. "Why would she do that." I've seen that so many times, and I still don't get it; that's a question. It requires a question mark, yes?

4.) Typos with quotation marks. I realize it's just a simple error, but it always catches me, and I stay snagged on it for awhile. The end of a quote may not have one (which seems to be the most common), or the beginning might not, but either way, it really distracts me. 

5.) Inconsistencies. That's a fairly obvious one. 

6.) Saying something absolutely can't happen, and then it happens. I read one book where the whole thing was about this female character who couldn't have a baby. She just couldn't (medical reasons). Then, miraculously, she falls in love with a male character, and she gets pregnant just by having sex (which she finds out at the very end)! It made the entire book a waste.


----------



## papertears

Adjective Ocean said:


> Absurd wordy descriptions really piss me off. I don't give a damn about the rug the character's staring at! I don't give a shit about the curtains or the furniture! I don't give a fuck about that car! Tell me about something that _*matters*_! Uhhggghh, it just annoys me thinking about it, especially when they start giving off eras of the furniture. The fact is I don't know anything about chairs, cars, or interior decoration and I don't want to know anything about them, so why is their so much description in my book? Life is to short for me to devote any time to such things.



Avoid Victor Hugo...or read the abridged versions.


----------



## buyjupiter03

When a writer doesn't edit well. For example: "Uncel was a *hairless* homopod, a mixture of mammalian and insecoid features with a small head, bulbous eyes, and *no bodily hair*." (Timeweb, Brian Herbert).

That was the second instance of that description in the first hundred pages. The first time I set it aside for a week. Now I've set it aside again, because it really irked me. It's not all that great of a story anywho (so far) and the characters are a bit flat.


----------



## papertears

I really get annoyed when I buy a good book, get home start reading it, get really into it only to find out that pages 317-456 are just missing.  I'm left hanging because some machine fekked up.

I might have missed it in this thread, but it really got my panties in a wad when JKR released that statement about Dumbledore being homosexual after she'd completed that part of the story.  It doesn't matter to me that she's a best selling author.  That is the kind of thing that you let your readers figure out--and if they don't, well ignorance is bliss for them. In her case, perhaps she should have alluded to it better if she felt so insecure about it being obvious enough to make a statement so long after.   By the way, it has nothing to do with the homosexuality, she could have made the statement about basically anything and it would have pissed me off the same way.

Finally, I really hate it when one of my favorite authors sells out.  This happened recently with a sci-fi author who had a YA book from back in the early 90s that was made into a movie with at least one attractive actor.  Now instead of continuing the original series, he's started a new series based off the movie version of his book that was nothing like his original book.  He had a great sci-fi story going, and now he's writing a series based off a movie that wasn't a huge hit.  He even admits he's not doing it for the money.  I don't get it.  Out of respect for how much I liked the first novel and its sequel I won't use any names, but bummer.


----------



## slayerofangels

I hate when I can predict most of what's going to happen by page twenty.


----------



## PageOfCups

slayerofangels said:


> I hate when I can predict most of what's going to happen by page twenty.


 
*cough*Harry Potter 6*cough*


----------



## slayerofangels

Or book one of the swan's war trilogy...


----------



## Remedy

PageOfCups said:


> *cough*Harry Potter 6*cough*


 
You didn't even have to get to page twenty for that one...


----------



## PageOfCups

True. It always amazes me when someone says they had no clue what was going to happen in that book.


----------



## seigfried007

Windiness and purple poetry are commonly found peeves of mine. "Windiness" is Stephen King's 400 pages of nothing and 20 pages of action at the very end. It's very common in fantasy (which is one fo the many reasons I don't read much). 

"Purple" I'm using to describe more of the silly "this is so lovely" stuff. It's all the scenery (mostly visual only descriptions and typically very little smell, touch, etc). It's what generally happens in fantasy when anything lovely is found--pages of gag-a-licious prettiness.

Anytime an author has an obsession with a specific type of character and it's obvious while reading that he wants to be who/what he's writing. I'm thinking of R.A. Salvatore when I write this but I know there's lots of other authors at least as guilty of this nasty. 

Most of my pet peeves are found in Salvatore's A Demon Awakens (I discovered new ones while reading this piece), which I read because a friend asked me to with the ever-present promise that it was "just the greatest work of fantasy ever". I hate it. It has plot puppets galore, a craptastic romance (who has sex in the snow?), a hero I would have loved to flay alive (and an even-more-unsympathetic love interest I wanted to kill with skinny balloons), more plot puppets, pointless bad guys who couldn't think for themselves if their meager lives depended on it (and it's proved because their lives depended on it)... It's almost everything I hate in fantasy.


----------



## PageOfCups

seigfried007 said:


> who has sex in the snow?


 

Polar bears?


----------



## seigfried007

Humans. Virginal star-crossed long-lost twenty-something humans... according to Salvatore.


----------



## PageOfCups

That's not only very unlikely (pluss can you imagine where they'd get frost bite?) it's also utterly sickening.


----------



## Linton Robinson

You've never had sex in the snow?

And it's "SICKENING"??????

Too weird.


----------



## seigfried007

Sex is painful enough first time around for ladies, lin, but to use pretty terms to describe losing it in the snow missionary-position style.. I'm sorry. It was too obviously written by a man who's terrible in the sack because no sane entity with an iota of consideration for his partner would force said love-of-his-life to be back-down and naked in the snow while he popped her like a can of Sprite. Sorry. 

That's not even the aspect that irked me the most. I'd have to write a top twenty list to fit in everything that made me want to vomit while reading that story.


----------



## PageOfCups

The only thing that could tempt me into doing that would be if Jessica Alba was on offer and that was the only choice in location.


----------



## seigfried007

LOL

Only option? I've had sex in iffy places, but I never risked frostbite (disease maybe, injury certainly, legal action most definitely, but not frostbite or burns).

But anything short of my last option and, no, I'm not going for it. 

cold = not good for lube
cold = shrinks the dinky-dink
cold = bad sex in general


----------



## Truth-Teller

Time for you to move onto mystery/thriller, seigfried.


----------



## Remedy

seigfried007 said:


> Humans. Virginal star-crossed long-lost twenty-something humans... according to Salvatore.



Those types also have sex on a horse. Not according to Salvatore, at least that I'm aware of, but some other author (whom I don't remember). Two authors, come to think of it. I felt bad for the horses, to be honest. 

(Ha, snow... I still remember the first time I told my partner about it (he'd never seen it), and he said he was sure that he was made for snow... Then I told him it was cold, and he'd have to wear layers of clothing, and he decided that maybe he wasn't made for it after all.) 

I could go on for awhile about pet peeves in sex scenes, but I'll save it for later. I need to get some sleep.


----------



## PageOfCups

Well, this is reminding me why I skip over the sex scenes in books. But sex on a horse, that's a new one. I've never heard of that being in a book before.


----------



## seigfried007

Wasn't much of a scene, really. They just had a passionate kissy moment and he laid her down in the snow. And I blinkeda and blinked and looked at the book like the author was an idiot (either that or he'd forgotten all the snow he'd put on the ground a few pages ago)

Sex on a horse? That author's never had sex or ridden a horse, me thinks. I've ridden a horse and my bottom got sore enough jsut riding it for a couple hours--let alone the multitasking aspect of maintaining balance, steering horse, riding horse and riding man. Where teh heck were the feet? The physics of that.... grief...


----------



## JoannaMac

I hate it when I read those "Based on a true story" books, and after I've been sucked in and thought "Wow, what a story!", but then later I find out that's not what actually happened at all. Always disappointing.


----------



## seigfried007

"Based on a true story" is just a fancy way of saying "90% of this book (all of the really weird/cool/fun stuff) is a lie"


----------



## Monkuta

Horror stories that are "inspired by a true story." Not even based on it, just inspired. It's one of those things that no one cares about.


----------



## Remedy

PageOfCups said:


> Well, this is reminding me why I skip over the sex scenes in books. But sex on a horse, that's a new one. I've never heard of that being in a book before.


 
Yeah, those scenes tend to suck. I've seen it in two stories; one just kinda glossed over it (they were listing his particularly memorable sexual encounters), but the other made a whole four or so pages out of it. 



seigfried007 said:


> Sex on a horse? That author's never had sex or ridden a horse, me thinks. I've ridden a horse and my bottom got sore enough jsut riding it for a couple hours--let alone the multitasking aspect of maintaining balance, steering horse, riding horse and riding man. Where teh heck were the feet? The physics of that.... grief...


 
No, I don't think they had. 

The only way a position would really work would be if you had muscles of steel in your legs (riding eight years, and I still can't post without stirrups for more than three rings without shaking horribly), or if the horse was dead and not moving. 

Plus... who would really put a horse through that? I mean, come on, having sex on an animal? That's animate life down there. Animate, intelligent life. That would creep me out. 

Even if all of those things were possible - which I don't think they really are, to be honest - there are the complications of the horse. I ride horses fairly frequently, and I can tell you, horses aren't stupid creatures. They know the moment you've turned your attention away from them (I'm guessing that most people tend to be pretty occupied during sex too), and they take advantage of that. 

Out of the ones I've ridden with any frequency, the things they would do if  not supervised carefully were: 
a.) stop short and graze (which would kinda screw up the the position of the riders, because suddenly the neck is gone)
b.) wander to the nearest living person (on the ground) possible and stop there (which would be awkward for all parties involved if he got to one before they had stopped having sex)
c.) turn around, grab a boot, and try to pull you off (which would probably upset a carefully balanced situation)
d.) take the opportunity to spook at and bolt from anything. A truck! A dust piece! A ray of sunshine! Oh my God, who put that door there?! It's only been there for the past year! Run (or, better yet, run sideways)! Obvious problems there.


----------



## RinK

I hate when everyone raves about a book and tells you you _have _to read it, so you go out and get a copy, and it's a total piece of crap or just another cliche. For people to go crazy about something that sucks when you know unpublished writers who can do better - man, that just really gets my goat. *pukes* I realize it's all a matter of opinion, but still...


----------



## RinK

Truth-Teller said:


> This is the most egregious sin King commits. He tells you the main character is going to die, and then goes about telling you--in the next one hundred pages--he dies. :-?
> 
> He never goes with the flow, but, rather, wants to reveal everything beforehand--killing the surprise.


 
Yes, but the difference is, unlike most people, he does it _well. _When I read these little foretellings by King, I become _more _excited than I would have been otherwise. He doesn't kill the surprise for me - he makes me curious as to how it comes about (especially when you really care about the character).


----------



## seigfried007

King almost has to do it because otherwise the reader is tempted to fall asleep. He at least has to allude to _something_ happening once in a while.


----------



## seigfried007

RinK said:


> I hate when everyone raves about a book and tells you you _have _to read it, so you go out and get a copy, and it's a total piece of crap or just another cliche. For people to go crazy about something that sucks when you know unpublished writers who can do better - man, that just really gets my goat. *pukes* I realize it's all a matter of opinion, but still...


 

AMEN!!!!

Worst books I've ever read were all under the supposition-by-friend that "OMG it's just the most amazing thing ever!!!!"


----------



## Welshman

I hate it it when the author bombards the reader with a plethora of charcherters, most of whom are totally superfluous to the plot.  I've come to conclusion that most of these authors are working on the hopeful premise that maybe Hollywood will pick up the book and turn it into an epic,

D


----------



## Welshman

Interesting to read the 'I hate Stephen King' comments here.  Now I am no fan of his genre (if it can be categorised), but the reality is millions read and enjoy his work .. So my question is simple - Do I sense a tinge of literary jealousy?


----------



## dwellerofthedeep

If there is any jealousy toward Stephen King on this forum I think it probably comes from the rumors/claims/speculation that he doesn't really edit his work anymore.  Someone will pay for everything he writes and thus he is published more than he should be even for being a good writer.  I don't really have a stance on this, but if I was going to be jealous that would be why.


----------



## Sayuri

I think that Stephen King is pretty great. At least, _Desperation_ and _The Tommyknockers_ are great. 

Anyway, what ticks me off? This will sound weird, but unnecessary descriptions of vaginas. I've about had it up to HERE with unnecessary vaginas in my fiction. I get that you're trying to be "real" or whatever, but I don't read books with "throbbing Bratwursts," okay? "Hairless clefts" aren't any better as far as I'm concerned. Yes, Alice Sebold, that means _you_.


----------



## seigfried007

Thank-you, Dweller, for hitting my criticism of Stephen King before I could respond directly to Welshman (who, apparently hasn't read the man's work). 

My biggest problem is that nobody edits his work. I spot lots of typos, but those are pseudo-excusable becuase I'm horrible at spotting them too. What I'm talking about is 400 pages of stuff that doesn't really matter. A lot of his books have this problem--it's a common issue with very large books.

Secondly, IT blew chunks, imho. None of it made any frigging sense. It was like he took every child's phobia, through in a little poor white trash and a token female character deemed hot who had to have sex with EVERYONE. Dumbest thing ever. I'm sorry, but children having sex in a book is a big deal for me, and to treat the little girl (who does it _missionary_ in a _sewer)_ as though her whole point is to be a relaxing sex-object for all of her male friends is disgusting beyond belief.

Now, I have to clarify that I've written a lot of characters with histories of childhood sexual abuse, but I don't treat any of them like objects or second-rate characters. Anyone who has lived through something legitmately traumatizing and warping to the psyche ought to be considered thoughtfully before writing. 

The other bit--minor toss-off--is that his brand of horror is easy to write, imo. You throw phobias and spooky stuff and stuff that makes no sense into a hat and randomly pluck a few out, stick them in any smalltown in Maine with a few Joe Schmoes, and *voila* King horror. Hence, it's much like watching a nightmare unfold because nightmares make no sense.

***Edit***
I also must clarify that I've read lots of King and found much of it very good--specifically, I've found pieces that are shorter (like his short stories and novellas) and well-edited. I loved Carrie. Firestarter was okay (it at least came up with a reason behind pyrokinesis). I read the Wasteland (IV in the Dark Tower series) and found it suitably intriguing even if the constant repitition of what had happened earlier was a little tedious to plod through. The scenery was astounding. I loved Misery. Even Pet Sematary was good when it got going (which took nigh on forever).

Sayuri, what the hell are you reading? I've never run into that (but I can certainly see why it'd be annoying!)


----------



## Sayuri

seigfried007 said:


> Sayuri, what the hell are you reading? I've never run into that (but I can certainly see why it'd be annoying!)



LOL, I read all kinds of things, and it's in half the things I read lately! Even just flipping pages through a prospective book to buy, I see it: _hairless cleft_, _better wash your cunny_... OMG, it's so gross. I read pretty respectable stuff, it's not Harlequin romance novels or anything--I really think it's just a trend in popular fiction.


----------



## alanmt

King's short stuff is better. My beef with him is that he starts off writing wonderful stories but his endings are almost always very poor and don't live up to the build-up.


----------



## buyjupiter03

Sayuri said:


> I really think it's just a trend in popular fiction.


 
Yep. It is. Everyone's hearing the message "sex sells" so they're throwing the two lead characters together in a sex scene that has nothing to do with the story. Not everyone is like this, but it seems like a good majority of authors are doing it. I skim 'em to make sure I don't miss anything important to the story like "John, I have to confess I killed your mother, do you still love me?"

However, Ken Follet can write a pretty good sex scene. It's not "icky"/ridiculous like some people write them, ie "throbbing manhood" "wet desire" things like that.


----------



## seigfried007

Ken Follet wrote the first 'cunny' I ever read. Geez, it's every couple pages.... and the _rape_... and the stiffies... and the double-whammied whore... and the 12-yr-old prostitute...

(Pillars of the Earth, just in case he doesn't do that in every book)


----------



## PageOfCups

Note to self, never read Pillars of the Earth.


----------



## buyjupiter03

seigfried007 said:


> Ken Follet wrote the first 'cunny' I ever read. Geez, it's every couple pages.... and the _rape_... and the stiffies... and the double-whammied whore... and the 12-yr-old prostitute...
> 
> (Pillars of the Earth, just in case he doesn't do that in every book)


 
Errr...That was kinda/sorta when he started writing. The sequel (of sorts) _World without End_ was a lot better. Ummm...I so don't remember all that in there *scratching head* but then it's been several years since I read it.


----------



## Welshman

Interesting to note Seigfried's assumption I have not read King's work.  Have you a secret job as my librarian, or is this a general assumption to score a weak point?


----------



## buyjupiter03

Welshman said:


> Have you a secret job as my librarian...


 
Hey! Librarians (state-side at least) can't give out that kind of info. ALA regs, dude. (Worked in a library for the last few years. I was quite relieved to see that we couldn't give out info to random people.)


----------



## seigfried007

Welsh, you admitted you're not a fan and that, in your mind at least, numbers equate with popularity equate with talent. A writers' forum is the dumbest palce in the universe to state the latter. 

So, am I to guess that you're a fan then and that, as a result, you can't tell that his work should be edited more than it often is and would rather cowardly assume that other writers are jealous for offering fair criticism instead of pointing out why you would think his work's so awesome no editor should touch it?

If you've read it, say you have, but don't dilly-dally around it and say "well, I'm not a fan of the genre (like King isn't his own genre), but I think you're jealous." If you've read it, why even mention the numbers or your lack of enthusiasm for the genre and instead just state, "Yo, peeps, I read King and I think y'all are dumb for criticising a master writer."

Btw, I'm sorry for misundestanding you just the same.


----------



## Welshman

Seigfried,

You clearly did not read my original postimg correctly (or chose to adapt it to suit your own end). I actually stated I am not a fan of the genre and I stick to this point. Furthermore, I would suggest that your use of emotive words such as 'cowardly' tantamount to little more than flaming and consequenly I will choose to dismiss it and categorise it accordingly.

In addition, and in response to your other accusation, will you please identify the specific text in my posting where I stated his work was so good it should never be touchedby an editor? I have yet to come across ANY piece of literature that is so perfect it would not gain from further edits.

I find the broad range of suspense/ horror unsuited to my palate, but I fully acknowledge that my taste for something different is purely individual. I refuse to accept King has such power in the literary world that he has created his own genre. Rather I would suggest his material can broadly be classified into either the horror/ terror/ suspense or fantasy genres. My decision to reject a preference for these genres is based on a broad reading of it, taking in a number of authors, including King. Beyond this admission I feel no need to catalogue other authors I have read.

I maintain my stance that it is possible to dislike a genre, while at the same time acknowledging the author's ability to entertain, stimulate and/ or absorb the reader. Now in my case I found King to be a tad tedious and lacking any great literary eloquence, but I fully understand that many readers would disagree - and more power to their elbow.

King has published extensively and by your own admission written a number of books that have been well received. Far from being a pulp-fiction author he has shown himself to be a good broad-based commercial writer, no small talent in a society driven by the search for profit.

In my estimation he will never win The Nobel, Booker, Orange or Whitbread Prize for literature, but he will (and has) enthralled his 'constant readers' for many years. In that respect he has my admiration and respect.

D


----------



## seigfried007

Umm, never said you were a fan, Welsh. Never implied it. Can't blame you for it either because I dislike most horror as well (too much gratuitous violence and messed up sex for the sake of inducing nausea for my tastes).

No, I don't really think he's his own genre, but he's hard to classify because, while much of his work is supernaturally based, the genre of 'horror' has 'evolved' until he doens't really fit into it any more--precisely because he lacks the kind of sex and gore and silliness that other others seem to think horror needs (which is why 'old skool' horror is now considered 'dark speculative fiction' or any number of other terms now).

Thus, King is often light sci-fi (Firestarter, and a few others) or dark fantasy in modern genre pigeon-holing . Lots of people would say that Dark Tower was his only fantasy, but I'm prone to think that much of his work fits the dark fantasy subtype more than what people nowadays consider horror. 

Yes, he has many 'constant readers' but you might be surprised at how many of his fans have complaints about the lack of editing (myself included though I was hearing it long before I started agreeing). He's still better than a lot of other writers, but every writer with that many titles to his credit is going to churn out some bonafide crap now and then.

Welsh, I'd like you to just state what you like or dislike about a person's work without dragging in random other things. It gets confusing and makes it too easy for people who don't know you and can't yet read between your lines to get whatever your trying to say through the smoke and filler. I've already apologized (maybe you didn't read that far into the post).

But I'm not jealous of King, and I sitll think you were being presumptuous and way off-topic to when you suggested anyone here was. You want to accuse someone of that, look out for Truth-Teller.

In the mean time, I think you'd have a lot more fun ranting about authors and using the thread for the stress relieving qualities and laughs I think it was intended for.  

So what ticks you off about stuff you've read in the wide world of published works, Welsh?


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## Welshman

Hmmm .... what ticks me off? Well here is my hitlist of how to upset me:

1. Badly researched stories showing clear signs that the author 
    a) Does not understand the subject; or
    b) Has never visited the location.
2. Superfluous charcters who have little bearing on the plot;
3. Stories that are substantially dialogue - have they never heard of scene setting?
4. Spelling or grammar mistakes - maybe this one should be top of my list;
5. Authors who regurgitate pulp - same story - dfferent names - different setting. A few romantic fiction authors seems to be good at this - maybe they should all read Anita Brookner's 'Hotel du Lac' as an example of how to write about romance in an original way!
6. Sex scenes full of expletives - please don't reduce a beautiful thing to a base act unless it has a reason.  If I want to read porn I will go to a top shelf magazine.
7. Detective fiction where by Chapter Three you have worked out the rest of the book.  Now did I mention Ian Rankin here?  
8. Writers who you know have a huge talent but seem to be unwilling to extend themselves to their full potential.  Benjamin Zephaniah' latest offering 'Teacher's Pet' would seem to be a case in point.  Wonderful poet with an immense talent - what went wrong?
9. Action thrillers with ridiculous and absolutely inconceivable endings.  Oh woe - do these authors assume their readers can't think? (So tempted to name names here!!!!)
10. Stories where the charcter acts in a way which is implausible.  Not sure about the rest of you, but when I am moving a character forward in a certain way I like to sit with it first, just to make sure I am confident s/he would act they way I propose.

Now I could go on - but I would propose these as my 'top ten' of how to upset me 

Rant over

PS apology and comments graciously accepted  Seigfried - Diolch


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## Remedy

Welshman said:


> 7. Detective fiction where by Chapter Three you have worked out the rest of the book. Now did I mention Ian Rankin here?


 
I've read a few of Ian Rankin's books (finished one, I think...), and I had definite problems figuring out who did it. I rather suspect this is because I'm not familiar with UK terms in the justice system, however.


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## Damian_Rucci

What ticks me off is excessive grammar and spelling errors. It is very annoying and unprofessional. Authors should pick up on their mistakes through the various drafts.


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## starseed

howowiginal said:


> It annoys me when authors use their characters to express their own opinions, especially if it serves no purpose to the story.



This is something I'm trying not to do in my story.

What exactly do you think makes it come across this way?

I mean all characters have opinions, some of which match those of the author.


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## Vorrec

I get really annoyed at overused, stereotypical, one dimensional characters, most of all police officers who don't know what is going on and takes the main characters to jail. I am _so _sick of that story arc. Also, characters who know everything. It's undeniably annoying when nothing in the story surprises him or her. Thirdly, Steven Seagal type characters who seem to be invincible.

On another note, bad foreshadowing that ruins coming events instead of increasing suspense, either by revealing too much or simply by doing it in an overly cheesy way.


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## Ambrivian

imdead-goaway said:


> I hate when they put long articles.
> Like, if the character is reading a newspaper
> And it just goes on, and on.
> I loose focus, and just skip over them
> And hope I didn't miss anything key.
> 
> 
> J. K. Rowling is a bit guilty of that


 
I for one, agree.


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## Katie D

Big fluffy words the author seems to think they've invented themselves, giving them reason to repeat it though the entire book.


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## Vickip

I hate when you read a book and find that the details of something are wrong.  Like let's say it's about horses and you own a horse.  You read a part that says they sleep with their eyes open, and you know that's not true.  If you are going to write a book take the time to make sure what you write is TRUE.


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## Vickip

This one author kept refering to the guys pelvic regin as "the bowl of his hips"  "He cup her to his body in the bowl of his hips"  What the heck it that all about?


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## Scarlett_156

^^^ ROFL. I think writers who write romantic/sex scenes a lot have a hard time thinking of unique euphemistic terms for various body parts, sounds, and positions. I get REALLY turned off by long descriptions of flirting, foreplay, and sex anyway as a general rule, unless there is something really significant to the reader's understanding in it--and there almost never is. It's just fantasy fulfillment for frustrated readers (and maybe for the writer, too) and I'm not frustrated so meh. I want to read something entertaining, interesting, or informative. If I want pr0n, I'll read pr0n. Duh. 

I have a "one longish sex/hugging scene per novel" rule; that is, one such scene, unless it just out-and-out sucks or is hella offensive, I can overlook and remain objective about whether the book I'm reading is crap or not. More than one and I toss the book aside. I don't care if my best friend whose opinion I respect most in all the world tells me a book is great; if the book violates that rule, I don't read it. 

Reading through this topic is pretty funny; there's lots of funny stuff here. I'm gonna have to bookmark it. 

--------------

I don't have a very long list of pet peeves, basically because if any little thing annoys me about a book, I just won't keep reading it. (I know that some of you who HAVE to read, either for school or work, are curling your lips at me right now. No offense meant.) 

Some other things that will make me throw an MS down in disgust are: 

The "invincible hero", as has been referred to by other members. BORING.

Ridiculous, completely untenable plot twists--also the type of story that ends with the hero/ine waking up and "it was all a dream".

Stories or poems that promote an ideology and that's it, unless you're talking about some groundbreaking work such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "The Grapes of Wrath"--something that unskillfully paints one group as villain and the other as "teh good guyz". No, just no.

Derivative stories about popular/trendy subjects, i.e., vampires, "apocalypse", etc.; I'll just say this:  New (or old) writer, if you are gonna write about something that's trendy or popular, then you better make sure your first paragraph is damned gripping and that your story kicks serious butt, or face my eternal scorn.

Bad spelling, bad grammar, lots of typos. I find typos on even really slick, popular websites and in novels that are in their 10th printings, but on the other hand that's part of my job to do stuff like that. You expect the occasional typo on a site where the content changes a lot--but in a book, NO WAY. You mean a tree had to die for this?

Ok, that's enough for now.  I seriously need to get back to work.


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## ForeverVIP

Damsels in distress, especially if they're the main girl of a book. They're overused, whiny half the time, and ALWAYS in trouble--part of the distressing part I suppose.
Sexy, love-drunk vampires and werewolves, well, minus Vampire Knight.


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## MoonAlley

This first one isn't so much as a gripe as one of those "they're only human" moments. I'm talking about the classic "withe" that we are guilty of writing. But it's extra special when it's in a book that's been out on the shelves for a while. There's also the classic missing word or other such combos as "here yes" (her eyes).

But what really fries my burrito is when there is _no_ break in point of view. Best example I can give is L.A. Banks' Vampire Huntress Legend Series. She often will switch view points mid-scene. One paragraph will be Damali (the protagonist) and the next one, and with no soft break, I could be looking out through someone else's eyes. I had to stop mid-way through the second book in the series because I kept getting confused at whose head I was in. 

Also, I don't mind some mild sex scenes in the books I read, but I hate it when the author gets carried away. That's right, Anita Blake, I'm looking at you and your harem of (more than ten) men! If I wanted to read erotica, I'd read erotica. But when a series deviates from the main focus to fill 3/4 of the book with nothing but gratuitous sex, well... Count me out.


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## Caitlinflavurd

MoonAlley said:


> ...Also, I don't mind some mild sex scenes in the books I read, but I hate it when the author gets carried away. That's right, Anita Blake, I'm looking at you and your harem of (more than ten) men! If I wanted to read erotica, I'd read erotica. But when a series deviates from the main focus to fill 3/4 of the book with nothing but gratuitous sex, well... Count me out.


YESSSSSSSSSSSS
I personally dropped the Anita Blake series after book four because Anita was just...becoming disgusting. Not so much for the sex with 1400 different guys (although that kind of annoyed me. Why was she so special? Could the Master of the City really do no better?) so much as she was turning into - I don't really have words for it. She told her one boy-toy that he couldn't go keeping secrets from her about his pack, and then turned around and kept secrets from him. All these rules he had to go by, but she could do as she pleased, and she had all these mommy issues. It was like LKH was purposely making Anita difficult and just annoying. And we were in Anita's head, yet she still never really seemed to be real. She was like a semi-heartless harpy how lived to bang/nag men, raise the dead, and occasionally shoot things to keep up the cool ‘I‘m not a totally crappy character‘ façade.


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## KaitlinMorrow

Let  me just start out by saying that I hate the long articles that are sometimes in novels. It bores me to read a long paragraph with unnecessary details and unimportant facts. I'm just the kind of person who wants to read things straight out, just the way they are. 
I also despise of books that jump subject to subject. It confuses me and is quite unappealing to finish a book with the plot written in such a complex tactic. I enjoy stories written in more of a straightforward and quaint manner.


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## KrisMunro

MoonAlley said:


> fries my burrito







MoonAlley said:


> If I wanted to read erotica, I'd read erotica.


True. This is why I never finished Anne Rice's vampire books. The Vampire Armand was just a bit overly graphic for my tastes.. might have been different if they were two female vampires :-k



KaitlinMorrow said:


> I hate the long articles that are sometimes in novels.


I agree. A novel isn't good if it's filled with a slew of details that we're either expected to remember or that don't serve a purpose. It's not a catalog I'm reading..


But my biggest peeve is when good authors get lazy. I can appreciate and support beginning authors that aren't 'up to scratch'. I quite like seeing their work improve as they write more. But it bothers me when I pick up a book by an author I like, and the book reads like; "Mary went to the store and got some apples. Then she came home because it started to rain. She saw a dog on the way that got wet. When she was home she took of her jacket because it also was wet. Mary was cold, so she put logs in the fireplace and then she lit the fire with a match."
(please note the ambiguities and poor grammar are created intentionally)

I'm left with an intense dissatisfaction because the author doesn't really care anymore. The book gets published because of the author rather than the book itself. I'm not going to spit out any names here.. I'm sure they know who they are.


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## QueenBee2015

I can think of a few books - mostly nonfiction - which I just disliked because the author was too proud of himself.  It isn't hard to tell when an author thinks his brilliant for doing x amount of research or coming up with some new idea.  I love new ideas and well researched books, but there's no reason to be arragant about it.


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## Thom McNeilly

I hate when the author feels the need to explain something that is quite obvious to anyone reading with a modicum of sense. It is the same with movies, an nothing irks me more. Why explain?


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## BitofanInkling

When women are portrayed in a really weird way.  Where they only think about men or children.


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## Sir Roberts

Anything by David Eddings. Seriously, the first time I read his work I thought it was brilliant, then like any avid fan I bought his other novels. As I was reading, however, I thought... hang on, haven't I read this before? Then I got more in to the book/s and it became clear. The man can only write one story. Honestly, they are all the same. He changes things every now and again - names, places, etc - but the general feel of the thing - plot, setting - is all identical! Even the dialogue is the same! I mean, _really_. He was a bloody English lecturer, for christ's sake, he should have realised that even the average reader will begin to recognise all this nonsense eventually...

...sorry, rant over. But I'm guessing anyone else who has read his work will agree, the man was a money-grabbing bastard who could only write one novel... God rest him.


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## excuseme

> I hate when the main character knows everything.


Agreed!



howowiginal said:


> Unnecessary details are the most annoying. That's one of the reasons I couldn't finish Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.


 
Oh, like Edwards sparkling, sculptured greek god-like, flawless, breathtaking, amazing, smooth chest, for example?


What ticks me of the most is when the character do stupid things. Like walk into a dark alleyway all alone *cough*Bella*cough*, or run of to fight the horrid monster by themselves. I would be happy if I could ever get a grip of a book with characters that does _not_ take stupid decisions all the time, and then _does not_ lie themselves though the whole story to cover it up. When a problem stays unsolved for about five chapters, when it could have been solved in half a chapter if the main character didn't decide to lie his ass of for no reason: that is when I throw the book over the room.

Also, the invincible "I'm going to save the world!"-characters. Harry Potter, for example, gives me a headache.


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## _ Ellie _ Sinclair _

When you've got two pages before the book ends and everything thats happened up to that point becomes nonexistential. Read several books where they were great until the last couple of pages where everything seems rushed.


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## Lone_Wolfe

Main characters who make the stoopidest bloody assumptions for absolutely no logical reason except to advance the plot. Also MCs who ignore blatant warning signs while walking into the most obvious traps, again for no good reason except to advance the plot.

Especially when said MC is supposed to be a tactical genius of a warrior capable of defeating an entire enemy army with a longbow and stealth.


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## The Backward OX

If you're all going to read nothing but _genre fiction_, and_ that_ churned out by nobodies, naturally you're going to find stuff that irks you. Lift your reading game a bit, and surprise, surprise, all the irks will vanish.


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## starseed

seigfried007 said:


> "Based on a true story" is just a fancy way of saying "90% of this book (all of the really weird/cool/fun stuff) is a lie"


 

LOL so true!


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## Suzette

excuseme said:


> Agreed!
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, like Edwards sparkling, sculptured greek god-like, flawless, breathtaking, amazing, smooth chest, for example?


 

This is what stop me from even reaching at least 1/4 of the book. And haven't touch any of them anymore.


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## obi_have

The thing that ticks me off when I'm reading a book is finding a used band-aid stuck in there like a bookmark, especially if it's a library book.

As far as the actual reading though... Dialog that leaves you thinking, "Nobody would ever say that in real life." I'm trying to think of a specific example, but the only one that keeps jumping out isn't a book, it's a line from Star Wars. Han Solo wordy explanation to Luke, "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?" all the while trying to avoid being fried by Imperial turbolasers. 

A more realistic thing to say would be something like, "Sit down, shut up and hang onto something." 

Of course that's assuming anything said in a Star Wars film _could _sound realistic...


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## excuseme

obi_have said:


> As far as the actual reading though... Dialog that leaves you thinking, "Nobody would ever say that in real life." I'm trying to think of a specific example, but the only one that keeps jumping out isn't a book, it's a line from Star Wars. Han Solo wordy explanation to Luke, "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?" all the while trying to avoid being fried by Imperial turbolasers.
> 
> A more realistic thing to say would be something like, "Sit down, shut up and hang onto something."
> 
> Of course that's assuming anything said in a Star Wars film _could _sound realistic...


 
I need to say that most lines in Star Wars, at least in the new movies (read _The Revenge of the Sith_), are more or less something someone would never actually say. "It can't be. I can't watch anymore.", "You're going down a path I can't follow.". George Lucas might make good movies, but the dialogs... Oh god, the dialogs. That said though, I'm still a Star Wars lover!


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## obi_have

I love Star Wars as well, but George really should have read some of his stuff to himself out loud. I read somewhere that the opening caption as he originally wrote it was "A long, long time ago, In the not too distant future..."

...wow. Thankfully he changed his mind about that one. Talk about losing your credibility right off the bat!


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## Gravehound

Don't you just hate the fact that when reading a good book you suddenly get that strange feeling that you just know they are going to make a lousy film out of this?


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