There are certain things that will make me bail from a story before I get through the first PAGE sometimes. Other things that will make me bail in the middle.

1. A laundry list description of looks and OMG size! I'm done, turn the page.
2. Bondage, just not into not being nice.
3. Mixed Gen. The thought of an old guy with a youngster, I didn't like it when I was a kid either.

SO what trips your 'bail from a read' trigger?

O what trips your 'bail from a read' trigger?

"Ricky wrote on Sun, 11 January 2015 20:26"

O what trips your 'bail from a read' trigger?

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"Educational" travelogues!  They seem to be a special feature of American authors - pages and pages and pages and pages of stuff apparently culled from second-rate guidebooks, allegedly describing what their characters are experiencing on a trip somewhere.

Such authors often seem obliged to have their characters visit London, which appears to be populated solely by upper-middle-class white guys with the occasional 'loveable cockney' thrown in - which certainly bears no resemblance to the London I lived in for 30 years. Not only does it completely undermine the author's description of the everyday places they put their characters in,, but it shows a desperate lack of faith in their writing: if the story is compelling and the characters are "real", inserting several thousand words on the Tower of London, or the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or whatever, simply gets in the way! Please "show, don't tell".

The one great advantage of reading on line is that it's easy to very rapidly scroll past these vast and indigestible tracts ... though there's always a risk of missing an important plot point concealed among the turgid verbiage.

All great ones. I agree especially with Chris R on number 8, baby talk. I want to puke when a 14 year old is constantly called "daddy". Verbiage that does not fit the age just guts me. I can tolerate language far older if it fits the character's profile but the other way around is just unpleasant.

I confess that punctuation is not a huge deal to me unless it is so misused that it screws up my screen reader software. I'm dyslexic enough that it usually goes unnoticed. My writing I'm sure irritates some for that reason. Sorry about that.

This has been some great input, thanks. I hope to hear more as time goes by and other's find the thread. And Tim I'll be checking that link out shortly. I think I read it once before but I'm making the trip again. As I recall it had some great words of wisdom. Thanks
Cheers

bisexualguy wrote on Sun, 01 February 2015 21:09I agree with at least 95%, probably more, of what has been mentioned so far.

Something that bugs me is when paragraphing get out of whack, such that character Y answering something something character X or Z said is put in the same paragraph instead of the next. 

Example:
"What are you doing here?" Ryan asked.  "Just hanging around."
"Why?" Ryan continued. 
"Maybe I just like being here," responded Tristan. "You're not welcome, not after that scene you messed up in the play, deliberately jumping from scene one to scene three, and tipping off things WAY too early...."

Also I really get ticked off by (as a previous responder commented) of, John said, Mike said, Herb said, Joe said, Mavis said, Shelly said, etc, instead of maybe John commented, Mike responded, Herb angrily snarled,  Joe questioned, Mavis squeaked out, Shelly jumped in, and so on.  (I notice in your 'A Guide to Successful Writing' you seem to prefer the word 'said' all the time, or am I reading that with an overly literal view?)

Last, do prefer to be referred to as 'Tim' or as 'Timmy?'

Thanks for letting me blow off steam and also ask questions.

timmy wrote on Wed, 14 January 2015 22:52What I really detest is the idiot author writing out his fantasy as a fantasy with people saying stupid things like "Take my load!" when they just don't speak that way. I despise authors who make their alleged characters act 'wrong'.

Add to that "Editor's notes" - get real, we do not care what the editor thinks, especially if he is congratulating the author like a sycophant. I have taken a policy decision here. That shit gets removed and has been for ages. Some slipped though once. That was my fault.

Then there is the "Should I continue? Email me if I should!" - Fuck right off! No, I'm not emailing you except to say "Hang up your keyboard!" Go fish for compliments elsewhere. I don't care!

"This is my first story, please make allowances." - NO.  Make allowances for me by getting it right.

I'm sure you get the drift

Lol i have to admit i am guilty of a few of these, i won't apologise for being a little insecure though, it was a big thing when i put my story on Nifty for the first time and after reading a few stories and seeing the email me if it's good thing and people stating it's their first story, i just kind of thought it was the thing to do, but i like to be realistic and i can see how some people would turn their heads at seeing it.

I am pretty easy though, if someone points something out that isn't right or needs changing and i can see their point, then i am not too proud to make changes, i even changed a characters surname because someone pointed out something that should have been really obvious to me as i was writing the story.

Nicthalon wrote on Sun, 12 July 2015 07:34One of my biggest is ignoring proper grammar and use of punctuation, "Because it's my style."
No... if instead of an occasional ellipses.... which is honestly not often seen in good writing....... you use it every single time you want a dramatic pause... and you add more periods to it the longer you want the pause............................................... then you're not nearly as good a writer as you and your rabid fanbase seem to think you are.
(I'm sure at least some of you know exactly who I'm talking about.)

A pet peeve of mine, and something that seems to be increasingly common, is over-complicating the "story" by use of an excessive number of simultaneous threads, or multiple flashbacks.

It's legitimate - if technically demanding - to run two stories in parallel, with the protagonists meeting up, or intersecting in some way towards the end. Readers can keep track of two major threads. But just because Tom Clancy wrote all his thrillers like that, it doesn't mean that it's appropriate for every story, and it's always the more difficult and demanding option to get right. And if the story is published as a serial, please don't arrange it so that one week we get a chapter with one storyline, the next week the other: I simply don't read such efforts, as there's no way I can remember the threads properly.

Allied to that is the overuse of flashbacks. A couple of short flashbacks are OK, of course. But multiple flashbacks are distracting, and when several whole chapters form a series of flashbacks before reverting to the main storyline ... well, you've lost me, permanently.

timmy wrote on Sun, 12 July 2015 10:57
Flashbacks tend to be used by the author who has not yet learned how to create a back story in the present narrative. That is not an easy skill to master; far easier to use a flashback.

That doesn't mean that removal of all flashbacks is a good thing in the same manner that the removal of all adverbs is a good thing. Each has a place, but each's place is limited for the experienced author. One adverb has a place in a novel length piece. So, unless it is a literary stratagem, has one flashback.

Those who deploy the literary stratagem flashback need to make it brief, pithy, and it must have a part to play in the present plot.

Nicthalon wrote on Mon, 13 July 2015 19:19So what happens when we find a story on this site that has something so jarring it completely destroys the reading experience, like a 12yo waxing philosophical to a 14yo in a manner that even most adults wouldn't speak?

Kitzyma wrote on Mon, 13 July 2015 02:20I agree with ChrisR regarding stories that become too long and rambling and get into many chapters. However, I wouldn't regard it as a 'peeve' for myself as I almost never start reading a story unless the last chapter is posted, and life is too short to start reading a story with too many (50+?) chapters. Those who write stories with 100+ chapters should realise that they are unlikely to pick up any new readers. It would be like going back and watching every episode of a TV soap opera for the past few years just to catch up with the latest episode. Also, if there are genuinely enough good ideas plot lines to fill 100+ chapters, it would almost certainly be better to make them into separate stories.

Time for a bit of a whinge. I know that not everyone is compulsive, but authors (and editors) who can't be bothered to do the maths really wind me up! I've just been reading a story elsewhere, where "most" of "several hundred" people used a concession stand selling things at 50 cents, but a couple of paragraphs later the total take was under fifty dollars. It does not add up, at all ... and an average ten-year-old can do that kind of maths.

I've noticed similar gross mistakes in arithmetic in a number of stories I've read recently. Please, authors, if you throw figures about, at least make them add up ... because failure to do so really screws up the suspension of disbelief that is a vital part of readers relating to a story.

Always write the ending first. It will keep you story moving towards a conclusion.