MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC #47

[Comicality]

Have you ever read a story that was written as a series that you really lked until someting went horribly wrong? Where everything was going GREAT for a few well written chapters....and then....ARGHHHH!!!! What happened? Is that not the most frustrating thing in the world? Hehehe! This week's question is...

 

=What completely RUINS a story for you in terms of content and plot twists?=

 

What is it that suddenly takes a story you like with characters you love...and turns into a heap of garbage right in front of your eyes, where you have to stop reading it altogether? Is it the sudden 'forced' sex scenes? Is it the random introduction of whips, chains, sex toys, and spankings? Is it the death of a beloved character? Is it the long wait between chapters? Is it boredom from a lack of ideas beyond a certain point? Or maybe nothing is moving and you get bored right away? Whatever it is that turns you off and makes you stop reading a story...let us know! The writers want to know, and the readers want to relate! So give u your thoughts folks!

 

The board is open!

[Strangersagain]

The only way to kill a good story is when the writer forces out chapter after chapter with no real direction or purpose. Not only does the story suffer but usually the quality of writing too.

[Taima Matsumushi]

The single biggest factor that can ruin a story for me is the forced gratuitous sex scene. I've read upwards of seven stories at this point which I have loved from chapter 1 through chapter 5-7... and then it happens. You know what "it" I mean. In what feels like a spontaneous need for the author to jack off, either two of the characters have a chapter-long f**k or the obnoxiously underage main character suddenly finds it necessary to tell the reader every single detail of his (often "first") masturbation. This is annoying (and creepy) enough in first person, but in third person, it gets downright disgusting.

 

Here's a tip for the authors of many of these stories: If you find yourself using the word "young" in every description of your characters' bodies, you should probably see to it that your story represents your only contact with adolescent boys. Keep in mind that kids talking in first person never refer to themselves or their body parts as "young" "supple" or "boyish". If you want to continue to present the illusion that you're writing your story for reasons other than jacking off, you would do well to remember that.

 

Sorry if I went off on a rant, but I've had too many otherwise good stories ruined for me by a completely unnecessary sex scene that reveals more about the author's sexual fantasies than about the characters' relationships to one another.

[lagomorph]

Something I really hate is when an author makes practically every character in the story gay. I've seen this happen so many times. At first it's just the main character, and then his love interest, and then a brother, an uncle, the milkman, and 5 different friends. I mean, come on. Unless there's something in the water in these towns, there have to be some straight people too! Something else, although this usually happens right at the beginning, is a long, involved descrption of body parts. How many inches long and wide, yada yada. In an otherwise good story, that just bugs me for some reason. Like before we can find out about someone's personality or even age, we must know the penis size. Finally, some people just don't know when to quit. After 27 chapters of bliss, suddenly one of the main characters has to move away or something. I mean, it's a little late for the conflict, don't ya think?

[Mark Arbour]

What a great question! For me, what really ruins it is when the primary character is too perfect. You know the type. Every time a situation comes up they handle it perfectly, no challenge is beyond them, they always have just the right answer. Real life isn't like that. The star needs to have some flaws, some angst...not enough that you don't like them, but enough to make him interesting.

[reapersharvest]

I read a story once which felt the need for some reason to list all the characters and their "stats" at the very beginning of the story. That was irritating for several reasons; A. I came for a story, not the personals section and B. it made the characters so dificult to keep track of. Another tip: cramming all the exposition in the very beginning is a very sure way to bore readers, try peppering it throughout as it becomes relevant. I prefer leaping right into the dialogue or a specific moment.

[Mark Arbour]

I read a story once which felt the need for some reason to list all the characters and their "stats" at the very beginning of the story.  That was irritating for several reasons; A. I came for a story, not the personals section and B. it made the characters so dificult to keep track of.  Another tip: cramming all the exposition in the very beginning is a very sure way to bore readers, try peppering it throughout as it becomes relevant.  I prefer leaping right into the dialogue or a specific moment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Great point Reaper!

 

You mean that instead of : "Jason was a cute boy, about 13, with muscles that were just beginning to become those of a man. He had long brown hair, green eyes, and a big dick."

 

This: "His green eyes filled with terror as Jeremy grabbed his long hair, pulling his head back as he plunged the knife into his stomach, past his still developing six-pack."

 

 

[Comicality]

There are a lot of elements that can really ruin a story for me while I'm reading actually. And it's not so much a grammar and spelling issue either (unless it's so bad that it becomes unreadable). But you guys touched on a lot of them in your replies. Sex just for the sake of sex, where it seems rushed or unreal. There have been a LOT of really cute boys sleeping over at my house when I was younger, and it was never as easy as saying, "Wanna suck me?" followed by "Ok?" There was at least a LITTLE fear, or a LITTLE conflict. I was a lot braver than I am now, hehehe, but it's not like I was courageous enough to invite the cutest boy in school to my house and strip down naked without any problems.

 

I also agree with the 'descriptions' at the beginning of chapters. There are clever ways of getting around that sort of static and mechanical display of data for each character. It can be a challenge to figure out other ways of doing it, especially if you write more than one story. But writing in itself SHOULD be a challenge. It can be done. With a more poetic description, or through dialog, or by looking in a mirror, or whatever. It can be done though. And not all at once. A little information spread out throughout a chapter, or even a series of chapters, can be much more enjoyable to read.

 

I also turn away from complete changes in plot and feel of a story. You've got three or four chapters of teens falling in love and getting closer to one another...and then all of the sudden there's a menton of enemas and chains and a fetish for leather thrown into the mix. Or they have sex for the first time and there's urination and scat porn and sex toys that seem to come out of nowhere. Anytime the plot goes from 0 to 60 in a matter of paragraphs without much rhyme or reason, that's usually a cue for me to find another series to read. So if you see a story that goes from witty dialog and shy giggles....to dog collars and kids shitting in the bathtub...RUN! Ahhhhh!

 

Also, the big 'slut' factor can ruin a story for me too. The whole thing about boys having sex for the first time, and then a week later are going to find old guys to blow in a public restroom kinda...I dunno....it doesn't thrill me. Personally, I think the emotional idea of sex is more potent than the whole faceless stranger aspect of it. But maybe that's just me.

 

What else? Hmmm...oh, useless details also aren't my things. Like you guys mentioned super descriptions of a penis and all. Nah, I don't need all of that. I now what a penis looks like. Cut or uncut is about the only description I really keep in mind when I'm reading anyway. And the whole, "I'm 12 but have a 9 inch cock" thing? That's not really my bag either.

 

And too much talking also! It's cool to have the characters express their love for each other. I think that's awesome. But sometimes it goes on for soooooo long that it starts to get boring. Sex talk as well. Talking dirty? Ok, that's cool. But sometimes I've seen stories take it so over the top that it's almost comical.

 

Basically, the point is, there's a balance in everything when somebody is writing a story, and sometimes when that balance gets lost it spirals out of control. Thanks you guys for being so vocal on this topic. ((Hugz))

[reapersharvest]

Good point about dirty talk. It sounds sooo stupid out of context, so it requires a lot of sexual build up for it to work in the story with making the reader cringe.

[ysd]

What ruins a story?

 

Love. Out. Of. Nowhere.

 

It drives me crazy. I realise that young men and women fall in love easily but it's hardly a one conversation deal.

 

"Hi. I'm Brad."

 

"I'm Stevie."

 

"I love you Brad."

 

*makes an angry face*

 

When I had my first boyfriend around fifteen not only did it take me a while to understand what I was feeling was really love (and puppy love at that), I was also terrified to say it. It was huge.

 

That really ruins a story for me.

[leledoct]

There is another thing that hasn't been discussed yet. This is a major thing for me, as I'm italian, so English is not my mother tongue.

Sometimes it happens that an author becomes so caught up with the plot, that he changes his style, his way of writing.

Readability is very important for me, as I have to put up a double effort to read a story: following the plot, and mentally translating it while I'm reading, because I'm still not so versed in English to be able to think directly in English words, I still have to translate each and every sentence to be able to mentally picture every character and situation.

Sometimes it happens. You start to read a story that flows through your brain effortlessly, you fall in love with the characters, and then it happens. Reading becomes a real challenge. It gives you a headache. For two totally different reasons.

One. The style becomes too much simple. I'm speaking here from an italian point of view: italian language has something like about half a million of different words. We're used to name each thing with its name. If the author's style becomes something like "That dude did that thing with the other thing", I have some problem to figure out what exactly the author is meaning, as English language is known to have completely different meanings associated with the same word, and only the context of the sentence is the key to pinpoint the exact meaning of the word. With the italian language, we're not used to this. Almost everything has it's own different name. So, too few words is bad.

Two. Italian language has something like about half a million of different words, but we don't use all of them. So, if the author becames too self-aware of his deftness with lexis and the development of the plot becomes more a stylistic performance than anything else, with a new and different word for every line of text, the result is that I have to spend more time on the dictionary than on the story, and that's another headache. So, too many words is bad.

Also, if the sequence of tenses is wrong, or if there are too many grammatical mistakes, that also doesn't help the mental translation, and the flowing of the reading.

And that's it. This is my bit. For me it's disturbing the kind of change of the writing style, that slows down the reading too much.

Maybe that's not so relevant for and English-language born reader, but if you have to translate each and every sentence while you're reading... you come to like authors that have the right ideas, and they express them in the right way, with a writing that's easy to read: accurate, not too poor and not to sophisticated.

And that's another form of balance.

Edited May 13, 2005 by leledoct

[reapersharvest]

Yeah, English is a totally messed up language. My mother spent a yearabroad in Rome while at Skidmore, and never fails to compare the two cultures, so this is nothing new to me.

[GofG]

Something I really hate is when an author makes practically every character in the story gay. I've seen this happen so many times. At first it's just the main character, and then his love interest, and then a brother, an uncle, the milkman, and 5 different friends. I mean, come on. Unless there's something in the water in these towns, there have to be some straight people too!

 

Yeah... Actually, Com, that was my only problem with GFD. Just a bit of constructive critisism.

[reapersharvest]

Something I really hate is when an author makes practically every character in the story gay. I've seen this happen so many times. At first it's just the main character, and then his love interest, and then a brother, an uncle, the milkman, and 5 different friends. I mean, come on. Unless there's something in the water in these towns, there have to be some straight people too!

 

Yeah... Actually, Com, that was my only problem with GFD. Just a bit of constructive critisism.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

True, but GFD pulls it off well. I found that to be more th ecase in "never Again" where I found myself thinking "Wow, this High School sure has a happening gay scene considering they're all nuerotic closet-cases" Don't get me wrong, it was one of my favorite stories, but it did tend to switch modes in that respect.

[reapersharvest]

Something I really hate is when an author makes practically every character in the story gay. I've seen this happen so many times. At first it's just the main character, and then his love interest, and then a brother, an uncle, the milkman, and 5 different friends. I mean, come on. Unless there's something in the water in these towns, there have to be some straight people too!

 

Yeah... Actually, Com, that was my only problem with GFD. Just a bit of constructive critisism.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

True, but GFD pulls it off well. I found that to be more the case in "never Again" where I found myself thinking "Wow, this High School sure has a happening gay scene considering they're all nuerotic closet-cases" Don't get me wrong, it was one of my favorite stories, but it did tend to switch modes in that respect.

[Comicality]

Actually, and I'm not sureif it's made really clear in the story itself, but in "GFD"...only half of the lot's members are gay or bi. There are three couples (Justin and Taryn, Trevor and Michael, and Dion and Dylan), and the rest are all straight. Kid, Max, Bryson, Jenna, Gyro, Jun, and Rain, all remain heterosexual. But I know what you mean though.

 

I try not to add TOO many gay characters into a series if I can help it (Except for "New Kid", which got a lot of new characters because I combined three stories into one and then added Sean and Cody later on), because that would bother me too. So I'll keep an eye on that! Cool? Thanks!

[JamesSavik]

What runs a good story off the rails?

 

Actually, I think there a variety of things that can do it.

 

There's a story that runs on another site that after 40 something chapters, the hero finally hooks up with his true love, goes to the prom and then JOINS THE FRIGGIN ARMY. Ok- so I hate the military. But it had nothing to do with the story or its quality- IT WAS ME.

 

In another story that LOTS of people fussed about a much loved couple showed signs of breaking up. AGAIN- it wasn't the quality of the story, it was the emotional investment of the reader. You come to love the characters and hope for the best for them and then a little thing like REALITY that comes along and takes a great big stinky dump on the fantasy.

 

In another story that broke my heart, after many chapters and much angst, the perfect couple broke up. I don't have to read fiction to get sad, hell I'll just think about my own love life.

 

Well- if you get my drift here SOMETIMES it's not the story than ran off the rails, the reader just didn't like what happened. This is NOT the authors fault and the reader has to realize that every story just ain't going to turn out all hunkie-dorie.

 

 

 

A lot of authors don't do themselves any favors by cranking out chapters when they are just plain lacking inspiration. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I felt like if I didn't get out a chapter a week, my readers would be off to the next truck-driver romance they could find. NOPE. Wasn't the case. They are much happier to wait a while for quality than have something that isn't ready or is just plain uninspired foisted off on them.

[reapersharvest]

In one story I read, half of it was all the sexual tension between roomates "is he or isn;t he?" It was great, I was right there with them, and I felt their anxiety right up until they finally got together. Anyway, halfway through, they hit problems and breakup and then the main charatcer moves, fine. Then he slept with his longtime best friend who always had a crush on him. You think you know where this is going, right? No. The best friend goes off as well, geting a boyfriend. Then, the main character finds a boyfriend at some bar and they fall in love, less ok. But there was none of the emotion in the writing that there was for the other two, I just didn't feel for this couple. I felt it was an anti-climactic ending to the series.

[Mark Arbour]

OK, I'm feeling kind of pissy tonight, so I'm going to vent about two other things that really bug me. I hate dialogue that just doesn't fit the character's age. "Of course I would like to go the mall with you John, but I'm feeling like I just can't express my inner self adequately and thus I won't be emitting my true person," said Steve, a plucky 13 year old boy. Sometimes I read these stories and I'm thinking that even though the author may be 40, the character isn't.

 

The other thing that bugs me is when guys are built up to be pretty masculine, but then they're given feminine traits. They need to "talk" about everything all the time. If they're not verbally communicating constantly, something is wrong. Average guys don't need that much verbal communication. I feel like I'm reading a story about chicks with penises.

[lagomorph]

There's a story that runs on another site that after 40 something chapters, the hero finally hooks up with his true love, goes to the prom and then JOINS THE FRIGGIN ARMY.

Edited May 26, 2005 by lagomorph

[Jay]

I know exactly which story you're talking about, and I had the same reaction. I had been following that story for so long, and I stayed up really late to read the last chapter and then-what?! I must have ranted and raved for a half hour. But I think you're right that it didn't hurt the quality of the story, exactly. It was just that I was being a baby about it.  I'd been lulled into thinking that all stories had a happy ending, but this one was actually realistic. And now that I'm over it, I realize that it must take a lot of guts to risk pissing off your readers like that. I wonder how many writers give in to that pressure and don't write the story they really wanted to tell.

 

Val

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oh, he's done it before and taken flack for it but he is quite a good writer. Having seen some of his comments about his writing this one ended just as thought it would.