What irks you in a story? - a list for writers on Lit.

[Kurokami]

My biggest hate is characters and plotlines that don't go anywhere. I get it, we're all amateurs here, we're writing for fun, but at least let something happen in your plot! It's easier to ignore in the oneshots, but there are a few too many series that are just contextless fucking. Sometimes, people do other things.

I also dislike redundant dialogue; instead of writing those long, drawn out "oh"s with the seven h's, just write that the damn woman moaned, for god's sake! Is there a single person out there whose eyes don't automatically skip over those long onomotopoiea when they see them?

 

[PennLady]

I think we're saying the same thing. There's a time and a place for them, but don't overuse.

Yes, and I always leave an exception for dialogue. People don't talk the way they write, so I'm fine with adverbs in dialogue.

I'm back and forth on this.

The grammatically correct versions are long-winded and clunky, or break up the flow with period road bumps.

I don't mind a bit of sloppiness here if it's more compact and improves readability, so long as the meaning's still clear. It might irk the purists, but so long as it doesn't bother the majority of readers it's probably okay.

Well, the thing is that "he smiled" (in the example given in the earlier post) is not a speech word, hence even if the other ways are clunkier, that one is flat out wrong. The easier way, to me, is to just write "I didn't know that." He smiled and winked.

The eyes/look/gaze is something I sort of agree with, but also probably echo manyeyedhydra's view on adverbs. You need something, and you can either get it across or tie yourself in knots. Of course sometimes the easier/best thing is to take another tack entirely and skip the gaze or the look and concentrate on some other aspect of the person or their expression. I think sometimes we as writers don't realize that a lot of those things we want are apparent to the reader from the way we've written the characters and such.

 

[punkreader]

Adding in some more

The thing with adverbs and overuse of dialogue tags annoys me, too - so I try and strike a balance. I only use adverbs if I can't find a word that has connotations of the nuance of emotion I'm trying to convey, and even then I try and be sparing. With both - if I can construct my dialogue in such a way that the reader doesn''t need tags to follow it - by, for example, making sure that each character speaks in a distinguishably different way than the others - then I try to do so. But not overmuch. All in moderation.

I like the discussion going - keep it up! I'll throw out a few more, some I've already seen.

• 
  Inconsistent details - I read a book a while ago where on one page the character's name was Mary, and not a page later, it changed to Mariam - and then back again. Oy... Make sure you keep your details straight - as others have said.

• Over-endowed characters, male or female. Really, from experience with different object-dildos and lots of reading into the subject, a large penis is painful to the recipient, and may even cause injury. Same for large breasts - they can drag the woman down, literally, in addition to putting strain on her neck, back, and chest wall. Achey, yowling people don't have pretty sex - actually, few people truly do, or so I've heard. Reading about a man with a 10 inch penis makes me shudder - in fear and sympathy, not anticipation.

• The onomotopaea noises...Oh my god, the noises! Yes, people make noise when they're having sex, sometimes loud, sometimes soft; sometimes abbreviated, other times prolonged. I get that. It doesn't mean that you should write it out in the text - an all-caps "Ah!" with 20 h's and a bunch of exclamation points just looks silly. There is, I assure you, a better way to write that the person had a screaming orgasm....By saying, "she screamed as she came," or something similar. That's all the reader should really need, no? Which leads me on to...

• Reptetitive dialogue. I've seen it mentioned in previous posts, but it bugs the hell out of me. I don't need to hear Rachel moan how much she wants/needs/can feel Robert's cock fifteen times - and have it be a moan every time. A few is enough. Vary it, too - have her growl, groan, something - just not X all the way through. If you want the reader to see that she really likes his cock, then focus on how her vision goes in and out of focus as he moves, physical sensations (like his tongue on her neck), how Rachel responds, etc. Focus on something else, anything but the voice, unless it's essential, or if it hasn't been said/Robert can't interpret her signals. Just don't over-vocalize. Sound, however, like moans, growls, whines, sighs - those are good, just don't overdo it.

• Lots of buildup, and no delivery. If you want to write buildup, which I like, go ahead. But make sure to be similarly dedicated to the actual sex. Writing an entire five pages of buildup and five sentences of actual sex is cheating. Sorry, but it is. It cheats the reader.

• Having a woman respond the same as a man to stimuli, and vice versa. The two have different responses to different maneuvers. We like to see those, and if it's same-sex, then have each participant respond uniquely. A good rule of thumb is that women tend to like more foreplay and pre-copulation intimacy, and men tend to be easier to arouse, not needing as much foreplay to get going.

• Mary Sues, Marty Sues. Basically, that character everyone loves, can do no wrong, tragic past, really good in bed (and still virginal). Remember the popular crowd in high school - the one that did lots of bad things, and never got in trouble? Everyone acted like they were royalty? Yeah? Well, imagine those people in your fiction. Don't like them, right? Exactly. Get them out of there. Now.

• Repetitiveness in general. Don't repeat your words. I'm sure you can find more - see, there are these two great things called a thesaurus and a dictionary. Use them - and there's even the Internet to help you!

There shall be more, but I want to see what else gets mentioned. If I start getting too snarky, slap me, please.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Well, the thing is that "he smiled" (in the example given in the earlier post) is not a speech word, hence even if the other ways are clunkier, that one is flat out wrong. The easier way, to me, is to just write "I didn't know that." He smiled and winked.

It's wrong, but there's usually an element of pedantry to the arguments as to why it's wrong. When people get worked up about it they usually start ranting: You can't grin words, You can't giggle words, You can't action-of-choice words, which is corrent, but missing the point. I know you can't smile words. You know you can't smile words.

So:

"I didn't know that," he smiled.

Has to refer to an action taking place during (when possible!) speech. Yes, as human beings we are capable of talking and doing other things at the same time.

If I see that, I assume it's being used as a shortcut to indicate the speaker was smiling (or whatever other action they were doing while speaking), spoke some words, and continued to smile at the points when his mouth wasn't being used to shape further words. The 'he said while...' is already implied by the quotation marks and comma. There is no ambiguity as the other potential meaning (as a direct dialogue tag) is clearly nonsensical. My guess is the majority of the English-speaking world sees it as exactly the same, which is why it crops up so frequently, despite technically being incorrect.

Again, it can be abused horribly and often is. Really, you should only need 'X said' at all if there's likely to be confusion over which character is speaking. If the conversation is going back and forth, an 'X smiled' seems like a reasonable way to indicate a piece of dialogue is delivered in a different manner to the rest, if it isn't clear from the dialogue itself. It's less cumbersome than 'X said with a smile' and means exactly the same thing.

If other ways are clunkier they eventually get replaced with ways that are less clunky. That's how human beings operate and languages evolve (not always for the better!)

 

[Firebrain]

Laziness is good. Lazy people invent all the cool things because they get fed up of the old long-winded ways of doing things.

I'm sure the first person who used the 'piercing eyes' description was hailed as quite a wordsmith.

Eyes are gooey! They can't be... Oh wait, that's so deep.

Of course, after several thousand people have splattered it onto the page it starts to look a little worn.

BTW, if you have a better fit for the "Eyes slid down the dress" sentence, please let me know. I always end up getting tied in knots with that whole eyes/gaze thing.

He looked her up and down is the obvious, if a little dull. So:

That dress. He couldn't look anywhere else; it was sucking at her at the hem, licking her on the way up and its mouth was a bitten-lipped cut-out stretched between her breasts.

Or

What was it about that dress that meant he couldn't look anywhere else? / That dress. He couldn't look anywhere else.

Or

That dress that could draw eyes from across a crowded sidewalk. When she turned away she took his eyes with her, and though they bumped and squelched along the pavement with the dust and stones and rubbish, he was too gone with desire to notice. (That's OTT, but you see what I'm getting at, no?)

In summary: why bother wasting the time to tell us that he's looking when you can tell us what he sees? If he's especially drawn to her dress then there are a hundred ways to say that. In writing, it's often not the action--it's the consequence, and the thoughts and feelings that it evokes. So instead of "his eyes were a piercing blue," you could have "his eyes were sharp enough to split fingers. Or to split girls, maybe. Only half of me walked away." Or "His eyes were a sharp/bright/blue," still avoids the cliche.

 

[PennLady]

"I didn't know that," he smiled.

Has to refer to an action taking place during (when possible!) speech. Yes, as human beings we are capable of talking and doing other things at the same time.

I get what you're saying, but I still don't agree. I wouldn't like it if I read it, personally, and I wouldn't write it. Just change the comma to a period, and capitalize He. Then it's all there, you know he said it, and that he smiled. Or: "he said with a smile." We can smile as we talk, or frown or whatever, I agree. I could in fact take something like "I didn't know that," he laughed, a bit better since laughter is at least a vocalization.

You may be correct that most people will read it as you would. But I'm not one of them.

If other ways are clunkier they eventually get replaced with ways that are less clunky. That's how human beings operate and languages evolve (not always for the better!)

True, true. And if I could think of a better way, I'd try it.

 

[PennLady]

punkreader's previous post reminded me. One thing I get tired of in stories is women who love blow jobs and swallowing the result. I realize it's a fantasy thing but it drives me nuts.

And a story that starts out "Hi, my name is Tiffany, I'm [measurements] and I love to suck cock! I'd do it all day if I could!" is one I will likely not finish.

This bothered me enough that in two of my stories (Nothing gets Through and Who Cares What I Wear?), after a blow job, the woman doesn't swallow, and goes to rinse her mouth out. Not in an "eww" way, just in the course of what happens next. And one of them was in the shower, so it was easier.

 

[EmeraldKitten]

Wow, you guys are gettin' serious! lol.
I hate to criticize because I know I'm not perfect. But..
I'm with you guys on the grammar/punctuation business. I click back if I can't make heads or tails of what they're trying to say.
I LOATHE when people say measurments.. 36DDD my ass. The numbers/letters are disruptive. It's not a word.
Along with that, 7 isn't a word, 4 isn't a word... please, type it out. Seven and four read much easier.
I hate when stories read ike you're watching a porno. That's where all the girls with the 36DDD tits live, with the guys with the 10 inch cocks, that say oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh and aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh and repeat a hundred times that they're coming.

That's all for now.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Reminds me of feedback I once got on the SDC!

During my career with the state I kinda fell into writing legal papers. That is, our in-house attorneys were usually swamped and no one bitched too much when I composed the documents. I know what lawyers and judges like to read....and it aint fine print with arcane mumbo-jumbo. They want clear, hard, cold facts no one can dispute. And they want them in a brief, logical narrative. A very short story, if you will.

But agencies love long-winded, stream-of-consciousness, romps with plenty of digressions, tangential points, and loose associations. They want a trail even Sherlock Holmes couldnt follow.

And what made me axe-swinging crazy was the administrator who happened to read my art, then fuck it up with an edit. And when I got to court, instead of hearing WELL DONE GRASSHOPPER! from the judge and attorneys, I got, THIS ISNT YOUR USUAL QUALITY, IS IT, ASSHAT!

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

I don't know if this reaches the level of "irks me," but one thing I've noticed is that caucasian characters almost always have English/Irish/Scottish last names. If a character has an "ethnic" European last names (Italian, Polish, Greek, etc.), that background is often a major part of the story, e.g. a man with the last name Angelini who talks with his hands, loves his mamma, has connections to organized crime, and makes an awesome lasagna.

I've also noticed that if the main character is caucasian, friends seem to have Anglo last names. Why aren't more friends named Amy Li or David Nakamura, without any comment being made about their background?

I've been guilty of it so far, but that's because most of my characters had to come from WASPy backgrounds, for a variety of plot-related reasons. But it's annoyed me to the point where I'm going to start giving characters names like Kowalczyk, Olsson, or Papadopoulos.

I'll excuse writers outside of the U.S. and Canada from my rant, but from the last names I find in stories, I often think that Lit is a Mayflower Society project.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

He looked her up and down is the obvious, if a little dull. So:

That dress. He couldn't look anywhere else; it was sucking at her at the hem, licking her on the way up and its mouth was a bitten-lipped cut-out stretched between her breasts.

Or

What was it about that dress that meant he couldn't look anywhere else? / That dress. He couldn't look anywhere else.

Or

That dress that could draw eyes from across a crowded sidewalk. When she turned away she took his eyes with her, and though they bumped and squelched along the pavement with the dust and stones and rubbish, he was too gone with desire to notice. (That's OTT, but you see what I'm getting at, no?)

In summary: why bother wasting the time to tell us that he's looking when you can tell us what he sees? If he's especially drawn to her dress then there are a hundred ways to say that. In writing, it's often not the action--it's the consequence, and the thoughts and feelings that it evokes. So instead of "his eyes were a piercing blue," you could have "his eyes were sharp enough to split fingers. Or to split girls, maybe. Only half of me walked away." Or "His eyes were a sharp/bright/blue," still avoids the cliche.

Because you want to convey some information on the character through the nuances of their actions rather than simply describe what they happen to be seeing.

There are times when you'll want to create nice original passages that avoid cliche entirely and there are times when you'll want to say "his eyes are piercing" because it's the shortest and most direct way of saying, well, "his eyes are piercing". In a page-turner, you might want to be short and direct rather than force the reader to wade through more florid passages. Depends on what you're aiming for at the time, I guess.

 

[PennLady]

I don't know if this reaches the level of "irks me," but one thing I've noticed is that caucasian characters almost always have English/Irish/Scottish last names. If a character has an "ethnic" European last names (Italian, Polish, Greek, etc.), that background is often a major part of the story, e.g. a man with the last name Angelini who talks with his hands, loves his mamma, has connections to organized crime, and makes an awesome lasagna.

I've also noticed that if the main character is caucasian, friends seem to have Anglo last names. Why aren't more friends named Amy Li or David Nakamura, without any comment being made about their background?

I've been guilty of it so far, but that's because most of my characters had to come from WASPy backgrounds, for a variety of plot-related reasons. But it's annoyed me to the point where I'm going to start giving characters names like Kowalczyk, Olsson, or Papadopoulos.

I'll excuse writers outside of the U.S. and Canada from my rant, but from the last names I find in stories, I often think that Lit is a Mayflower Society project.

I'm guilty of this myself, I'm sure, and I don't mean to be. A lot of it is that although I have certainly known some Amy Lis in my life, they haven't been figures that stayed. So mostly I know those Anglo type names. I do try to vary it, really. I'll try to do more of that. It's one of those things that's nothing personal, just drawing from my experience, which in many ways is obviously limited.

I'll have to go digging out the surnames of old high school acquaintances, perhaps.

Also, though, I've had the experience with those with Italian names, it is a big deal that they're Italian and their Mama does make a great lasagna, or they have big family dinners, etc. I had a friend, last name DePalma, in grammar school and her family was always big on that aspect of their heritage, although I have no idea where the Italian started. I.e., I don't know if a grandparents was actually from Italy, or something like that. But sometimes people write those traits for characters with those names because it's what they've experienced.

 

[PennLady]

Wow, you guys are gettin' serious! lol.
I hate to criticize because I know I'm not perfect. But..
I'm with you guys on the grammar/punctuation business. I click back if I can't make heads or tails of what they're trying to say.
I LOATHE when people say measurments.. 36DDD my ass. The numbers/letters are disruptive. It's not a word.
Along with that, 7 isn't a word, 4 isn't a word... please, type it out. Seven and four read much easier.
I hate when stories read ike you're watching a porno. That's where all the girls with the 36DDD tits live, with the guys with the 10 inch cocks, that say oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh and aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh and repeat a hundred times that they're coming.

That's all for now.

I think everyone knows I don't care for the specific measurements, especially those in triple letters. ugh. I think for one thing, most women with measurements like that (not all, but most) would in fact be on the overweight side.

Edit: I must clarify that statement. Being that I myself am overweight, although not that large in the bust. Single letter for me, thanks. Anyway -- it's not the DDD that's bothersome so much as the svelte, thin form that often goes with it. Realizing there are women out there who are slender and large-chested, I do think that mostly, if a woman is DDD or whatever, then her body will be larger as well. Whether that means taller or overweight, whatever. Punkreader had also brought up a good point -- at whatever size, a woman with a chest that large is likely to have a lot of issues like sore back and shoulders, etc.

And I do hate when numbers aren't spelled out. I hate reading "I talked to her and 2 days later we got together with 4 other friends..." Maybe for a draft it's okay, but for just regular writing, it's lazy and wrong according to current conventions/styles. I wouldn't mind if they were reproducing a text or email, for example, but otherwise, write it out.

It's funny, but I saw this sex Q&A on HBO once, and it showed with some great diagrams how a 12" cock wouldn't fit all the way in a woman (vaginally, anyway). Now every time I read a description like that in a story I can't help but laugh and think of that diagram, which of course kind of takes away any erotic feelings there might have been.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I don't know if this reaches the level of "irks me," but one thing I've noticed is that caucasian characters almost always have English/Irish/Scottish last names. If a character has an "ethnic" European last names (Italian, Polish, Greek, etc.), that background is often a major part of the story, e.g. a man with the last name Angelini who talks with his hands, loves his mamma, has connections to organized crime, and makes an awesome lasagna.

I've also noticed that if the main character is caucasian, friends seem to have Anglo last names. Why aren't more friends named Amy Li or David Nakamura, without any comment being made about their background?

I've been guilty of it so far, but that's because most of my characters had to come from WASPy backgrounds, for a variety of plot-related reasons. But it's annoyed me to the point where I'm going to start giving characters names like Kowalczyk, Olsson, or Papadopoulos.

I'll excuse writers outside of the U.S. and Canada from my rant, but from the last names I find in stories, I often think that Lit is a Mayflower Society project.

Birds of a feather flock together is why. Bet your sweet ass that Hillary and John Kerry do not run with any feral humans named LaToya, Ho, or Muhammed. They cope with them a little while and shower.

 

[Guest]

deleted

 

[PennLady]

Tatyana, I'm very guilty of the ethnocentric bias, and thanks for pointing it out. I think the reason is that I want to respect other cultures, and as another poster stated, I hate inconsistencies in writing. If I were to include another culture, I would want to know as much about it as possible to avoid making a blunder. This would be particularly true if I were to include phrases in other languages which would be appropriate to the story.

I could be wrong, and LfT, let me know if I am, but I think what she meant is that there has been enough immigration and assimilation that you can write an Amy Li pretty much the way you could write a Jane Tyler.

Funny, this reminds me of something that occurred to me when I used to watch "Buffy" on TV. At one point I realized that there was a distinct lack of ethnicity in the show. I mean, they're in southern CA, and yet there was a ... paucity, shall we say, of Asian characters, Latinos, or pretty much anyone else. I don't think this was on purpose, but it used to amuse me.

I'm a tad confused on the dialogue tags discussion especially when it is coupled with the adverb issue. Saying "He said, She said" in a running dialogue is both redundant and mind numbing IMHO. Sometimes the way something is said is far more profound than anything else. Taking the aforementioned example, "I didn't know that,'she giggled:" accomplishes all of the goals previously mentioned. We see at once that she is playful, curious, and a bit of a flirt. I don't see anything wrong with that.

You're right, a continual note of "he said/she said" after every line of dialogue in a two-person conversation is redundant and annoying. My e-book editor despises them in such situations. So I either leave them or add some sort of descriptive line.

"What do you want?" She crossed her arms in front of her and waited.
"I want to talk to you."
"Maybe I don't feel like talking."
He kept his eyes fixed on her. "Then just listen."

That's not a great example and it's just off the top of my head, but that's the kind of thing I do. The problem again with "I didn't know that," she giggled, is that giggled is not a speech word. So just end it with a period, capitalize She.

And also, you may see playful, curious and flirting from that one small example; I might see something else. But that would all be subject to what else we know about the character up to that point. That small statement makes me think of someone who's overdoing it -- batting eyelashes, trying to show the other person they're smarter than she is, etc.

Glass half full, eh?

My greatest peeves though are when authors give too much of a back story, or they fail to provide the psychological development of the characters. This is why I prefer first person narratives. They seem to be more intimate and complete, and I enjoy learning what the character saw, thought, perceived, felt, etc.

Well this could certainly be a thread on its own. I'd disagree. I prefer 3d person narratives, both in my reading and writing. I don't think first person lends itself any better to development than third person does. That's all on the author, not necessarily to do with the POV. Plus I find first person limiting, b/c you can only know what the narrator is thinking, and the narrator can then only guess at what other characters are thinking. Although you'd some of that via dialogue.

The other frustration is when authors use helping verbs unnecessarily. "I had stopped." ????? What's wrong with, "I stopped."? Active voice is always more interesting than passive voice. Just my 2 cents.

Absolutely active is better. On the other hand, if the author is relating something that happened to the character, "had stopped" might be appropriate. I use it in recollection sequences. Like if a character is remembering something that happened, then it would be like this: "he had been a good friend, but then something happened. He'd stopped calling, stopped writing."

 

[jehoram]

I hate when stories read ike you're watching a porno. That's where all the girls with the 36DDD tits live, with the guys with the 10 inch cocks, that say oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh and aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh and repeat a hundred times that they're coming.

I'm with you 100% on that, EK. I'd rather read a description of how the breasts looked, and what they did when she moved, and the traits that distinguished them from all the other tits in the world. Otherwise, all I get is a cartoon woman. Maybe that does it for other guys, but not me.

And the vocals! Yeah, it shows that the characters are into it, but it doesn't get me there. It's what's happening inside their bodies and their minds that I want to read about (and write about).

 

[Firebrain]

Because you want to convey some information on the character through the nuances of their actions rather than simply describe what they happen to be seeing.

There are times when you'll want to create nice original passages that avoid cliche entirely and there are times when you'll want to say "his eyes are piercing" because it's the shortest and most direct way of saying, well, "his eyes are piercing". In a page-turner, you might want to be short and direct rather than force the reader to wade through more florid passages. Depends on what you're aiming for at the time, I guess.

Pretty sure I included some shorter descriptions there, but my point is not "you should not use words like piercing." My point is, "everyone else is using piercing, so if you want to stand out, you'd best find another way of describing it." When you do what everyone else does, you look lazy.

I will, someday soon, put together a list of words that crop up in this genre over any others. Romance bingo. "He drawled" will be top of the list...

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Tatyana, I'm very guilty of the ethnocentric bias, and thanks for pointing it out. I think the reason is that I want to respect other cultures, and as another poster stated, I hate inconsistencies in writing. If I were to include another culture, I would want to know as much about it as possible to avoid making a blunder. This would be particularly true if I were to include phrases in other languages which would be appropriate to the story.

I could be wrong, and LfT, let me know if I am, but I think what she meant is that there has been enough immigration and assimilation that you can write an Amy Li pretty much the way you could write a Jane Tyler.

Yes, that's what I meant, PL. If we're talking about an average second generation (or higher) caucasian American, for example, there won't be much of a distinct culture left. That's just how integration works. You could write a Michael Gorski who's addicted to sushi or a Michael Gorski who's obsessive about his beet selections, and either would be perfectly plausible.

The same can hold for an Amy Li, I think.

The other frustration is when authors use helping verbs unnecessarily. "I had stopped." ????? What's wrong with, "I stopped."? Active voice is always more interesting than passive voice. Just my 2 cents.

Absolutely active is better. On the other hand, if the author is relating something that happened to the character, "had stopped" might be appropriate. I use it in recollection sequences. Like if a character is remembering something that happened, then it would be like this: "he had been a good friend, but then something happened. He'd stopped calling, stopped writing."

The wikipedia entry on the past tense is quite helpful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_tense

And keep your paws off my past progressive. Failing to use the past progressive drives me nuts.

Funny, this reminds me of something that occurred to me when I used to watch "Buffy" on TV. At one point I realized that there was a distinct lack of ethnicity in the show. I mean, they're in southern CA, and yet there was a ... paucity, shall we say, of Asian characters, Latinos, or pretty much anyone else. I don't think this was on purpose, but it used to amuse me.

Yes, Buffy and race. I've read a number of theories on this, actually.

 

[sr71plt]

writers in the mainstream tend not to use highly ethnic surnames unless they mean something in the story either. When you do use them, the reader is prone to take them as a signal that it matters and that intrudes on the read. It's sort of the same thing as not having your character use a cane unless the storyline is going to do something with that information (or unless you are into laying false clues, something paying readers don't always appreciate).

 

[lovecraft68]

Ethnic and Gender stereo types are annoying. Not every Italian talks with their hands (although after meeting the wife's family I am leaning towards they are all momma's boys) Not every Irish character drinks, and I have yet to meet a Jewish person (around my age anyway) that says "oy". I will also refer back to the Black characters and the big black cock. I also do not think they should all be "snoop dog" wanna be's.

Gay characters that are not strictly in gay male also tend to be "flaming" in many stories as well as every Lesbian being a lipstick lesbian porn star type.

Another small thing that ticks me off is be conscious of your characters description and use it accordingly. If a woman has very long hair where is it during sex? Long hair can be very sensual when she is performing oral sex is it fanned across her man's stomach? is he holding it to the side. does she use it to tickle her lover "on her way down" invariably it is not used unless the guy is tugging on it doggy style. Curly and straight seem to get confused in some stories as well going from one to the other in the same chapter.

 

[lovecraft68]

One more which falls under dialogue. I do understand repetitive can be annoying when over used in the same sentence but I also believe in consistency. In real life if a woman refers to it as "My pussy" it will not switch to cunt, cooze, slit, or box all in the same scene.

In reality people tend to use the same "name". I refer to it as Cock. During sex I do not suddenly defer to dick, prick and certainly never "tool" I understand it adds to erotica but I tend to be picky with "realistic dialogue"

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Pretty sure I included some shorter descriptions there, but my point is not "you should not use words like piercing." My point is, "everyone else is using piercing, so if you want to stand out, you'd best find another way of describing it." When you do what everyone else does, you look lazy.

I will, someday soon, put together a list of words that crop up in this genre over any others. Romance bingo. "He drawled" will be top of the list...

Ah, got you. I don't read romance, so I haven't really come across it often enough to hit blood-boiling saturation point.

However, vampire stories set in New Orleans, werewolf stories obsessed with alpha pack dynamics, super-smart serial killers, horror short stories with complete non-endings so the author can pretend to be mysterious and clever . . . *cringe*

 

[PennLady]

Ah, got you. I don't read romance, so I haven't really come across it often enough to hit blood-boiling saturation point.

However, vampire stories set in New Orleans, werewolf stories obsessed with alpha pack dynamics, super-smart serial killers, horror short stories with complete non-endings so the author can pretend to be mysterious and clever . . . *cringe*

Hahaha. Your last point is a good one. I have yet to set a vampire story in NO, as I'm tired of that myself, so I likely won't. In fact, I ran my vampire through Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and St. Louis before ending up in Vancouver, BC.

One reason I wrote were-tiger stories was to totally avoid the werewolf pack politics, which get kind of repetitive. When I finally did a werewolf story, I mostly ignored that stuff. So many other people have done it that I wanted to focus on other things. I'm working on another story that will deal more with alpha stuff but, I hope, from a different angle.

Doubt I'll do serial killers.

 

[lovecraft68]

Hahaha. Your last point is a good one. I have yet to set a vampire story in NO, as I'm tired of that myself, so I likely won't. In fact, I ran my vampire through Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and St. Louis before ending up in Vancouver, BC.

One reason I wrote were-tiger stories was to totally avoid the werewolf pack politics, which get kind of repetitive. When I finally did a werewolf story, I mostly ignored that stuff. So many other people have done it that I wanted to focus on other things. I'm working on another story that will deal more with alpha stuff but, I hope, from a different angle.

Doubt I'll do serial killers.

Want a great take on werewolves? Read Robert McCammon's Wolf's hour. Set during world war two. It's about a spy for the Allies who is a werewolf. Very good. he id a great job with Vamp's as well in They thirst. But they are blood and guts killer vampires so a little scary for the kids these days.

Speaking of sexy vampires I clicked on your facebook link and saw a pic of Jaz Cullen. She could persuade me to read just about anything. Jeez.