What are your pet peeves as a reader?

[Toby Johnson]

when a writer compares something in the book to something from the real world. 'his teeth were like corn flakes'. this just annoys me as i see it as lazy writing in fantasy. compare it to something that you put more than two seconds of thought into.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

I still don't think I'd put the book down because of that, but gosh golly it was annoying. Woof.

he barked.

 

[Josh2Write]

What are your pet peeves when reading a novel? What are some of the bad storytelling (or writing) practices that irk you the most?

1: Over-describing things that aren't important to the story. Too much detail on objects or moments can feel like the writer is just trying to win an award for stuffing in as many fancy words as possible instead of actually telling a story.

2: Crap dialog. I find myself rewording scenes as I'm reading to make them sound more real because, again, the writer isn't thinking about how it sounds when actually spoken. Why do you think the film adaptations feel so wrong? Because the words suck on page, because no one took the time to really think about how it really sounds. Readers shouldn't be the editors of books that are already published. Crap or cringe or boring dialog kills the pace because we're the ones slogging through it.

3: When it feels like the writer is trying to manipulate the reader into feeling and believing whatever message they're trying to convey. If it's the truth the message will reveal itself. If it's a personal option or agenda it will ALWAYS feel forced, like you're being drugged as you read, as the lies seep into your subconscious. It's a dirty trick.

4: Using events that are clearly from our present world, like political or economical, that feel like they just took they right off a news channel and didn't even bother to mold them to fit the story, just their own options or to address an issue (see #3). No one wants to read fantasy about current events, we read fantasy to escape our world and its crap.

5: Writing like these other worlds are exactly like ours. If there really were or are alien worlds or fantasy kingdoms they are ruled over by beings who couldn't care less of our options.

6: Speculative Fiction. Just call it what it really is - rewriting moments in history to make a small group of people (of any color, race, or creed) feel better about something that really happened in the past that they can't do a thing to change. All it does is stir up hate through imagery situations.

I have other peeves, but this is all I can think of right now

 

[xena]

I don’t like it when authors repeat certain phrases too much. It gets annoying. Also, I don’t like when books that have been adapted to movies get their covers changed to feature the actors or scenes from the adaptation.