I am sure But they should make darn sure that the series is well written in all particulars, then, and only then, do I not condemn cliffhangers!
I don´t mind cliffhangers but thats probably because I am usually so late with trends that once I start a series it´s often years after everyone else read it and the next book is already available. The same with movies though and TV shows. If you end on a cliffhanger and then the reader or viewer has to wait a year or two for the next instalment you have really taken the excitement out of the cliffhanger.
And it does sometimes happen that the reader is simply left in the lurch, sadly. Anyone who invested time in David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr novels knows this too well. We were promised 7 books, of which 4 actually exist, the last having been published in 1993. It's now 2016. We've been left hanging. Damned good books, but the story is clearly unfinished, un-wrapped up, unresolved... And worse, Amazon has had the listing for the hoped-for 5th book, A Method for Madness, showing for about 5-ish years now. It doesn't have to be 7 books, David! Just one more to close the story, to wrap it up. As it is it feels... amputated.
I've just read a novel with a cliffhanger at the end. I'm not impressed and am even less likely to buy any sequel than I was before.
You have ten pages, intrigue me. Lulls in the middle of longer novels. Angelmass by Timothy Zahn is one of these. You have a really long story and the middle from about page 100-150 till the final few chapters, are really uneventful and boring. It is like saying: Hey I know what the reader will appreciate. A good beginning, and then a long drawn out story that is simply there to fill in a wide gap. This really bugs me to no end, and does not want me to finish what is written due to this sharp decline in captivation from where it began. Spending a page+ on describing on detail in a setting, or of a character. Thou shalt deserve to be stripped of thy fingers, in the most horrific fashion possible. We get the bloody grass is freaking green! Now move on, or we will ban green from the list of things you can describe in the next book. You have been warned. Using an expansive vocabulary for characters that, no one would believe they would use if they were real. This also applies to narration where the premise and story are not as sophisticated as the believe themselves to be. (Angrily pointing at that ridiculous trilogy we all so love to hate. Try one shade of grey you ass!) I agree with others on cliff hangers. Though for standalone books, they need to have a damn good ending to pull this off. Otherwise the ending just sucks. As for series, they should be just about back to back. None of this random nonsense of confusing me, by not telling me you decided the sequel was picking up several months/years later in some random location. Pick up where the first left off you pricks. Speaking of endings. Why are some so disappointing? Clearly you had the ability to tell a good story with all the elements, but what happened to the end? It was not satisfying in the least. Lastly, who in the hell edits some of these modern works? How many spelling errors are allowed? How many extra words that are not needed in the sentence, but in fact leave it making less sense by being there? You should be ashamed of calling yourself a professional editor, seeing as it is your job to catch such things. ID10T syndrome much (reference The Star Wars Help Desk on youtube to understand this one). These are my nitpicks when it comes to books.
Hmm - I'll read just about anything as long as it doesn't bore me. But I do get disappointed when authors include political views just to get a dig at the opposition rather than exploring things in a more open ended way. I'm not a fan of too cute characters - husbands that make sly sex jokes, foxy moms, adorable kids. Reminds me of t.v.land though most readers find it believable. I often find myself however as a writer falling into that same trap and think why? Why am I being so generic? Too slow starts with no hint of what the book will be about. Too much familiarity a.k.a trope city - familiar dialogue, characters I've seen a thousand times before, recycled dialogue, predictable. First person present tense - especially when the mc is a major idiot/unlikable and complains about their life all the time.
This again can be about movies, tv shows or novels. When the writer is stretching the story beyond its natural end. unnecessary sequels mainly but also if you start a story with a bang you need to be careful because then you end up having to provide bigger and bigger bangs until its not believable any more. The characters end up in such extreme unlikely situations regardless of the genre that what was once a good story just becomes absurd. Equally if the character development was too steep throughout, the character at the end of a too long series might have little or no resemblance to the character they were in the beginning. If one is going to write a series whether its novels, tv or movies a writer needs to master the art of the slow burn. You need to be able to give the reader enough meat to capture attention but not so much that you can´t deliver further on in the series.
Political/social commentary thinly disguised as fiction. Even when I agree with the author's perspective, I don't want to read it in a story. I guess there are authors who are able to pull this off (Orwell, Vonnegut, etc.) but most of the time it's just annoying. Characters doing things for the sake of the plot, rather than because it's what they'd actually do according to the characterization the author has developed. Like, we need more conflict, so Character X freaks out and gets angry, even though he's been really calm and reasonable up to that point. Very frustrating. And alpha-hole heroes in romances. There's nothing sexy or romantic about some asshole ignoring his love interest's decisions or opinions. It's just pre-abusive bullshit.
If it's first person present tense, I see your point. But if it's past tense, wouldn't that imply that the teller is remembering what happened rather than telling it as it happens? Of course, if the narrator dies in the end, that just spoils the illusion altogether.
I know what you mean. It's like the old cliché of threatening to blow up the White House or kill the president. How many dozens of times more will that story be told before it's considering done to death? Or when Americans save the world because no one else is brave enough, smart enough or has the right gear... or the aliens just happened to land here instead of somewhere else in this vast world.
If the narrator is telling me the story after it has all happened... Holy shit they have an eidetic memory. Have you ever told anyone an incredible story of what happened to you and relayed every single damn detail, like "I walked over to the door" or "I blinked" or "I reached for the coffee"? I know a lot of people love FP because they feel more immersed. I feel the complete opposite. It really annoys me that I find FP so implausible. I don't get to feel that powerful connection to the narrator that other people say they feel. I'm aware of the benefits of the style and I would never advise a writer against choosing it. I simply find the style personally difficult to embrace. Unless it's an autobiography.
Some of my main pet peeves revolve around when the author does things to raise the suspense level that aren't properly set up, or make the story feel just a little bit unrealistic. Particularly when well established authors do this. Mostly I'm talking about Deus Ex Machina, and heroes who keep going to the hospital over and over again. Examples (contain some spoilers for various things) In Mistborn, at the end of The Final Empire, Vin draws upon the power of the mists to defeat The Lord Ruler. As much as Sanderson does a good job of explaining his magic systems, I don't like that the crucial card Vin plays in the battle wasn't well set up. This was mainly to make the ending more dramatic, he's stated, although I think it still feels a bit contrived. In the third Hunger Games book, Catnis seems to end up hospitalized just a few too many times. It seems she can't go out in the field without coming back in a stretcher. Again, I think the author went a bit too far with suspend and close calls. A series can be exciting without the main character ending up in a hospital bed after every action sequence. It just ends up making the MC look really weak. When the main character is in a dire situation, someone comes to rescue them, then is wounded themselves, and the MC ends back up in the same situation. The person happening to show up effects my suspension of disbelief, and if the character doesn't successfully save the protagonist, it seems a little bit wasteful. An example is when Marsh shows up during the same scene in Mistborn I mentioned earlier. Anyway, all of those are pet peeves that kind of annoy me. I also understand that doing those things sells books pretty well, and that if the author didn't make the ending needlessly dramatic, then it may end up being a bit stale, even if it ends up being more believable.
LOL! Your requirements for FP are a bit... stringent. But I do see your point. But (but) I ain't changing my ways.
I agree with @Aster, where first person past tense is concerned. But for first person present is more believable, because it is not based off the characters ability to remember everything. So I am with @Sack-a-Doo!, and not going to change my ways.
1. SPAG errors. Jerk me right out of the story every time. 2. Relying on coincidence. A very little of this is okay, because of course coincidences happen in real life, but if you're relying on it? Get a better plot and/or characters. 3. Similar to point 2, but plot conveniences. Anything far-fetched or even impossible that happens in order to further the plot. I remember reading that in 50 Shades of Grey, the main character walks into a bank and comes out with $5,000,000 in cash. Right... 4. Head hopping or an omniscient POV done badly. I like to get close to a select number of characters rather than feel like I'm hovering in the sky watching distant events.
FP past tense does not imply that the narrator is sitting somewhere telling you the story unless it is so specified by the author. It's merely a stylistic choice. FP present tense does not imply the narrator is recounting events as they happen. Again, merely a stylistic choice. The fact that there isn't necessarily a narrator recounting past or contemporaneous events in every first person book is provable empirically by reading enough first person books (such as those where the narrator dies and the writing is maintained up to the point of death, with no opportunity for the narrator to ever record or recount what has transpired).
5) Cheesy sentences, bad figurative language, and misused idioms. 4) Characters that are devices of the plot. 3) When the premise is more interesting than the book. 2) When a book insults my intelligence by trying to explain, explain, explain. 1) Deus Ex Machina. The biggest sin in fiction; the writer has wasted my time.
Until reading Tom Piccirilli's Choir of Ill Children, I wasn't a fan of FP. And not only is it FP, it's also present tense. It's literary noir with a big dash of horror. Poetic, beautifully written, and with one of the most observant MCs I've encountered in fiction.
I was beginning to wonder if it's only me that doesn't think I'm being told a story by a first person character as if we were sitting on a sofa having a chat.
To all those who don't like FPP... I'm guessing you don't read detective fiction? Raymond Chandler, et al.
I think a lot if people make the mistake of assuming it has to be a past or present narration. I don't assume it unless the author sets it up that way, because there are plenty of FP books where the assumption doesn't work.
Oh my gosh. Everyone. I am not saying FP is bad. Stop trying to defend it. There's no need. FP is not inherently bad. It's not even inherently good. It's just a stylistic choice that I personally avoid. I understand the pros and cons of FP present tense, FP past tense. I know there are a lot of wonderful books written in both styles. I've read a number of them and enjoyed them. I'm starting to feel really crappy that people are responding to my essentially inconsequential personal opinion and not @Annihilation's original topic the discourse for which is potentially more beneficial to aspiring writers than my personal approach to the books I choose to read. I've explained myself several times over. Let's move on.
Folks, let's quit janking on @Aster here. He/she gets to not like FPOV, and that's just fine. Oh God, that's the worst. It's like, “Dude, we were promised this many books decades ago, and you've only written what, a few?” Whether he got sick of the story or not, he definitely over-planned, methinks. @BayView - I'm with you on the political commentary thing. I read for pleasure, not to feel like I'm getting lectured by the author. If I want that, I'll go to OpenYaleCourses and listen to the professors lecture about things I'm interested in. @Sack-a-Doo! - Just once I want to read a book where an Asian person from, say, Taiwan, saves the day while the American and British heroes look on with pride and salute the person. I mean, why is it just the Yanks and the Anglos saving the day anyhow? One more for the list: When the story is revealed to have just been a dream all along, or just a story being told by the narrator years later. Why bother worrying about the narrator now? Any tension, any fear of ‘Oh God, will he/she make it?!’ is stripped away because for the former, it wasn't really happening and for the latter, well, the narrator's alive isn't he/she?
