- Really, really long paragraphs of exposition. The worst offender in a long while has been Metro 2033. The backstory and whatnot was interesting, but it was made boring by someone just explaaaaaining all this stuff. I would've preferred to mine this information from all the stuff that happens over the main storyline, but no, we must all sit around the fire and listen to some old warhorse yap on and on and on... and on... - Descriptions of furniture. This is totally subjective, I know, but for some reason I don't mind sweeping descriptions of nature (like in Lord of the Rings), or characters and their attires, but when it's furniture, furnishings, interior design; stuff like rugs and tapestry and f*cking pillow arrangements, I get inexplicably annoyed and bored, and skip on. - The last one is a little unfair, I guess, since none of us can be experts at everything, and I myself am a fake-ass dilettante in most things, BUT it still peeves me when I get the feeling the author is trying to pass something off as a show of their self-proclaimed expertise. I remember this feeling particularly well when reading Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slims novels, the first two. I don't know if I'd still notice it, maybe I've become more accepting or maybe I read it all wrong (I gave the books to a friend, who, turns out, loves them and subsequently bought every single one published so far), but back then the last straw was the author--not the protagonist, imo -- trying to convince me that Glocks are crap and a sign of daddy issues. It's like saying people who drive Volkswagen have daddy issues. (And I'm not butthurt 'cause I'm a Glock owner, I'm not). To Kadrey's credit, he does say in his bio he has no qualifications to anything he does.
Now that you've reminded me... Descriptions of any sort just for the sake of description. I don't read them, I skim though them. No description is interesting enough. Because I hate them, I'll never put my readers through them. That's a promise. So much so that I've had a critique once that made me realise I had not described a character soon and well enough. I learned my lesson but I'm still keeping my descriptions to a minimum.
I don't describe stuff in my own writing because I'm so terrible at it. The lack of descriptions is a common complaint from beta readers, so I'm fairly sure I should work on that. I was combing through the WIP yesterday, paying extra attention to descriptions, but I honestly don't know if I just made everything worse.
In my time I've seen four lines of like in a row. He was a bass player in a Greek orchestra, a clever man/writer, but he could not see it: She looked at me like an angel. Then she turned her pale, irridescent and radiant skin like she had thoughts far away, like a woman deep in thought and like a lecturer she spoke her wise words like they might mean something to me, like as if I care, like. His - was something like that, but then with my 'human condition' I read any book and tutt in despair any time I stumble on a that or even a was. That's probably the only reason I read books these days. I sit there, talk to the book 'You think you're such a great writer but I exposed you in my armchair. ' It's a satisfaction I share with others, I am sure.
I really enjoyed Metro 2033, and those moments didn't bother me because I felt like I was there with Artyom, listening to them tell a story (something I feel they'd do a lot of in the metro); and a lot of times they're either talking about the past or rumors / myths / legends. But I guess I have a lot more patience for such things.
It's possible. I was overwhelmed pretty early 'cause right at the beginning you have to read through several tangents, and I would've preferred the focus to be on Artyom and the current situation while the backstory slowly reveals itself. That's usually my preference. It's a good book, but if I had to change something, I would've eased up on the backstory.
That isn't to say my patience is infinite though. There was an entire chapter in Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" I had to skip over, as well as portions of a couple other chapters, because it went on and on about socialism, communism, and farming. Have you read Metro 2034 yet? I just finished 2035, the last one, and it was a good book... except every freaking time the name 'Sukhoi' came up it was 'SukhoI'. I don't know if I just got a bad print or what, but there were also a lot of other grammar and spelling errors that made me feel like I was reading an amateur, self-published work on Wattpad rather than a professional novel. Almost ruined the book for me. :/
I skipped everything with Levin. I think they were the farming chapters, lol. I'm not sure if I can say, to this day, I've really read Anna Karenina 'cause I skipped quite a lot. No, I'm still reading the first one. Thanks for the heads-up, not sure if I dare read anymore if they are badly edited. Drives me crazy! Sometimes Kindle editions can be atrocious in comparison to printed books.
I felt the same way. I actually quite liked the storytelling aspect of it. And I enjoyed both metro 2033 and 2034.
I've seen a fair few assholes fluttering around this forum alright, but thankfully Homer you're not one of them Pet peeves?? I'm only referring to novels here. I tend to be brutally critical of anything I read, so I have lots of peeves indeed! But my biggest ones:- Generally anything written in first person. Very, very few writers can do it well in my humble opinion, so when I do read a first-person story I usually end up wanting to gag the charcter before I've finished the first page. Colours that are obvious but the writer tries to pretty them up - "safron" or worse, "crimson" AAAaaaaaaaaa I can't f%$!!ing STAND it!!!! A writer who can write beautifully but falls so in love with their own ability to write beautifully that by the time they're on their 3rd book they belive they can abandon story completely as it only gets in the way of their own drivel, sorry, writing. ( I'll probably be shot for this, but Anne Rice springs to mind) Chick-lit with yet another heroine who can't cook, is a shopaholic, best friend is a gay man blah blah snore. Why in the name of all that's holy do fiction editors keep buying the same lobotomised shite and selling it as the clumsy-hapless-but-oh-so-adorable female we'll all fall in love with? Somebody kill me, please. Or better yet, have the heroine in all her first-peson glory announce on page one "I fucking shoot myself now" Have to cut the list short, cos the ol' blood pressure is rising and the anger management classes are calling. Of course, I can forgive all of the above and more if the story's great.
Yup. I used to work for 9-1-1 (US police/fire/emergency line) and people would call to report their (expensive) car had been stolen. Preternaturally, yo?
Excessive plot armor. I know this refers to a movie, but the final "Hunger Games" has a scene where Katniss gets blowed up, and her clothes are actually in flames ("Girl on Fire", natch?) but her face is just artfully smudged with Maybelline Smoky Disaster No.4 (Summer complexion).
I guess my pet peeve would be when writers abuse cliches and tropes to the max. I mean a good trope is nice, and cliches can be done well, but it gets overwhelming when about half the plot and characters are based off popular tropes and cliches. I guess this is where I got my "telegraph a cliche/trope but then rip it to shreds" style of story creating. This is also something that is probably just me, but when writers answer all the questions for you. I like to analyze characters and their actions, and I like to infer things that happen in the cracks of the plot. Like there are puzzle puzzle pieces. I want to know that the pieces exist and fit together in some way, but I don't want anybody to solve the puzzle for me.
Big fan of Anne Rice here, but I swear it has nothing to do with the question. Honest question from a non-native English speaker, how would you call the colour crimson instead? This colour: http://www.colorhexa.com/990000
I just don't like replacement words for colours, they stick out on the page for me, and irritate the shit out of me. You see a lot of it in the horror and crime genre. It's a personal thing really. Give me "blood-red" or "tomato-red" or even just good old fashioned "red" any day. If you're a writer born in the 18th century, or your story is set in that period, fine. But today, people don't say things like "crimson". If someone asks you what colour your eyes are, you don't say "they're lapis lazuli". Only advertisers trying to sell you something use language like that. Or weak writers who are trying to show they can write. Good writers name the colour, or they enhance it a little maybe - "pea-green". Great writers don't mention the colour at all, they'll name something that's not obviously related to the moment but that's the exact colour in real life that they're trying to describe, and as a reader, your imagination does the work quickly without any interruption to the story. Just my opinion.
I think both good and great writers do what fits the sentence rather than trying to follow rules. I can see "pet peeves" as being things that just annoy us personally, and I accept your problem with colours in that vein. But trying to expand it into something larger, some sort of judgement on someone's writing as a whole? Nah. "Blood-red" and "tomato-red" sound much clunkier to my ear than a simple "crimson". It's a colour. It's a word people use. It wouldn't jump out at me if I read it.
Agreed. I just have it in for "crimson". Probably just a hangover from all the dreadful gothic muck I read and wrote back in my teens!
Well, I'd probably piss you guys off - I love color descriptions. I found this quote in the annotated Lolita and Nabokov really expresses the way I feel about it. My peeves Characters who talk about how boring they are and how uninteresting they are yet everyone finds them fascinating bland descriptions literary novels without descent plots - um have a point at least novels that rest on one point so that you find yourself skimming because everything else is just so boring gruesome violence - torture porn Villain anti-heros No depth Sluggish pacing Characters that have similar names leading to confusion
I think we should give examples of these pet peeves when possible. After reading through a lot of these, I can't think of a single published book I've read that check a lot or any of these boxes.
I hate really long chapters with no page breaks or convenient place for me to stop, take a leak or get a beer.
Authors who make up words to do sound effects - Michael Ashers Death or Glory series is the worst I've seen in this regard "Grenades bunderlumped and bullets baddersnatched" and stuff like that In my experience a passing bullet goes "crack" whilst if they hit something they go ping, clang or squelch depending on the nature of what they hit. Grenades mostly go boom followed by a high pitched whispering caused by the shrapnel. Neither I nor any of my friends who have a lot more experience under fire have ever encountered a bullet that sounds anything like 'baddersnatch'
Does he write fantasy? Maybe the "bullets" are something else... banana peels sewn back together and filled with peanut butter?
After reading "the real bravo two zero" i'd say yes (that's just me taking a dig at an author daft enough to believe everything the Saddam Hussein regime told him), but no its not supposed to be fantasy - death and glory is supposed to be about the SAS in the western desert in WW2 .... he can write pretty well but his plotting lets him down, along with his trip to the stereotype mine and as i say the sound effects....
Poetry with a lot of imagery but no logic. Basically... Beck song lyrics submitted as poetry. A poem might not reveal it's full meaning on the first read-through, but the reader also shouldn't come out of it thinking "huh?!?"
