Things you hate to read

[CassieQ]

I know something like this was posted a while ago, but I wanted to bring it up again.  There was a post was about things that readers skip/do not like to read.  I want to hear thoughts about that again, but specifically focused on content.  I don’t want to hear about who hates stories with bad grammar/typos and who can tolerate them if the story is good enough.  I want to know things in the story that turns readers off.  Love triangles, the chosen one, main character describing themselves in the mirror, etc.  Please place your reading grievances here, I am ready for them!

[northie]

These are just what I can think of now. They're from listening to books rather than reading but I don't think that changes anything really.

A token attempt at queer diversity which fails to disguise an utterly pedestrian (and predictable) story.

The use of 1st person, present tense. Some people can make it work; others can't. Either way, I'm not keen.

Unthinking overuse of common tropes: everyone's fit, handsome; they all live perfect, monied lives (except for the wrinkle needed for the plot); locations are rarely industrial or otherwise unphotogenic. It's nice sometimes, but I as a reader would like more variety. And that goes for the characters. Why is it assumed everyone's white? Novels set in London in the 2010s and 2020s and yet, somehow, there's no diversity?

Spending too much time in characters' heads. Yes, I like that connection but not at the expense of anything happening.

[Valkyrie]

I'm generally not a fan of mirror descriptions, although I have seen them done so they fit naturally in the story.  So I may roll my eyes, but not necessarily stop reading. 

Stories that get bogged down in detail. I don't need to know every single thing the person does in a day from waking up to going to sleep unless it moves the story forward or serves an actual purpose.  

I also can't stand it when children sound like adults.  A kindergartner shouldn't sound like your middle-aged best friend.  They're still learning language and have very limited life experience.  Teens don't generally use proper English or use vernacular from decades ago (unless the story is set in that particular decade, but I'm talking about stories set in the present). 

I'm sure there's more, but these are what I can think of off the top of my head.  

 

[mastershakeme]

17 hours ago, Valkyrie said:

 

I also can't stand it when children sound like adults.  A kindergartner shouldn't sound like your middle-aged best friend.  They're still learning language and have very limited life experience. 

 

I will say, it's hard to get children's voices to sound authentic. I know I've failed 😂

[BigBen]

Certain tropes regarding depictions of sex are vastly overused.  I've inveighed against them before, so will refrain from further venting on the subject.

One topic that never fails to make me grit my teeth Is when gay characters sit around congratulating one another on being indistinguishable from heterosexual manly men (except for that one difference, of course), and bemoaning the existence of the type of swishy gay men who gave rise to the stereotype.  I cringe when they go on to boast about not marching in the parade or wearing a rainbow pin.  It's easy to say okay, that's how that one character thinks, but when every character thinks that way. . . .

As far as narration goes, I find it extremely jarring and mentally unsettling when the ”I” changes from one person to another, even if the shift occurs at the beginning of a new chapter.

Moreover, while I can usually cope with a flashback or two, I get really antsy when the first one begins in the second paragraph.  And nested flashbacks usually make my head hurt badly enough that I can't continue reading.  Beginning in medias res is a technique as old as Homer, but his way off doing that was to carry the story far enough along to get us really interested in how the current situation came to be, before going back and filling in.

[Page Scrawler]

The "token gay" character

The mirror catalogue

Kids or teens who sound like adults

Every setting looks like a postcard

I agree with all of these, but I'd like to add my two cents worth: When all or most of the characters in a story are queer, and no parades or clubs are involved. The Insiders, by Mark Oshiro, is a good example. Three different queer kids take refuge in janitorial closets at their respective schools, only to find themselves brought together by the room's mysterious ability to warp time and space. The book is well-written, and I enjoyed the story, but what made me roll my eyes, was a scene where one boy comes out to his dad and grandmother. His grandmother then admits that she had a relationship with a woman, prior to meeting his grandfather. Is that really the only way that a parent or grandparent can accept their child? By being queer themselves, or having a queer friend/sibling?

Also, The Insiders has a school resource officer named Kwame Mbalia. I don't know if this was meant to be Mr. Oshiro's nod to a colleague, or if it was intended as a placeholder name that didn't get checked, but I find it annoying when authors write characters that are named after celebrities. Or when characters are loosely based on a more famous character or person.

[LJCC]

On 11/22/2021 at 7:54 AM, northie said:

Unthinking overuse of common tropes: everyone's fit, handsome; they all live perfect, monied lives (except for the wrinkle needed for the plot)

 

 

I think this thoroughly applies and is more acceptable for romantic-themed novels. Romance requires at least a dashing or pretty lead, unless, of course, the story of romance perpetuates a different outlook of looking average. But for dramatic stories, this is completely unessential. 
 

[Krista]

I am extremely picky with my reading. Some may wish I was just as picky with my writing...

I do not like overly sexed stories. I do not like overly hallmark-y stories. Others have mentioned my other two larger issues with reading. The mirror stare-down description of the main character. I would go farther to say - another character explaining the main character BACK to them... I kid you not, I read a story where the love interest went in length describing TO the Main character.. what the main character looked like. Not a perception thing, but right down to the eye color, nose shape, lip pout, height, pallor of their skin... come to think of it.. it might have been Twilight? *snickers*

Then the everyone is gay and everyone is accepting narrative. It doesn't read realistic when a friend group are all closeted, all decide to come out... and it is all rainbows all of a sudden. Sure, there can be more than one closeted gay person in a friend group.. but when you get to 4 out of 4.. and so on, you just get lost. Especially if it is a coming out story where the protagonist really had to struggle to come out.. and afterwards everyone and their mother were all secretly gay too. Others have touched on that as well.

I get twitchy when every "homophobe" or "villain" is religious as well. That is most certainly not the case and to see it depicted time and again gets old very quickly. Pick different ways the antagonist exists in your character's world. With that said, time period, culture, setting, and general geography may rely on the trope and overall arc. If it is done in a new sort of light that feels fresh, I'm alright with it.

The.. "You have to move away from home to be accepted.." trope. I do not like it. I feel that my upbringing and small-town sort of pride has a lot to do with that though. I will stop watching a show when a character visits home and turns their nose up at everyone still living there. Especially if it was just a select few people that made the character go through the personal hell and warranted them leaving the town in the first place. It is the whole town's fault, there is no value in that town anymore. It is completely backwards, etc. It is a very shallow and flawed way of thinking and to depict a character and a place in that way - it just reads lazy to me. You can bring a lot more life to a story if you can find "good" in a bad place.. and "bad" in a good one. 

The privileged whiner. You live in a 1,000.00 a month luxury apartment, but complain about the maid not spotting the smudge on your refrigerator's touch screen.. nah, I'll DNF that real quick.  With less cheek though, if the character is depicted as Rich, intelligent, young, hot, and hung for days, successful at work, and so on - then endlessly goes on these self-pitying woe is me monologs all the while overlooking their own flaws and wondering why a person no longer loves them, or the relationship failed, or a friend stops responding. I see this more in Television than I do in writing, but since writers are writing the stuff. It is fine if the character realizes how shallow and borderline narcissistic they are, but when they don't and it keeps going, you lose me.

The Golden Girls friend group: You have the Bitter Old Gay, the Minority Gay, the Ugly, but artsy Gay, the Slut Gay, the Jock Gay, and the Twink who so desperately wants to be part of the group... but can't be, just because. Throw in the very loud, bossy, and opinionated female best friend.. and you have yourself a Krista will DNF it story. Although, if done well and in a bit of a stereotypical and offensive sort of unapologetic way... I may read it.

The constant rollercoaster of injustice and abuse to the protagonist. Or, the protagonist will never catch a break or breath. There needs to be breaks in the clouds for me to stay with a story. There needs to be lulls in the danger, fear, trauma, ill-fated plans, villain victories, etc. Another theme other than the protagonist being a punching bag through the entire story.

And lastly, since it is newer for me: The Open Relationship, or the "monogamy is boring.." trope. I'm not saying the white picket fence, two dogs, and three children story should be the go to sort of plot. That gets old and stale too. What I am seeing though, is that perfectly healthy story lines, couples, and overall theme is being disrupted when one or both characters want to 'add' or 'see other people...' especially if it is in the later stages of the writing. If it is in the beginning, okay, but the reason needs to be more than just.. 'we've become stagnant and bored..."

Then the outcomes are most typically all the same. There's the.. "I thought I wanted this..." character, who after a certain amount of indulgence becomes depressed and wants things to go back to the way things were. Most usually it ends with the relationship ending as well. The, "New person becomes the only person..." story. Where the new person is so full of life, but breaks up the relationship because both become jealous and wanting the third person... and most usually, the new character will choose to either leave both behind for someone else - or they will pick the hotter of the original two, all the while the original two forget they ever loved one another first. And then the... well I'm jealous so I'm gonna kill you ending.

 

[LJCC]

Things I hate to read:

• Boring sex. When you're writing about two people shagging intimately, there should be a drastic pull in whichever direction you want your readers to experience. Sex + (anger, greed, melancholy, regret, and other emotions) is what makes the scene interesting. Even adulterated erotica has to make sense otherwise. If you're just writing smut—unless that's the intention—then I salute you. But to layer it in a long-winded story and then add smut in between is very jarring without any implication of why it's there is basic Literotica.

• Quote

  Aimee Bender's Quiet Please. I really loved the simplicity of this scene.

  It is quiet in the rest of the library.
  Inside the back room, the woman has crawled out from underneath the man. Now fuck me like a dog, she tells him. She grips a pillow in her fists and he breathes behind her, hot air down her back which is starting to sweat and slip on his stomach. She doesn't want him to see her face because it is blowing up inside, red and furious, and she's grimacing at the pale white wall which is cool when she puts her hand on it to help her push back into him, get his dick to fill up her body until there's nothing left of her inside: just dick.
   

   

   

  It's not even that graphic, yet you could feel the scene second by second. The amount of times I've been bored reading sex scenes is beyond me.

[James Carnarvon]

This is all very interesting. The mirror description thing - I've definitely been guilty of that. More than once. 🫣

My 'thing I hate to read' is sex. To be more specific:

• Sex in chapter one between characters who've only just met or discovered an attraction to each other. Umm, hello? Unless it's a story about a one night stand, can't we at least try to develop the dramatic storyline before skipping straight to the fleshy part?
• Sex in every chapter. So tedious to read about after a while.
• Needlessly detailed anatomical/mechanical description of sexual acts. What does it really add to a story? To me it says very little about a relationship.

So yeah, I don't go looking for sex-heavy stories. I'm more interested in what's going on in the wider lives of the characters. If that happens to include sex, fine, but spare me the detail. It's the emotional take-aways I'm interested in, not the physical grunting.

[Krista]

On 7/15/2023 at 11:06 PM, LJCC said:

Things I hate to read:

• Boring sex. When you're writing about two people shagging intimately, there should be a drastic pull in whichever direction you want your readers to experience. Sex + (anger, greed, melancholy, regret, and other emotions) is what makes the scene interesting. Even adulterated erotica has to make sense otherwise. If you're just writing smut—unless that's the intention—then I salute you. But to layer it in a long-winded story and then add smut in between is very jarring without any implication of why it's there is basic Literotica.

• It's not even that graphic, yet you could feel the scene second by second. The amount of times I've been bored reading sex scenes is beyond me.

I do think people go the "try hard.." route when they write sex scenes. They go into it thinking.. "my god this is so good it will get them off.." or.. they go into it thinking, "how can I make this hot...?" And I think the try hard mindset is easily read in the writing, because most usually there are a ton of words that do not belong. You know they added those words post edit when they've realized their epic sex scene was a baby paragraph or a quarter of a page and seemed more like premature ejaculation than anything else...  And, I love the writers that use every synonym for semen and penis all wrapped up into one scene as well. Love... It.  

I like my sex to be intertwined with other aspects. Clumsy, Tense: either through the characters reeling from something else and they come together from that. I've not written angry sex though, I've merely joked about it afterwards with a character set. I like dialog during, not a shopping list or something out of the ordinary, just something to break up all the sweat, grabbing, and grunting.

I will admit to writing sex scenes and completely jumping over sex scenes when I read for fun. I don't have a lot of motivation to read a sex scene in fiction. I don't even read my own past the re-reading/beta/editing phase, I'll never admit to being a good writer of the act, if anything I am guilty and need to slap my own wrist. I honestly don't like them in films either. It is just something I don't want to view/read or whatever. But, I will write it... it is a struggle for me to go fade to black, or exit stage left. 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Krista

[LJCC]

SO true. Sex scenes should be written in whatever context is required. It doesn't necessitate bodies to be humping and grinding for the sake of it being written as a way to get off: nifty's there for a reason. When I read an ok story, then suddenly am emboldened to read a very graphic sex scene JUST cause it's there, my writer's boner deflates and I'm left thinking, "Teenage sex isn't meant to be this wild," or "Alright. This is just plain rape."

I remember writing this sex scene as part of a short story I wrote (I rephrased some things) and my initial desire when writing it, "Do I want it to be lusty, sad, or angry?" and I ended up writing it as sweet.

Quote

His eyes closed, then abruptly opened, tears and perspiration flowing down into him. John shouts out his name, and in return, he comes at the same moment as he does. Under the straddles of his arm, his facial expression was one of joy mixed with frightened disbelief. After a moment—he has broken out into rapid, surprised laughter—he stares into his eyes and imagines that his spirit, without knowing the conditions and amalgamations of his being pressed onto his soul, has found the one man that has plucked his senses from obscurity and has abruptly violated the force of gravity that has ruled it. Wesley's soul, no longer a myth but now a truth, ascends above his body. Like a fawn with his jaunty legs unstable in their development, his spirit climbs and falls, scared by the heights and by what it sees. He held John's face, panting, and said, "I wasn't expecting it to feel warm and sticky."

"Oh yes, it is," said John, crushing down on his chest and falling haplessly under the ridge of his scruff and the warm pull of his nestling. "I tried so hard to last, but you were squeezing me."

He grabbed his husband's peen and ordered, "This is mine now, you understand?"

And John, whittled from the exhausts of lust and adoration, calmly said, "Just tell me you married me for my dick. I won't take it against you."

"I married you for money. In exchange, you married a 30-year-old virgin from the slums. How's that?"

"Perfect. May I request to devirginize you again, my darling? I'm still hard."

"Certainly," said Wesley, now accustomed to the satisfactions of married life. "But first, I'm hungry."

 

 

I'd love to think this was sentimental, not overly gratuitous, but has a romantic feel to it.

If I had cucked it up by turning it into 650 shades of greyed, grim, and brewed, then I'd have lost the meaning of the scene.

I feel like some people generally write sex scenes as overly descriptive.

The thing is, if you want people to get off, describe the motion of the ocean.

If you want to excise the true nature of the scene in relation to the sex scene happening in the background, talk about their feelings and whatnots.

I remember reading this story that was so horribly descriptive that the writer was describing the penis as "meatstick on steroid."

It was a nice allegory, though, for boning a guy. 

[CasualWanderer82]

"First person" writing style. Basic plots. No character development. No conflict. If it checks any of these boxes, I'm usually out.

[ReaderPaul]

On 11/21/2021 at 6:19 PM, Valkyrie said:

I'm generally not a fan of mirror descriptions, although I have seen them done so they fit naturally in the story.  So I may roll my eyes, but not necessarily stop reading. 

Stories that get bogged down in detail. I don't need to know every single thing the person does in a day from waking up to going to sleep unless it moves the story forward or serves an actual purpose.  

I also can't stand it when children sound like adults.  A kindergartner shouldn't sound like your middle-aged best friend.  They're still learning language and have very limited life experience.  Teens don't generally use proper English or use vernacular from decades ago (unless the story is set in that particular decade, but I'm talking about stories set in the present). 
 

On 7/13/2023 at 1:45 AM, Krista said:

    I get twitchy when every "homophobe" or "villain" is religious as well.  That is most certainly not the case and to see it depicted time and again gets old very quickly.  Pick different ways the antagonist exists in your character's world.  With that said, time period, culture, setting, and general geography may rely on the trope and overall arc.  If it is done in a new sort of light that feels fresh, I'm alright with it.

I think @Valkyrie and @Krista have expressed some of my frustrations.  

On children sounding like adults:  I used to work in a museum for almost ten years, and I saw the full range of children.  I especially saw bratty teens who needed basic manners a three-year-old should have already mastered.  I saw one five year old boy who talked with a better vocabulary than the majority of college educated adults.  When his grandparents wanted to stop looking in the museum, and go to the gift shop, he said -- "No, please!  I don't want to got to the gift shop!  I want to stay in the museum and keep learning!"  In another location, we sometimes associated with two highly educated persons raising their 7-year-old grandson.  Said grandson again had an extremely large vocabulary, wonderful manners, and a slightly shy personality.

But most children are NOT like that.  

Krista is right.  Not all homophobes and transphobes are religious nuts.    I have only seen one author (not on GA) who has really addressed this in his writing in more than a casual way.

As more than one has mentioned, there can be too much sexual interaction.  After a bit, it starts bogging the story down.  If the couple has known each other for 30 or forty chapters, and they have their first overt sexual interaction, that is one thing.  But the third paragraph of the first chapter?  There had better be a REALLY good reason.

Something that gets me?  Major inconsistencies.  If a character is "John" in the first paragraph, and suddenly is Herbert in the middle of the story with not a good explanation, and then is Ralph in the next chapter, while his sister goes from Carolyn to Elmeretta in two chapters -- the author is probably going to lose me.

Edited July 22, 2023 by ReaderPaul

[lawfulneutralmage]

On 7/20/2023 at 11:39 AM, CasualWanderer82 said:

"First person" writing style. Basic plots. No character development. No conflict. If it checks any of these boxes, I'm usually out.

Might I ask what you so dislike about the first person style?

[LJCC]

4 minutes ago, lawfulneutralmage said:

Might I ask what you so dislike about the first person style?

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not the original poster, but I'd like to answer on my behalf since I also feel the same way.

In 1st person POV, the reader is not informed of events that take place when the protagonist is absent or that affect characters other than the protagonist's inner thoughts and feelings, which makes first-person narrative difficult to read. The reader also isn't able to notice anything that the protagonist cannot. If the protagonist is unaware of anything, then neither is the reader.

There are fewer restrictions on the author while writing in the third person, especially in the third person omniscient. Because of this, the third person is more prevalent and is better suited to a larger variety of stories. But the first person is intimate—very intimate, like a friend holding your hand and guiding you through every room in the house. 

Given these conditions, it's very easy to NOT HAVE a voice when writing 1st POV stories. And the THE VOICE is what makes the 1st Pov distinct from the 3rd person POV.

Here's a shite example I wrote:

3rd POV:

• Ryan walked to the library and felt he was being followed. Eyes, he knew, were following his every step. They followed him wherever he went. Minutes more, and he would've gone crazy.

  Hiding behind a bush was his best friend, Allan, waiting to surprise him. He chuckled inwardly, holding his mouth from all the laughter his stupid tricks would do his friend in.

  Ryan shouted, "For the love of God, come out already!"

1st POV:

• I walked to the library while being followed. EYES! They were everywhere! I took every step with every breath; they followed me wherever I went. A few minutes more, and I would've gone crazy. The splitting wind swished the leaves of a nearby bush; I was sure someone was behind me. Was it crazy to think I was being followed home? My paranoia was soon to set in. But Jesus Christ, for the love of God! Come out already! No one did, so I walked faster. I'm not that stupid to let myself get killed.

The defining trait of first-person POV's is the character's voice. In the first few sentences, if you as a reader can't envision who the narrator is, it usually spells trouble that the story is boring AF.

That's why it's very hard to read 1st person stories that are badly written. The first paragraph usually helps me to drop the book or not.

 

 

 

 

 

[lawfulneutralmage]

Excellent and very educative answer! Thank you!

[CasualWanderer82]

1 hour ago, lawfulneutralmage said:

Might I ask what you so dislike about the first person style?

It's just a personal preference. I believe, as both a reader and a writer, that the narrator (by definition an extension of the author) should exist outside the narrative, therefore capable of inhabiting any character at any given time. Emotional, visual descriptions also work better in the third person. First person is too constraining for me. Too "dear diary." Third person style conveys more freedom, allowing the reader to interpret the world through his own eyes, not a character's.

[CassieQ]

3 hours ago, LJCC said:

I'm not the original poster, but I'd like to answer on my behalf since I also feel the same way.

In 1st person POV, the reader is not informed of events that take place when the protagonist is absent or that affect characters other than the protagonist's inner thoughts and feelings, which makes first-person narrative difficult to read. The reader also isn't able to notice anything that the protagonist cannot. If the protagonist is unaware of anything, then neither is the reader.

There are fewer restrictions on the author while writing in the third person, especially in the third person omniscient. Because of this, the third person is more prevalent and is better suited to a larger variety of stories. But the first person is intimate—very intimate, like a friend holding your hand and guiding you through every room in the house. 

Given these conditions, it's very easy to NOT HAVE a voice when writing 1st POV stories. And the THE VOICE is what makes the 1st Pov distinct from the 3rd person POV.

Here's a shite example I wrote:

3rd POV:

• Ryan walked to the library and felt he was being followed. Eyes, he knew, were following his every step. They followed him wherever he went. Minutes more, and he would've gone crazy.

  Hiding behind a bush was his best friend, Allan, waiting to surprise him. He chuckled inwardly, holding his mouth from all the laughter his stupid tricks would do his friend in.

  Ryan shouted, "For the love of God, come out already!"

1st POV:

• I walked to the library while being followed. EYES! They were everywhere! I took every step with every breath; they followed me wherever I went. A few minutes more, and I would've gone crazy. The splitting wind swished the leaves of a nearby bush; I was sure someone was behind me. Was it crazy to think I was being followed home? My paranoia was soon to set in. But Jesus Christ, for the love of God! Come out already! No one did, so I walked faster. I'm not that stupid to let myself get killed.

The defining trait of first-person POV's is the character's voice. In the first few sentences, if you as a reader can't envision who the narrator is, it usually spells trouble that the story is boring AF.

That's why it's very hard to read 1st person stories that are badly written. The first paragraph usually helps me to drop the book or not.

 

 

 

 

 

I think the last point, about whether or not it is poorly written, matters a whole lot.  Susanne Collins wrote the entire Hunger Games series from first person POV and with great success.  

[Mikiesboy]

You need to decide if writing in 1st Person is right for the story you want to tell.  It can be very successful if done properly. I write in 1st and 3rd depending on what I want to convey.

You need to show things when writing in 1st, not tell.  More dialogue and less description is usually how it works for me. That way, we know what other characters are thinking .. of course, they could be lying through their teeth. But that's part of the story.

Don't listen to people who say writing in 1st is lazy or for the untalented because it is simply not true.

I've started things in one POV and decided the story was better told in another. 

Use your writer's toolbox. Write a sample. Go on when you're happy.

Write bravely.

 

[Krista]

First person requires fleshing out, you need to have your character immersed in their world. That means all the senses: touch, taste, hearing, etc. One of the biggest knocks against 1st Person is that it doesn't feel like the character is in the world that has been created. They are just merely talking heads telling a story. Dialog is key, as others have said. You need it to carry the story as well as it is a large part of the writing that gains you information and allows for the theme and arcs to grow. Characters and overall theme are just as important, don't put all the weight on the protagonist's shoulders - they will never be able to carry it alone.

If you find yourself with the inability to immerse yourself with the character and the character's world around them, it probably isn't the perspective, but the writing itself. 

[Libby Drew]

I prefer to read and write in either 3rd limited or 1st person. I will usually avoid reading stories in 3rd person omniscient -- and will never write one. Jumping from one character's head to another can be dizzying and distracting. It can be the lazy way to develop characters, plots and scenes. Fleshing out the narrative from a single POV, whether that be 3rd or 1st person, will almost always result in a richer, more provocative scene -- and story. 

[JamesSavik]

Just don't bore me. I'm not sure how to define boring, but I know it when I see it.

 

[CassieQ]

On 7/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, CasualWanderer82 said:

It's just a personal preference. I believe, as both a reader and a writer, that the narrator (by definition an extension of the author) should exist outside the narrative, therefore capable of inhabiting any character at any given time. Emotional, visual descriptions also work better in the third person. First person is too constraining for me. Too "dear diary." Third person style conveys more freedom, allowing the reader to interpret the world through his own eyes, not a character's.

It's a genre thing too.  If the story has an unreliable narrator that smudges the lens through which events happen, first person is almost a necessity.  I also recently read a book from multiple first person POVs which was done extremely well.   There was a brutal and visceral scene involving a coup, told from the POV of one of the ruling government parties that I think would have been much less impactful from an outside perspective.  First person done well is effective,  handled carelessly and it can be a disasater.

[Krista]

A PoV swap that's cohesive to the writing and story would be an interesting read.