What is your least favorite part in writing/reading story? [Also, special announcement!]

For me, the worst thing about writing is something I'm sure everyone can relate to... Writer's block. It's that one moment when you write yourself into a corner and don't know how to get out of it. I hate when that happens...

As for reading, my one gripe with some written works are the characters' constant inner monologue, where one character is constantly deep in thought without progressing with the story at all. Twilight is the worst offender of this, and is why I stopped reading halfway through the first book. It bored me to tears.

 

The least favorite part of writing for me requires some context. When I write, I love just getting inspired and sitting for three hours writing that scene. I'm also a linear writer meaning, I write from start to finish with only a vague idea of future events. I do no brainstorming, I just sit and write the entire chapter in one or two sittings. Now when I tried to apply that to an original, epic story, everything fell apart. Now I'm gearing up for a new original, epic story and I'm forcing myself to brainstorm future ideas, concepts and plots. Now the thing I dislike about writing, being so inspired to write the story but holding myself back because I haven't built the world enough. Its so infuriating because I want to write it so bad but if I start, it will fall apart like the previous one. Its torturous!

I haven't done much in the way of reading because the one thing I dislike about reading is the eye strain/headache I get 15 minute after I started reading.

 

Pretty much what @SnowboundBecca said. Writer's block. It's crippling, dangerous and it sucks to try and get out of it. Sometimes I can escape in a jiffy while others I don't recover from. Sometimes making the content can be tedious too and it sticks out to me if something isn't described in the way I intend.

I'll talk about the length too. A Hui Hou Kakou now has an average of about 9k words per chapter and I can write it out in the span of a couple hours, but combine that with writer's block and it can take me a couple weeks to complete it. Even longer to proofread, adjust and fix fluency and all that.

Call me a grammar Nazi, but if the story's structure, spelling, punctuation and grammar aren't consistent, then I find it to be unreadable. Most of the time, I'll let a couple errors slide, but I don't want to have to make a huge effort in trying to discern what the author is telling.

 

I'm not the best in writing stories, but the worst part is that I have limited English knowledge. You might ask, what? I can type English fluently, but I can't for the life of me get a good grasp of it like I was born to be good at English. I have trouble using descriptive words that fit what my character is doing and that's why I tend to always use this format:

"I'm so sad right now, I can't even do it!" She said.

"Cheer up," he said as she patted her back, "you'll get better."

"It will never be fine," She said.

"Stop being so negative!" He said.

I can describe fine, but when I can't find the proper words, I just end up adding she/he said after a sentence. And frankly, that's not good for me. I'm a perfectionist too and I hate it when I find out that I've used too many she/he said for just one chapter. In short, my descriptive abilities for my characters are weak. Really weak.

 

The worst part for me is non-essential parts, just a little bit of light plot between bigger parts of the story. The heroes probably aren't 100% working on the primary mission, and it takes time to get from A to B. I don't like saying "and suddenly they were at their destination", and the bit of downtime between major events is a struggle for me. I just don't have a way to write the in-betweens. My most recent comparison is reading American Gods (again) recently, Gaiman was able to fill like half a chapter with Shadow walking around the House on the Rock with no character development or real plot progression, just scenery and some chatter. He could have just as easily brought Shadow and company directly to the carousel, but instead added in some really satisfying literature that he could have skipped as a storyteller. I want to be able to make that satisfying non-essential content (like dessert between courses of a meal), but it never escapes my fingers.

I have two recommendations that can help if you're talking about reading on a screen: you can try printing onto paper things you want to read (and recycle the paper when you're done), or go on screen using a dark interface. Dark gray background and very light gray text does wonders for me.

I have the same hangup, but I've heard people say (there it is again!) it's not worth worrying about. Say is a good all-purpose word. People say things a lot, and they said a lot of things, so it's okay to say say just as much. But I'm with you, I'd rather have my characters grumble or confess or breathe or accuse or shout or whisper or sigh or call or spit or cry or suggest or explain than just say over and over again. I guess it's just easier for someone born into this language.

 

I have the same problem as SyWry. I often have a start and finish, but no middle. I'm horrible at thinking ahead, so I usually just wing it and make stuff up as I go along. And you know, it does work sometimes. But other times it just leaves a lot of plot holes, so I have to find ways to cover up those plot holes, and then it creates more plot holes.

With my most recent story though, I have actually thought in advance, so I'm a little better... but I still have no actual conclusion. So I guess it's back to the drawing board-

 

Thanks for the suggestion but its not a computer reading, its a reading disability. So this happens in no matter what I'm reading.

 

I'm with Braviary - spelling and grammar are the surefire way to break me out of what could be a good read. If I have to pause to try and make sense of what someone did or said, then I'm not going to continue reading it because I can't enjoy something I can't understand.

One other thing is lack of character growth/development, and one reason why I dislike Fire Emblem Fates as much as I do. It was built up as this huge dilemma between two 'families' of the main character, but no one really grew or changed through the conflicts. Corrin never made any better decisions (that weren't influenced by Mary-A(Sue)ra), the royalty on either side don't really explore their weak points and learn to overcome them, and the retainers are little more than fluff with little in the way of motivation or growth (something that other FE games did much better). I don't care as much about level design (except when it builds on the lore presented by the text), enemy numbers and placement (give me a mook-rush for all I care; Warriors proves how fun that can be), and things like that; Fire Emblem is an RPG, so give me a great story, great characters, and character development!

 

I live this life every day. Every day as I'm riding my bus to school, I think of my fanfic, which I haven't put up a new chapter for in 5 DAMN MONTHS! Every time I get distracted, though. I REALLY need to get that thing out.

 

I always have trouble in the middle of stories. I can come up with the beginning and end just fine (though writing them can be a massive pain), but joining them together in a perfect, flowing middle? Yeah no, it's much easier said than done. I just come up with an incoherent mess of scenarios with no order to them and try and find a way to fit them into the narrative until I get bored of the story and give up. I'm actually trying to create a proper outline with the story I'm currently writing, but all it's made me realise is that I have almost nothing to fill in the actual story =_=

The worst part of reading for me is that horrible third-act misunderstanding that keeps happening in stories. The couple usually falls out for an easily avoidable reason just to create drama even though the reader knows that they'll end up together in the end, leading to needless moping before the climax. Just... Ugh, is it really necessary? I also hate reading the parts of a story where the protagonist suddenly loses all brain functionality and starts doing things that no sane person would do (oh yeah, just keep walking through that haunted house even though you know there's a serial killer inside it. Yes, of course the guy who's been telling you he loves you all this time has just gotten back together with his evil ex, etc, etc, etc).

 

Which is why I avoid rom-coms. Actually, 90% of movies in general...

 

I know, right? You'd think that writers would stop using that cliche after noticing that it's been done to death and nobody likes it, but it still keeps popping up everywhere.

 

I can relate with this, mainly because I can usually think of a strong start and a strong end, but the middle part is just... it's hard to think of, like, filler, I guess, so that the story would keep on moving forward from the start to the end. This is one of the problems I'm facing with literally all of my fanfics in general, heck, I even stopped writing Team Shadow for a while cause I have no idea how to connect stuff so that the story doesn't just abruptly end.

 

I feel like I've said this somewhere before, but for me it's that I type slower than I think. The actual writing part is so tedious, and there have been so many times when I've gone back to writing after taking a break for a while, only to read what I have done and think "Didn't I write more than this?"