What readers hate about books #MFRWauthor

For week 22 of the Marketing for Romance Writers blog hop, the prompt is:

My Biggest Pet Peeve in a Book

[image error]That’s an easy one: I hate when a novel isn’t good enough to finish. I used to finish everything I started. No more. Nowadays a book has to earn the right to monopolize the hours of my life.

That’s not a very helpful answer, though, so I offer a recap of an old post. In 2014, the Paranormal Book Club recently asked their readers what is the “ONE thing you CAN NOT stand about a book when reading it?” I categorized the responses, and present them here to you from the smallest peeve to biggest.

#10 Weak female characters. In a genre largely aimed at female readers, you’d think writers would know better.

(tie) Books in a series that end inconclusively. Readers seem to have problems with the endings of series books. See also numbers 8, 5, and 3.

#9 Killing off a main character. George R.R. Martin, please note. If you stop slaughtering your cast, Game of Thrones might actually amount to something.

#8 Waiting for the next sequel in a series to appear. George R.R., you should be careful about this one, too.

#7 Too much recapping. Obviously, this applies primarily to books in a series. And to soap operas.

#6 Sexual dysfunction. Not what you think! This includes gratuitous sex, boring sex, and overly graphic sex.

#5 An unsatisfying ending. See also numbers 10, 8, and 3.

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#4 Annoying or whiny main characters. I was astonished at the number of times the word ‘whiny’ appeared.

#3 Cliffhanger endings. These are, apparently, common in a certain type of series. Readers think they’re a Very Bad, No Good, Horrible ploy to get readers to buy the next book in the series. But I bet it works.

#2 Too much description. Overwhelmingly, readers complained about description that slowed down the action. J.R.R. Tolkien, please note.

#1 (by a wide, massive, overwhelming, 3 to 1 margin) Typos, bad grammar, and bad editing. Self-pubbers, please note–get your masterpiece edited and proofed BEFORE you publish it. Please, please, please![image error]

Read the original, rather longer, post.

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