What details of an author's style annoy you?

[AG31]

Here's an example of the kind of thing I mean.

It annoys me when an author gives a character a name with ambiguous pronunciation and gives no clues as to what we're supposed to say in our heads. An example is Cormier. Is it Cormi-ay? or Cormi-air? Annoy, annoy, annoy.

 

[StillStunned]

Run-on sentences. We hates them, don't we, precious?

 

[KittyOfSteele]

It annoys me when an author gives a character a name with ambiguous pronunciation and gives no clues as to what we're supposed to say in our heads. An example is Cormier. Is it Cormi-ay? or Cormi-air? Annoy, annoy, annoy.

I blame the English language and any other language in which words don't sound like the way they are spelled like.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Run-on sentences. We hates them, don't we, precious?

Love 'em. I loved running as a kid; why shouldn't my sentences get to do the same?

For the prompt, I'm gonna go back to an author whose work I think about a lot, and that's BreakTheBar. BreakTheBar is really successful and really good at what he does. He's better, for one, at keeping regular sex between characters fresh than almost anyone else. But he has a tendency in some of his work -- it's most notable in AMA: The Boyfriend and The OF Girl -- to have the essential decisions of the story made without the participation of the main character. In The Boyfriend, he has to break his first-person limited POV and do a chapter in third-person omniscient to explain how the fuck the big plot question resolves itself because he writes the narrator out of the scene. In The OF Girl, the single biggest decision in the story, the one that sets up the next fifty-five parts and 500+ Patreon chapters, is made off-screen, without John's participation though with his knowledge.

Another person who's good and successful yet slightly irritating is aimtomisbehave33, who always introduces his characters in each chapter as if the reader has never encountered them before and doesn't know what they look like. This is a problem because most of his work happens in a shared universe, the spine of which is 52 chapters long already, with five spinoff series of its own. Most of these chapters can be read as stand-alones -- they're basically 4k words of development and 6k words of sex, and while there are plot arcs they don't matter very much compared to one-off sexual encounters -- but that doesn't mean it's valuable to remind the reader every month that Josie is gothy and Chinese and has big boobs and a dump-truck ass. We know, okay? Those are the only things we know about her, other than that she likes horror movies. She's only been around for three years. Someone who's 45 chapters into this thing is aware that, like almost every other girl in the story, she has DDs. I guess that irritates me more than I thought it did.

Edit: In the interest of fairness, if I was a reader of my own work, the post I'd make in this thread would be something like, "Christ, man, cut some of the conversations down a bit. Find another way to move the plot along. Stop hemming and hawing and just have the characters do something already."

 

[kitmarlowe]

I can't quote @YmaOHyd for some reason but thank you for the BreakTheBar recommendation. Even this early into my career I'm staring down the barrel of the "how to keep vanilla sex fresh every time" problem so this is a very well timed post. I'm going to go and do some reading.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I can't quote @YmaOHyd for some reason but thank you for the BreakTheBar recommendation. Even this early into my career I'm staring down the barrel of the "how to keep vanilla sex fresh every time" problem so this is a very well timed post. I'm going to go and do some reading.

I was editing at the time, which I think is why.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Dense, impenetrable sentences that meander on forever. Some authors are like wading through mud. Proust and Lawrence Durrell are the worst for me, I've not got past Proust's orchard at least three times, and have given up on everything Durrell's written except the Alexandria Quartet, which somehow I've read twice. I'm not sure why. The challenge, I think, and because if I can persevere, it's evocative writing. But mostly, it's a chore.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

I absolutely hate it when authors give an MC a backstory full of hardships and tragedy, to garner quick sympathy points with the readers,... and then completely disregard that backstory because they think it's too much to actually deal with it (or, worse, deal with it by having the MC have sex with someone).

Like, a few months ago, I read a story about an MC who, in the very first chapter, got drugged and then brutally raped by family members, which resulted in nightmares, panic attacks, and full-blown hallucinations on the MC's part in the following chapters.
And the author solved that by having MC move to a distant relative for their recuperation, who then sits them down at the dinner table and essentially goes "Well, bad things happen, don't let that define you", or some generic shit like that, causing the MC to walk out on the porch and make the conscious decision to simply stop having PTSD. And then he went on to lead a happy life.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

"Well, bad things happen, don't let that define you", or some generic shit like that, causing the MC to walk out on the porch and make the conscious decision to simply stop having PTSD. And then he went on to lead a happy life.

Jesus, would that it were that easy.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I absolutely hate it when authors give an MC a backstory full of hardships and tragedy, to garner quick sympathy points with the readers,... and then completely disregard that backstory because they think it's too much to actually deal with it (or, worse, deal with it by having the MC have sex with someone).

Yes.

One thing I like a lot about AMA: The Boyfriend, to go back to that again, is that BreakTheBar's primary characters are very clear that the fun sex romp is fun, and it changes their lives in unexpected ways, but that it's not a substitute for therapy. It's not a substitute for having hard conversations, conducting deep introspection and making tough but necessary decisions. It's still conducted via the rules of porn-logic, but he does at least gesture in the direction of actually addressing the traumas raised by the story.

 

[PapaRomantic]

I absolutely hate sentence fragments, but I seem to be alone on an island about this. I don't read very many Lit stories without them. To me, it's lazy writing. I know, because my very strict English teacher told me so.

 

[StillStunned]

Oooo, just thought of another! When the writer tries to write pseudo-archaic English. Thees and thous, wouldst and prithee, and worst of all "an" (or "and" - yes, I'm looking at you, David Eddings) instead of "if".

Unless the story is set in a very poorly programmed historical simulation, there's no excuse for it.

 

[Comshaw]

I absolutely hate it when authors give an MC a backstory full of hardships and tragedy, to garner quick sympathy points with the readers,... and then completely disregard that backstory because they think it's too much to actually deal with it (or, worse, deal with it by having the MC have sex with someone).

Like, a few months ago, I read a story about an MC who, in the very first chapter, got drugged and then brutally raped by family members, which resulted in nightmares, panic attacks, and full-blown hallucinations on the MC's part in the following chapters.
And the author solved that by having MC move to a distant relative for their recuperation, who then sits them down at the dinner table and essentially goes "Well, bad things happen, don't let that define you", or some generic shit like that, causing the MC to walk out on the porch and make the conscious decision to simply stop having PTSD. And then he went on to lead a happy life.

"I've seen all this absolute shit, been through hell and I'm just going to shrug my shoulders and get over it!" Yeah, that works, if you stay drunk, stoned or have a lobotomy. ANYONE that would write that kind of horse shit is either lazy, inexperienced or flat stupid. Having walked the planet for 3/4 of a century and having gone through a few of those things that cause PTSD as well as having people close to me who have done the same, it ain't never that simple.

As said by SinclairGroupLLP: "Jesus, would that it were that easy."

Many of us wish to fuck it was that easy.


Rant done...


Comshaw

​

 

[Comshaw]

Oooo, just thought of another! When the writer tries to write pseudo-archaic English. Thees and thous, wouldst and prithee, and worst of all "an" (or "and" - yes, I'm looking at you, David Eddings) instead of "if".

Unless the story is set in a very poorly programmed historical simulation, there's no excuse for it.

You mean:
Thou shouldst consume a satchel of Richards and expire, oh thou fornicator of thy dam's loins!

Like that??

Comshaw

 

[ElectricBlue]

Oooo, just thought of another! When the writer tries to write pseudo-archaic English. Thees and thous, wouldst and prithee, and worst of all "an" (or "and" - yes, I'm looking at you, David Eddings) instead of "if".

Unless the story is set in a very poorly programmed historical simulation, there's no excuse for it.

That was something I struggled with when writing my take on the Arthurian myth. In the end, I thought fuckit, this is how Maerlyn talks, live with it. But I steered away from the cliches and gave him his own jargon, his own flavour, kept it minimal but consistent, which I think worked.

Some peanut tried to call me out on how to spell dragen, which means he didn't get it: a non-existent creature, and you're debating the spelling? Don't be daft!

 

[Actingup]

You mean:
Thou shouldst consume a satchel of Richards and expire, oh thou fornicator of thy dam's loins!

Like that??

Comshaw

Whatever Richards is, do ye procure it at the shoppe?

 

[Comshaw]

Whatever Richards is, do ye procure it at the shoppe?

What's the alternate name for Richard? Dick. I suppose you can find a few at yee olde Shoppe.

Comshaw

 

[AG31]

I absolutely hate sentence fragments, but I seem to be alone on an island about this. I don't read very many Lit stories without them. To me, it's lazy writing. I know, because my very strict English teacher told me so.

Me too, unless it's part of dialogue. Real people talk in sentence fragments all the time. But I'm also annoyed by the other extreme, too much disregard for periods at the end of complete sentences. Authors are forever using commas and semi-colons instead. Sometimes the writing cries out for a comma or semi-colon instead of a period. But mostly it would have been fine to stick to the rules.

 

[AG31]

Oooo, just thought of another! When the writer tries to write pseudo-archaic English. Thees and thous, wouldst and prithee, and worst of all "an" (or "and" - yes, I'm looking at you, David Eddings) instead of "if".

Unless the story is set in a very poorly programmed historical simulation, there's no excuse for it.

What would valid archaic English sound like?

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Oooo, just thought of another! When the writer tries to write pseudo-archaic English. Thees and thous, wouldst and prithee, and worst of all "an" (or "and" - yes, I'm looking at you, David Eddings) instead of "if".

Unless the story is set in a very poorly programmed historical simulation, there's no excuse for it.

You reminded me of this:

 

[XerXesXu]

Made up and unpronounceable names.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I absolutely hate it when authors give an MC a backstory full of hardships and tragedy, to garner quick sympathy points with the readers,... and then completely disregard that backstory because they think it's too much to actually deal with it (or, worse, deal with it by having the MC have sex with someone).

Like, a few months ago, I read a story about an MC who, in the very first chapter, got drugged and then brutally raped by family members, which resulted in nightmares, panic attacks, and full-blown hallucinations on the MC's part in the following chapters.
And the author solved that by having MC move to a distant relative for their recuperation, who then sits them down at the dinner table and essentially goes "Well, bad things happen, don't let that define you", or some generic shit like that, causing the MC to walk out on the porch and make the conscious decision to simply stop having PTSD. And then he went on to lead a happy life.

My tolerance for this kind of thing depends on genre - in a cinematic setting where characters take a bullet to the shoulder and three scenes later it's like it never existed, I can accept people being just as robust to psychological injuries. But in a story that's meant to be less cinematic and especially where the trauma is meant to be a Big Thing, that "bored now, gonna reinvent the character without doing the work" gets hella annoying.

 

[lovecraft68]

Like, a few months ago, I read a story about an MC who, in the very first chapter, got drugged and then brutally raped by family members,

But...but,....

 

[lovecraft68]

"I've seen all this absolute shit, been through hell and I'm just going to shrug my shoulders and get over it!" Yeah, that works, if you stay drunk, stoned or have a lobotomy. ANYONE that would write that kind of horse shit is either lazy, inexperienced or flat stupid. Having walked the planet for 3/4 of a century and having gone through a few of those things that cause PTSD as well as having people close to me who have done the same, it ain't never that simple.

As said by SinclairGroupLLP: "Jesus, would that it were that easy."

Many of us wish to fuck it was that easy.


Rant done...


Comshaw

​

I have a long series involving siblings who were separated at a young age and both severally abused. One suffered from mental illness due to it, the other an addict. 39 chapters spanning 20 years of their life and twisted taboo love/lust affair and I never let up. Even when she was clean for several years and he'd gotten on medication, their trauma never completely left them.

Was told by many they dropped the series for being too 'stark'

I recall one person sending me feedback saying "you're beating a dead horse, sooner or later you get beyond it at some point, especially if you turn your life around"

I'll be 57 next month and still deal with night terrors on occasions-usually during times of high stress in life-I wake up and swear I can smell beer and puke.

But hey, who knows better? People like myself or Mr Anon fuckwit?

 

[mirafrida]

The pet peeve that got to me recently - involving a pretty shlocky but decently-written, very long, incredibly popular, and professionally edited/published book - was that they were lazy about going back and reworking places where the same word appeared multiple times in quick succession. About every chapter there would be an example or two that, if not eggregious, still wasn't great. Enough to catch my eye and take me out of the flow.