What do you hate in a story?

[le_kitty]

If I say what I don't like then I get blamed for trying to force everyone to my way of thinking. SO not gonna say any more on this topic.

My initial reaction to the topic was thought provoked, but I have enjoyed reading other people's opinions.

 

[Learin]

If I say what I don't like then I get blamed for trying to force everyone to my way of thinking. SO not gonna say any more on this topic.

If you're letting one asshat decide what you can say and what you can't, please make sure it's someone with brains.

YW.

 

[SecondCircle]

If I say what I don't like then I get blamed for trying to force everyone to my way of thinking. SO not gonna say any more on this topic.

Ignore that and by all means say your piece because...

Interesting. Is there a difference between changing POV's and head-hopping?

I find that third person gives exactly that kind of freedom. I found first person limiting because I was confined to one perspective (albeit more intimate) but third person lets me switch between the two main characters and sometimes I do have a preference. I always mark it with ~*~ . If readers have disliked my head hopping... they haven't let me know. I've also cautiously begun to use the change in POV to transition into a new scene without the ~*~, but I've yet to post the series to Lit.

I think the key is to not confuse and/or jar the reader, and changing POV's mid scene will do that, but I dunno, otherwise if I was going to stick to one POV, I would use first person and get the most out of it.

... this is the type of give and take discussion that can result from it. It's fine to talk about our likes or dislike in writing. I love that many points of view (no pun intended... I think) can come together to make us think.

Per the latter quote, I will say that headhopping can be done soley through 3rd person. But I had the same question as you kitty. I do enjoy when stories are broken into segments of different POVs, when clearly defined of course. It gives you a look through different characters eyes. So I like what you said about avoiding confusion while doing this.

As to Redzinger, I can certainly sympathize. Personally (dunno if this is the kind of head hopping you were talking about) I don't typically enjoy 3rd person omnipotent head hopping. There's nothing wrong with it, But I just don't like to read things from such a broadly defined perspective. I think I like things vague, and this POV technique kills that for me.

If you (redz) were speaking of head hopping in the sense of doing so incorrectly, this kills immersion for me too. When suddenly we go into the head of someone that can't possibly know what goes on, that is jarring to me.

 

[NotWise]

re: head hopping, regarless of how it's done.

As near as I can tell it's confusing to the reader. For your reader's sake it might be better to keep the voice consistent.

 

[Asbel]

There's no particular genre or fetish I don't like reading that I can think of, mostly because I just don't look for things that don't interest me, and no one's written the kind of story that I've been hunting for lately.

No, what I hate is kind of for any story at all.

Dating a story with very specific things like the names of bands, brands of computer, models of cars or phones, or anything of the sort.

I'm gonna use Fifty Shades of Grey as an example, because holy fuck is it a GREAT example of this. Now, you might be asking why I read Fifty Shades, and it's because reading shitty books is somehow a motivation for me to write more of my own book. I don't know, it's a terrible method. Anyway.

EL James can't go a single chapter without throwing a brand name, band name, car model or otherwise around. Is it really important that we know that Christian Grey is listening to "Sex on Fire" by the Kings of Leon? Is it necessary to the story that we know he drives this one very particular model of Audi? Do we really have to know ALL of the specs on the brand-new Macbook Pro he buys her? Why can't you just say it's a laptop?

Speaking of that laptop, EL James apparently has no idea how computers work, because the specs on it are pretty ridiculous. The unimportant Fed-Ex driver who inexplicably sets up Ana's Macbook Pro for her informs her that it has 32 GB of RAM and a 1.5 TB hard drive, not to mention a ton of other shit. Mac has never made any laptop with a 1.5 TB hard drive, and at the time everything was still welded in there, so you can't upgrade. As far as having 32 GB of RAM... We STILL don't have laptops with that kind of power. It's literally impossible to put more than 16 GB of RAM in a laptop. Anything more and it just doesn't use it.

I should note that I hate stories with details that I can pick apart that terribly, too.

As an example of how to avoid all that, I almost never use brand names or specific things at all. Not only does it add unnecessary detail, but it dates your story so badly that it can never take place outside of... Well, for example, any year other than when the Kings of Leon were popular. People reading it ten years from now will probably go "Who?"
That's not to say you can't get your point across. Instead of saying that so-and-so is listening to, oh say, Justin Bieber, tell readers he's listening to boy-crush pop. Instead of saying he drives a Toyota Prius, say he drives a squat little Hybrid car. Instead of saying he has an iPhone 6s, say he has the latest Apple phone, or even the newest technogadget.

It's that easy to leave an open date for your story.

 

[NotWise]

I should note that I hate stories with details that I can pick apart that terribly, too.

If you hate picking them apart, then why should we have to read while you do it?

I'm confused. Nothing new.

 

[Asbel]

If you hate picking them apart, then why should we have to read while you do it?

I'm confused. Nothing new.

Sadly I suffer from a masochistic love for hating things. Just because I hate Fifty Shades doesn't mean I didn't (painstakingly) read it.

I've also enjoyed reading Twilight and the infamous fanfiction My Immortal.

My fiance also hates that I read these things. But like someone stated before, it really is like watching a D-grade sci-fi film.

 

[le_kitty]

re: head hopping, regarless of how it's done.

As near as I can tell it's confusing to the reader. For your reader's sake it might be better to keep the voice consistent.

Have you told that to George R.R Martin yet?

 

[le_kitty]

Sadly I suffer from a masochistic love for hating things. Just because I hate Fifty Shades doesn't mean I didn't (painstakingly) read it.

I've also enjoyed reading Twilight and the infamous fanfiction My Immortal.

My fiance also hates that I read these things. But like someone stated before, it really is like watching a D-grade sci-fi film.

lol, Asbel, you're ridiculously brave for confessing you've enjoyed Twilight but I will throw my lot in with you. I first picked up the book when I was young teen, before it got all hyped and I can understand why it did because Tamora Pierce and Christopher Paolini aside, Stephanie Meyer was the most addictive author for me. When 50 shades first started coming out, my friend picked it up and I read the first three chapters and thought it sounded like Twilight fanfic (before I realised it was). I stopped there. BUT, I don't think Meyer is a bad writer the way I think E.L James was quite average. The Host was just as good to read.

 

[GforGraham]

If you're letting one asshat decide what you can say and what you can't, please make sure it's someone with brains.

YW.

Not worried about brains but got tired of being chased in every thread. Ended up posting some tripe just so he, or she, felt better being able to put me in my place. Fancy some whipper snapper newbie knowing something...impossible. I mean to say you obviously do not have a sex life until joining this website, perhaps true of 80% of members who are under age anyway...just kidding...maybe.

Please no head hopping. I have read some supposedly professional writers who cannot get it right. I try to read stories with this but end up getting confused as to why this character is doing weird things until after 2 paragraphs realise it is a different person. So often writers forget to identify who is now speaking to me. I cannot see who it is like on TV, so please add in big letters who is speaking when a change is made. A couple of asterisks is not enough, i use these just to mark my own scene changes, mostly for my own benefit in the writing.
If you absolutely have to change first character POV then keep it simple with only two in an entire story.

But better yet, just write in 3rd person god mode.

 

[Iceprincess12]

Authors that don't edit.

Stories where there is no emotion or connection to any of the characters. They are just wooden dolls moving around without any personality.

No conflict or payoff, everything is perfect.

Sex that pretends it's a story but is just something that turned the writer on and he/she wanted to share it.

Poor word choice that doesn't add to the story. I'm thinking of a story where one character was described as a slut, but it never came up again and none of her actions supported this description.

Trying too hard. Someone else mentioned this as well. The crisp night breeze was redolent with the scintillating fragrance of her perfect buds. He clasped the unmarked, virgin petals within his newly gloved hands.

Boring descriptions of sex. Using cum, vagina, arse.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Authors that don't edit.

Stories where there is no emotion or connection to any of the characters. They are just wooden dolls moving around without any personality.

No conflict or payoff, everything is perfect.

Sex that pretends it's a story but is just something that turned the writer on and he/she wanted to share it.

Poor word choice that doesn't add to the story. I'm thinking of a story where one character was described as a slut, but it never came up again and none of her actions supported this description.

Trying too hard. Someone else mentioned this as well. The crisp night breeze was redolent with the scintillating fragrance of her perfect buds. He clasped the unmarked, virgin petals within his newly gloved hands.

Boring descriptions of sex. Using cum, vagina, arse.

Casanova said imagination is often much better than description. And its true for erotica. The sex is almost always a simple physical release of tension, but the anticipation is a 3 ring circus/2nd coming.

 

[Iceprincess12]

Casanova said imagination is often much better than description. And its true for erotica. The sex is almost always a simple physical release of tension, but the anticipation is a 3 ring circus/2nd coming.

Building the desire, this is worth practicing. Arousing the reader without ever mentioning sex is a talent and I would like to see more stories that spend time on the anticipation.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Building the desire, this is worth practicing. Arousing the reader without ever mentioning sex is a talent and I would like to see more stories that spend time on the anticipation.

That's the imagination part. CLEMMIE by John D.MacDonald is larded with sex but he never depicts it. Its entirely anticipation and afterword, and effective. Casanova was good at it, too. There truly isn't much to depict during the sex act. I feel, mostly. I ask intimate questions, or she does. Or she may kiss my chest. Or she may tickle me if I've been at it too long. But there's not a lot to report. Ahead of time all kinds of shit happens.

 

[Iceprincess12]

That's the imagination part. CLEMMIE by John D.MacDonald is larded with sex but he never depicts it. Its entirely anticipation and afterword, and effective. Casanova was good at it, too. There truly isn't much to depict during the sex act. I feel, mostly. I ask intimate questions, or she does. Or she may kiss my chest. Or she may tickle me if I've been at it too long. But there's not a lot to report. Ahead of time all kinds of shit happens.

It's pretty much every tv show that has sexual tension. I can't think of any offhand that survived when the characters got together and had sex. There must be a few but for the most part people tune in for the promise of sex, the teasing, the foreplay. All of the excitement of "what if".

Travis McGee...it's been forever since I've read MacDonald. I loved all the McGee books though. I should read them again.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

It's pretty much every tv show that has sexual tension. I can't think of any offhand that survived when the characters got together and had sex. There must be a few but for the most part people tune in for the promise of sex, the teasing, the foreplay. All of the excitement of "what if".

Travis McGee...it's been forever since I've read MacDonald. I loved all the McGee books though. I should read them again.

I don't care for McGee. I read all MacDonalds early stuff.

The sexual descriptions I've read are nothing like the sex I had or have. And the most interesting parts happened before the sex. Like when I turned around in my chair and my patient was naked. I had one get behind me to look at my books, while I was on the phone, then got naked and rubbed her tits on my head. But copulation is copulation....excite the penis enough to ejaculate. Excite her to do the same.

 

[oggbashan]

re: head hopping, regarless of how it's done.

As near as I can tell it's confusing to the reader. For your reader's sake it might be better to keep the voice consistent.

Several high selling authors do it. Tom Clancy is one.

But they tend to make a clean break each time the POV changes, sometimes even a chapter break.

I have done it but I am not pleased with the result. I prefer to stick with a single POV, usually 1st person in my later stories. Several of my earlier ones were originally written in 3rd person and revised to 1st during the writing process.

Head hopping can work if it is done clearly and deliberately and if there is a real point to doing it that advances the plot.

But like many writing devices, doing it badly can jar the reader out of the story.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Several high selling authors do it. Tom Clancy is one.

But they tend to make a clean break each time the POV changes, sometimes even a chapter break.

I have done it but I am not pleased with the result. I prefer to stick with a single POV, usually 1st person in my later stories. Several of my earlier ones were originally written in 3rd person and revised to 1st during the writing process.

Head hopping can work if it is done clearly and deliberately and if there is a real point to doing it that advances the plot.

But like many writing devices, doing it badly can jar the reader out of the story.

George V.Higgins mastered it with long stretches of dialog. Each character contributes a page of comment, and the POV comes thru.

“ ‘Johnny’ around here,” Amato said, “you can call me ‘Johnny’ here. Most of the help calls me ‘Mister,’ but you can call me ‘Johnny.’ That’ll be all right.”

“I’ll work on that, Squirrel, I really will,” the second one said. “You got to make allowances for me, you know? I, like I just got out of fuckin’ jail. My head’s all fucked up. I got to readjust to society, is what I got to do.”

“You couldn’t’ve got somebody else,” Amato said to the first one. “This item looks like shit and he don’t have no manners. I got to put up with shit like this?”

“I could’ve,” the first one said, “but you asked me, you know, get somebody that was all right. Russell, here, he’s maybe kind of a wise ass, but he’s all right if you can stand him.”

Higgins, George V. (2011-11-01). Cogan's Trade (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (pp. 3-4). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 

[oggbashan]

There's no particular genre or fetish I don't like reading that I can think of, mostly because I just don't look for things that don't interest me, and no one's written the kind of story that I've been hunting for lately....

I sometimes write fetish but I'm trying to move away from it. The problem with fetish is that if the particular fetish works for those who like it, the story won't work for those who don't understand it.

The reactions tend to be extreme - either 5 votes and glowing comments or 1 votes and WTF? Fetish can be pointless if it isn't YOUR fetish.

No, what I hate is kind of for any story at all.

Dating a story with very specific things like the names of bands, brands of computer, models of cars or phones, or anything of the sort.

...

I write stories set in past eras. It can be useful to emphasise the date of the story by reference to current technology. (But I, and Shakespeare, can get it wrong - I had a DVD in the 1960s; he had a chiming clock in Julius Caesar.) However it is essential that you either KNOW what you are writing about, or do sound research.

Even then readers can be thrown out of the story because their knowledge doesn't match the story. For example, in one 1960s story I referred to shaven pudenda. A comment was made that shaving the genitals was unknown then and therefore the story was unrealistic. It might have been unknown in rural USA but it was common in Swinging London in the miniskirt era. I know - because I met the shaven areas very closely.

I remember in 1960 that one of my distant female Australian relations living in a remote part of New South Wales had bleached her hair blonde. No woman within 50 miles had ever done that and the local reaction was extreme. She was either a "Shameless Hussy" or a "modern woman". It took at least two years before any of her friends tried it for themselves because of the community's response.

Yet in Sydney "bottle blondes" were frequently seen.

If I wrote about "The First Bleached Blonde" people would retort that I had the era wrong.

 

[Asbel]

I write stories set in past eras. It can be useful to emphasise the date of the story by reference to current technology. (But I, and Shakespeare, can get it wrong - I had a DVD in the 1960s; he had a chiming clock in Julius Caesar.) However it is essential that you either KNOW what you are writing about, or do sound research.

Referencing current technology is just fine. There's no way you can avoid writing about your character's cell phone or landline phone in some cases, and yeah, you want people to understand the general timeline they're in. But literature in general should be timeless, unless it's supposed to be historical - in Jerry Spinelli's "Milkweed", it's pretty obvious that the story takes place in the early 1940s because it's during the Holocaust.

The point is you should be able to read a book ten years or twenty years after it's written and totally understand what's going on. You know?

 

[lovecraft68]

Not worried about brains but got tired of being chased in every thread. Ended up posting some tripe just so he, or she, felt better being able to put me in my place. Fancy some whipper snapper newbie knowing something...impossible. I mean to say you obviously do not have a sex life until joining this website, perhaps true of 80% of members who are under age anyway...just kidding...maybe.

Please no head hopping. I have read some supposedly professional writers who cannot get it right. I try to read stories with this but end up getting confused as to why this character is doing weird things until after 2 paragraphs realise it is a different person. So often writers forget to identify who is now speaking to me. I cannot see who it is like on TV, so please add in big letters who is speaking when a change is made. A couple of asterisks is not enough, i use these just to mark my own scene changes, mostly for my own benefit in the writing.
If you absolutely have to change first character POV then keep it simple with only two in an entire story.

But better yet, just write in 3rd person god mode.

I agree. Head hopping is fine if done in third and the author's conversion from 'head to head' is smooth and makes sense.

Head hopping in first person is an accident waiting to happen "I" which "I"? I her or I him or I me?

If its done in separate chapters switching POV in first is okay, but within is just confusing as hell.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Referencing current technology is just fine....
The point is you should be able to read a book ten years or twenty years after it's written and totally understand what's going on. You know?

Yes, but you'd be surprised how hard it's getting to do this. Twenty is very hard; fifty is starting to look impossible. Tech has been accelerating for a couple hundred years now.

I grew up with landlines, and still have one. Many of my younger friends do not see the point. I met a young child last year who didn't realise they existed. I avoid them in stories because so few people can relate. Television? I don't have one, but I'm an outlier among my friends my age; I'm just not very into watching video in general. My younger friends are very into video but they stream onto small screens, so they don't always have TVs either. Food? Microwaves changed everything, literally everything, about family mealtime. Mom barely cooks anymore and people don't eat together because microwaves make it easy to do for yourself. Stories written about families in the 1960s look weirdly incomprehensible to people in their 20's now. Sexual mores? Go ahead and compare 1960 to now, or even 1985. It looks like a completely different planet out there.

I'm writing a story about a woman who walks into a library and marvels at the fact that they bother to collect books printed on paper. Who deals with paper anymore? She wonders if libraries, as collections of bound books, will even exist in 50 years. So do I. I have bookshelves in my house. They're decorative.

We're starting an ascent in medical breakthroughs. If it accelerates, some of the diseases people write about for pathos or adversity will sound very dated in 20 years. Look at the wikipedia page for smallpox, and note the first sentence is written in the past tense. I know people who don't know what smallpox was and only guess it was a disease. It used to be a horror; it killed 2 million people in 1967.

Remember when light bulbs got too hot to touch as they ran? They are still around - but I saw a 6-pack of LED 60W bulbs for under $10 recently. Incandescents have become a stupid choice and in ten years people will be surprised to see one, or even wonder how it works.

People used to smoke. Now we consider smokers idiots and use it to denote a moron in a story. Thirty years ago, smoking was still cool. Ditto pot. Remember when doing acid was cool? Now you're just a loser with a reality problem.

Gays? A hundred years ago it was a mental illness; in stories they were villains or worse. Ten years ago it was an acceptable lifestyle choice if you kept it out of people's faces, and a gay character might have been a good choice for social iconoclast or freethinker. Now they get public weddings, and try explaining that to someone 100 years ago. A gay character has zero impact in a story as regards sending any sort of message. If things kept going this way (they won't) you'll someday be accused of hate if your story doesn't have a black, gay character in it. Remember when it was ok to diss other races? Not a good move these days.

There's a reason I lean towards fantasy or scifi settings. And when I keep stories in the real world I try hard to make technology invisible. Some things won't change - communication is now in our pockets and it will stay that way; war isn't going out of style (and terrorism is probably here to stay), poverty will always be around, etc. But what will it mean in thirty years to say that someone "drove" a car? I figure it's 50/50 cars will be driverless by then, and how much literature is that going to invalidate? Will we live in a surveillance state in 20 years? Drones are now dirt cheap and cameras are everywhere; we're a good part of the way to a surveillance state now. Will it even make sense to read a story in which someone successfully hides from the police in 20 years? Not if computers keep getting better at image recognition.

But I saved the best for last. In 2015, people were using quantum computers to solve real problems. For some of you that's probably just a vaguely meaningless sentence; to me it means the universe is about to change. Quantum computing still faces a host of challenges before it can be used in general computing, but even five years ago I was swearing blind they'd never get as far as they did last year. If they solve the last problems we will enter a world in which governments and large businesses will have computing power that makes currently impossible problems easy. That power will likely include cracking internet encryption, possibly in real time. Privacy? Don't get used to it. It's not clear that power will ever trickle down to individuals and small businesses, because some cost curves are hard to fix. They will have it; you won't.

Want to scan the content of every human conversation on the internet, encrypted or not - in real time? It's likely to be possible in the lifetime of people reading this today. I remember when that was the most paranoid of unachievable fantasies.

Yeah, good luck keeping stories relevant for 20 years. The issue has become less of a pet peeve for me because an awful lot of good literature plot has been invalidated by technology.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Very interesting comment I would love to see split off into its own thread.

Do people agree?

Is erotica limited by the specificities of a fetish, or is the fetish something to be overcome and "risen above."

Tho, to be clear, when I think "fetish" I'm not thinking something as specific as a pair of underwear. Most categories on this site are fetish-driven, but not all.

To me the fetish is at the crux of the high/low thread. The fetish hits below the belt. It's irrational and arbitrary. You either have it or you don't, usually. What's an erotica writer to do?

The problem with fetish is that if the particular fetish works for those who like it, the story won't work for those who don't understand it.

Fetish can be pointless if it isn't YOUR fetish.

 

[oggbashan]

Very interesting comment I would love to see split off into its own thread.

Do people agree?

Is erotica limited by the specificities of a fetish, or is the fetish something to be overcome and "risen above."

Tho, to be clear, when I think "fetish" I'm not thinking something as specific as a pair of underwear. Most categories on this site are fetish-driven, but not all.

To me the fetish is at the crux of the high/low thread. The fetish hits below the belt. It's irrational and arbitrary. You either have it or you don't, usually. What's an erotica writer to do?

What I do, as a writer of specific fetish stories, is try to write a STORY that has the required elements to meet the particular fetish. The story may work as a story, but if that fetish doesn't appeal to you, the story might not arouse you.

An extreme example is my story "Trapped" about nylon pantyhose. If that is your fetish, you might find it exciting. If it isn't? The whole story seems to be an overreaction by the wife.

My challenge, that I have mentioned before, is to write a competent story about "South Indian Women's Hairy and Sweaty Armpits". There are several English Language Yahoo Adult Groups for that with a total membership of nearly 100,000. (There are many more members for that fetish in various Indian sub-continent languages.) There is an audience but so far I have been unable to complete the story.

 

[GforGraham]

A couple of my own peeves, and these are personal. not instructions to anyone to change just bear in mind about how readers feel. I make mistakes myself in writing, and constructive criticism can help immensely for your future work. These mostly relate to supposedly edited published novels by professional writers and are sold.

1. Future talk.
'I will tell you about this later.' irrespective if they do tell later or not.
or talking into the future about something not relevant to the story. 'It did eventually happen in ten years time' way past the end of the story timeline. If you need to round off something add it as an prologue to the story, not in the middle.

2. Writing in first person and including things the person had no first hand knowledge or was not told about. The narrator must personally see, hear, touch, taste etc, or be told, verbally or written, about it by a third person.
I think first person is hardest to write in as you have to devise ways that the narrator learns what is happening. It is weak if another person just walks up to him and happens to know and/or accidentally tells him everything he needs to know. At least third person god mode can let you get into every characters thoughts and actions. You still need to work out how to tell others if they were not there, but the reader is never in the dark unless you want reader to be. If you get this wrong in this mode the reader may not realise it if you are lucky.