Fiction Pet Peeves

I don't like it when there's a character that only exists to die at some point. This might apply better to movies than literature, but it still annoys me.

 

What i rly hate is wen ppl typ liek ths

 

Have you read My Immortal? I swear for the longest time I thought the author was a troll.

 

People just can't type lol

 

Things that tick me off about certain literature, you say?

For starters, I severely dislike non sequiturs, seeing as they're distracting from the plot and often have very little purpose.
Next, the well-known perfect pretty princess goody-two-shoes Mary Sue-esque personalities. Ohhhhh Lord have mercy, I sure can't stand those.
Then, there's the grammatical errors that I can't stand. Spelling is forgivable in terms of typos but grammar is a most basic requirement to allow for fluid reading of a written work of art.

Oh, they're coming to me now.

Then there's Dei-ex-Machina, God knows that I can stand those... Where did they come from, why are they there? I honestly would like to rely on one of Knox's rules for detective novels, as those rules can be applied here as well, and specifically number 8: The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.

I can't stand "Chinamen" (aka stereotypes) either. The emo guy with the distorted past and only negative points and the angelic girl who is liked by anyone and everyone and so sweet that it nearly gives the reader diabetes are excellent examples.

Then there's the Nigh Conjoined Couple trope which I can't stand either; a couple so close, so well-aligned, so finely tuned to one another that the reader could essentially render them the same person (if you were to ignore the lovey-dovey kissy-wissy cuddling and smooches).

The Perpetual Protagonists, who force the plot to wrap around themselves and have this eternal need to be the center of the universe. Not to mention the Low IQ Heroes either, who are essentially braindead but somehow, due to their ignorance of what's happening around them, they save the day each time.

I could rant on and on and on about this topic, but for now, this will have to do.

 

I have a few!

Introducing every character with a blast of information on how they look. I much prefer this info to be sprinkled in. Fair enough you do it once or twice but it gets old when there's a paragraph or two of this every chapter or for every character. I understand the mindset behind doing this though so it's not one of my most hated pet peeves. Plus it depends on the narrator. If it's in 1st person and the character notices these things I guess it makes sense.

I also dislike people shying away from just using the characters name and using terms like "the brunette" OFTEN. It's okay to refer to them by their names. Also I've seen a character in a p4 fanfic seriously referred to as the bluenette and I had to stop.

I don't like protagonists that are supposed to be cool, snarky and edgy and just come off as horrible people but we're still expected to sympathise with them and think they're good people. I see this more in actual books in the young adult section to be honest. Snarky characters can be great and likeable but I feel it's important to acknowledge that they're kinda jerks. (I have a soft spot for snarky edgy characters that are snarky and edgy to cover up their soft spots. But again, I feel there should be repercussions or their snark edgeness)

I don't like love triangles at all to be honest but that's just me. I know lots of people do. I don't like forced relationships at all either. This extends to movies and books too. As soon as the main characters start making eyes at each other my eyes roll. (Though I do love some fluff here and there. I do have otps after all.)

In Pokémon fanfics I prefer stories where the trainers interact more with their Pokémon over ones where the Pokémon are only relevant when battles happen. Gimme some cute scenes with the protag snuggling their Pokémon plz! Pet that dragon!

 

My fiction pet peeves? Ooh boy, sit tight.

I really hate it when a story introduces this side character with a brilliant personality, so much potential for character development, only to discard it almost immediately. I don't mind when they die, but sometimes they're just... completely ignored and we're left wondering what happened to them after.

As for Pokémon Fanfics, I tend to dislike thise that made Ash too 'dark and edgy'. I might be a sucker for smart and compotent Ash but that doesn't mean I want him to be a trainer who murdered Mewtwo in cold blood. I also hate it when they put OCs in there, because 90% of the time they're self inserts to be paired off with a desirable guy like Gary or Silver. Canon personalities? What's that?

 

Unresolved questions/plot points
Things mentioned but never fully explained
Potential characters never getting the spot light they could have

I'm looking at you, Diamond is Unbreakable

 

I really, really don't like when a character is introduced and it's clear that their sole purpose in the story is to be shipped with someone. It's okay to have ships, love makes the world go round etc etc but if a character has no development in the story other than their relationship, then I'll put the story down and move on to something else.

For the same reason, I don't like love triangles because often, it feels like the third wheel is just there to serve as a rival to the love interest.

Additionally, while I'm on the topic of romance, I don't like it when everyone gets their soulmate/is in a relationship. That just doesn't feel very realistic to me for some reason.

Finally, I don't like stories where the all the characters are static (not developing). I feel like a lot of authors throw in a "dark and edgy" past as if it shows instant character development, but more often it just comes off as cliche. I don't mind dark characters as long as they're written well, though.

 

I actually really like like triangles because my own fanfic and another I'm following there was a love triangle
I actually don't like when an author often uses large, literary words. Sure, a few here and there are fine, they can even set the tone for a scene if used right, but if the story is littered with them, I don't wanna stop every second to google what it means.

 

Oh, so this might be kind of obvious, but plot holes. Like there's one pretty obvious one in Harry Potter that has just bothered me for years and I kind of need to rant about it. At the end of book 4 after Harry sees someone get killed, he takes the carriages back down to the train to go home for the summer. The next year (in book 5) when he sees those carriages again, he's amazed to see that they're actually being pulled by thestrals, which can only be seen by someone who has seen someone die, rather than just being pulled along by magic like he had assumed before. Somehow he didn't notice them at the end of book 4? And even though he can (albeit vaguely) remember his own parent's deaths, he can't see the thestrals until the start of book 5?

 

I see what you did there.

I've got a few; I'll sort them in the order I think of them, which may not exactly match up with the order that I dislike them.
(I have specific names in mind for all of these things I've found in stories, but I'm not going to name them , because the names don't really matter.)

:: Clichés. I understand that very little material is original anymore, with most new things being derivatives of older things, but clichés will make the story and those in it - the characters, the storyline, and even the locations - very predictable, and usually in rather general terms (Person A will go to Place B to talk to person C because of Reason D...). If I can basically guess what's going to happen before it happens, it's not fun. This usually tends to happen when I'm more disenchanted with a story or its premise, because if I'm enthralled to see what happens next, I won't be trying to predict it.

:: Romance plots or subplots. These can either be major or minor. Were I to have my way they wouldn't exist at all, though I can tolerate them if they don't take up a lot of time and they aren't a main focus or a character's defining trait. I had a particularly bad experience with a book once where this was the case, and ever since then I've been extremely wary of any books that introduce or even hint at a potential romance thread.

:: Action for the sake of action. Behind every scene or action, there is always a driving reason. Action scenes are not portrayed well in written media anyway, so they should be used sparingly and rely more on the description - though the focus of my point is there has to be a reason why there's a fight scene. Authors of any kind should not expect a pass on this area at all - Die Hard did it better, and there isn't going to be another Die Hard.

:: Poorly explained resolution. The more complex a plot gets, the more loose ends there will be to tie up at the end. This gets worse if it's intimated in some way that several of them are related, without overtly stating how until later. I'm not saying that this is impossible to pull off - but it is extremely difficult. It's wiser to resolve threads as they go, and conclude some in the middle rather than leaving as many as possible towards the end. A word of advice, if you want to make the plot hidden or complicated, and wait towards the end to explain everything - don't. You'll mess up.

:: Slow pacing. It is important to keep the reader engaged and going along with you on your journey. If you stay too long in one place, while moving at a molasses-like pace (or, worse, going in circles for a while), you stand to disappoint your audience or even lose members. Stories should logically follow a chain of events as the writing progresses; it's okay to revisit things later (and most stories will need to do so), but at least move at an appreciable pace so that you can keep momentum.

::::

Believe it or not, I'm actually not that bothered by plot holes very much. I am sometimes bothered by unresolved threads, though they usually don't get in the way of my enjoyment of a story - most likely because plot holes tend to be based more on side details than main ones (empirically speaking - not tendencies). Yes I know plot holes exist. Yes I know they could be handled better. No I will not allow that to dampen the rest of the story for me.

 

One of my pet peeves in literature? When the main character is constantly in thought, especially in very tense situations. It kinda breaks the immersion of what is supposed to be an action scene. The Twilight series is the worst offender of this.

 

My pet peeves in fanfiction aren't necessary for the stories creation or even writing them it the people who consume the stories and turn around and complain about changes to the universe not because the story is bad or evil. Because that it violates the original creators' views with their own they took to make a new universe of the fan fiction writer creation.

 

Unnecessary romance is my biggest pet peeve. I mean, this is often more in the fandoms than in books themselves, but often enough it's true of both. There is such a thing as a friendship between a boy and a girl. I feel like much too often, characters are forced into a relationship they shouldn't be in. That ruins the book for me. A book I read recently, The Age of Miracles, did this, and awfully. The writer forced the characters together, and then one moved away, permanently. There was pining and emotion and whatever else you'd expect. But the effect would have been the exact thing if the two were just friends. Friends are close, friends care about each other. You don't have to play tonsil hockey to miss someone when they leave or die.

 

My pet peeve in fiction?

Well, talking about literature specifically here:
- No flow in the story.
- Everything happening too fast.
- Too many shitty grammar/punctuation mistakes.
- Shitty character development.

I think that's about it. n_n"

 

For this list, I'll include a ship and non ship list. This list is subjective.

Non ship:

• OOC canon characters. It really irks me.
• Pacing. Whether it be faster than light or slower than molasses, it's hard to read a story with bad pacing.
• Perfect OCs. I want characters with flaws, not perfect little rays of sunshine.
• wen the hole storee loks liek tihs. Spelling and grammar errors make me mad.

Shippy stuff:

• Romance for the sake of romance. It's really bothersome to me.
• Perfect couples. The ones who don't fight or disagree, it's just happy little rainbow sunshine world 24/7. That's not how the world works.
• Terrible written romance. Stuff like meeting and kissing in the same paragraph. I don't like that.

 

Well I guess I'll put in my thoughts

• Good stories that get hardly any feedback. I find this relates a lot to fanfiction.net. There's a lot of gems in there that seem to hardly get any recognition or indication that others are reading.
• On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are "in my honest opinion" poorly written stories that contain a pointless amount of romance that get a boatload of reviews. Back when the X and Y series was out, any Amourshipping story on ff.net was guaranteed to have double digit reviews and subscribers within two weeks of publishing.

Now onto the actual part of feedback.

• I scratch my head when a review comes in that's basically like this: OMG!! I LUVE DIS PAIRING!1! UDPATE SOOZ!! This doesn't tell me anything. Just that you're one of those thirsty drooling mouth-breathers who piss themselves in excitement over your OTP. Give me more; tell me WHAT you liked about it. If it's the cliche romance part, then tell me so! I've found that any fic I've written having Ash in a pairing with one of his traveling companions will get this kind of thing.

Anyway, sorry if I sound hella salty. Just had to get this off my chest.

 

One thing I really hate is when the main villain is too cliché.