Things that annoy you in books

[Lily]

Lack of any contractions in dialogue. I've seen that, don't get it, and find it really hard too read. Even people from 400 years ago used contractions.

[Library Lady 📚]

Richard wrote: "Harmony wrote: "incorrectly used words"

Oh, yes, that bugs me, too.

Overly stilted dialogue can also be a turn-off. I know dialog in books isn't always "natural" and doesn't need to be, but if it..."

You're my new best friend, lol...I could have written that entire post!

I don't mind "said" over and over. My eyes just kind of skim over it. What I hate is when characters "gasp" "sigh" and "murmur" every line. I want to tell them to enunciate! lol...

[Gregor]

I generally am annoyed by:


- Metafiction (including asides)
- Epistolary storytelling
- Gimmicks
- Deus ex machina endings
- Magic without rules
- Pages of text in italics
- 'Creative' grammar/punctuation
- Dialog written in dialect
- Books in which all of the characters, except for the hero, are written stupid to make the protagonist seem smart (typically seen in shoddy hard-boiled detective novels)

[Jason]

Too many adverbs and adjectives. Over description. Bores the hell out of me.

[Shari-amor]

Brand-name dropping

[Lily]

Phonetic dialogue. I'm definitely not a fan, too hard to read.

After I watched the movie The Dollmaker, which is a great movie with Jane Fonda, I decided to read the book. The dialogue is so heavy on the phonetics I couldn't get past the first page.

"Just a little furder."

That's an exact quote.

[Lily]

Shari-amor wrote: "Brand-name dropping"

Huge pet peeve!

[Library Lady 📚]

Lily wrote: "Phonetic dialogue. I'm definitely not a fan, too hard to read.

After I watched the movie The Dollmaker, which is a great movie with Jane Fonda, I decided to read the book. The dialogue is so heavy..."

There are parts of Wuthering Heights that I've yet to understand....

[Lily]

Sarah wrote: "My comment about said...I didn't mean to imply that the said tag itself should be used. Rather, just that something denoting who is talking needs to be there if the dialogue is long. Maybe it is be..."

In my opinion, if characters are that underdevelopped, no amount of "said" will save them, sadly.

[Courtney]

I read a book where Apple was mentioned about 39 times, Vitamin water 12 and the Friends reference of an episode that aired ten years ago made that book positively shimmer.

Book's a New York Times Bestseller...

[Lily]

Lena wrote: "Lily wrote: "Phonetic dialogue. I'm definitely not a fan, too hard to read.

After I watched the movie The Dollmaker, which is a great movie with Jane Fonda, I decided to read the book. The dialogu..."

Haha! Still haven't finished that book lol

[Library Lady 📚]

Lily wrote: "Lena wrote: "Lily wrote: "Phonetic dialogue. I'm definitely not a fan, too hard to read.

After I watched the movie The Dollmaker, which is a great movie with Jane Fonda, I decided to read the book..."

I finished it, but I have no idea what parts of it said. To author's credit, it was just one guy's dialogue, but I couldn't understand two words of it.

[Jason]

Shari-amor wrote: "Brand-name dropping"

noted. lol!

[Library Lady 📚]

Jason wrote: "Shari-amor wrote: "Brand-name dropping"

noted. lol!"

I don't mind a little of it, but I do read mostly contemporary. If someone's eating Cheetos and listening to an iPod and drinking Coke...well, that's a normal person.

[Lily]

Well, American Psycho has name-dropping practically coming out of Patrick's ass, yet the movie is fantastic. Still didn't like the book, though.

[Library Lady 📚]

Yeah, if someone has a laptop, say laptop, not Apple...I don't need that brand name. I think if a regular word will do, use it. But if someone is addicted to Red Bull, I also don't mind them drinking it all the time.

[Shari-amor]

Lol I don't mind a bit of brand dropping. The usual stuff you know. Its when I read one chapter, just one and it makes reference to every kind of bottle water, clothing label, jewellery designer, and all that jazz that irks me.

[Library Lady 📚]

Shari-amor wrote: "Lol I don't mind a bit of brand dropping. The usual stuff you know. Its when I read one chapter, just one and it makes reference to every kind of bottle water, clothing label, jewellery designer, a..."

Yes, that would be annoying. Although the 6th section of Cloud Atlas was like that, but in a satirical way, and it was brilliant.

[Jason]

Lily wrote: "Well, American Psycho has name-dropping practically coming out of Patrick's ass, yet the movie is fantastic. Still didn't like the book, though."

An absolutely fantastic movie! The business card seen with Bale and Leto is so my kind of dark humor.

[Shari-amor]

Or if a character is a bit of a rich brand snob that I can understand. I mean I would still be annoyed but I could accept that

[Shari-amor]

I loved American Psycho. I seen it for the first time a couple of months ago.

[Lily]

We could probably dedicate a very long thread to American Psycho. The movie, that is, not the book.

[G.G.]

I said it in another discussion group but I'll repeat it here. The word I can't stand is one of the smallest: 'AS'.

As I walked the street I saw a man as he came out of his car. He fell face first as he tripped on the sidewalk. I screamed as I saw the blood gushing out of his nose.

Well you get the idea.

Also I hate words that are repeated too often in the same paragraph. I get it it's sometimes hard to find a replacement. Some words don't have the right synonyms. If that's the case, play with the sentences, change them use pronouns, DO SOMETHING!

That said, I understand that it can happen and I won't go ballistic if it does. Because yes, shit happens.

By repeating, I don't mean when it's done on purpose to emphasize on something. I noticed that it usually happens in boring descriptions and often accompanied by the exciting verb 'to be'.

Describe if you must, but make it lively and fun. Else skip it.

[Library Lady 📚]

G.G. wrote: "I said it in another discussion group but I'll repeat it here. The word I can't stand is one of the smallest: 'AS'.

As I walked the street I saw a man as he came out of his car. He fell face first..."

Then stay far away from Sarah Dessen. I'd never noticed that word in my life until I read one of hers.

Edit: A similar one that bothers me is when characters are doing two things at once that are impossible:
"Walking across the kitchen, I turned on the faucet."

NO! You walked across the kitchen AND THEN turned on the faucet. I read a book where it seemed *every sentence* was like that. Drove me so nuts I gave the book a bad rating (it was all around bad writing, that's just the one that annoyed me the most).

[Ericka]

Excessive physical description. There's no need to know the precise height and eye color of each character. Sometimes I half expect to be told their social security number.

[G.G.]

LOL Thank you. I sure will. ;)

From the rating she has, and the number of people who read her books, I guess I'm the only one who can't stand that teeny word. :/

[G.G.]

Lena wrote: "A similar one that bothers me is when characters are doing two things at once that are impossible..."

Yeah a few months ago I read a book with a great example:
'As we cross the drawbridge, I look behind me as it rises.'

[Lily]

I have no problems with "as" and prefer it over some words like "while" which tends to draaaag things out too much. But, starting a sentence with "As" is only forgiveable if done rarely, not every single senctence.

Also, how is it possible to cross a drawbridgde AS it's rising? I mean, those things go way up, not across. I think there's far more things wrong in that sentence than starting with the word "as".

[G.G.]

Of course. That was in answer to Lena's impossible thing.

As for the 'as', try reading a book where the author overuses it. You'll see what we mean.
I don't have anything against the word as. What I have against it is that 1- it's overused and 2-Most of the time as is not even right. You don' trip as you walk. If you stop and think about it, you took a step an then you tripped. It might seem simultaneous, but it rarely is.

Same with the blood. I don't scream as I see it, but rather, I scream because I see it, so it is AFTER and not AS. ;)

[Nicole]

Supposed best friends of the female protagonist who act more like frenemies. The ones who are jealous, petty, unsupportive, encorage bad decisions and make the protagonist feel bad about themselves. Its suprising how few books Ive read (especially in the YA genre) where the female protagonist actually has a female friend who is supportive and actually behaves like a good friend would.

[Yzabel]

Richard wrote: "Another thing that bugs me is when an author has a tendency to use really weird verbs in place of "said". (Somewhere I wrote a rant about that...)"

I probably wrote a similar rant at some point.

It's a tight balance to achieve, sure, but I absolutely can't stand "creative" verbs. When you see dialogue such as "Blah blah blah," he ejaculated, or "I repeat," he repeated, I'm sorry, but it's time to call on the Dialogue Police.

Lena wrote: "Walking across the kitchen, I turned on the faucet."

Now this reminds me of my English grammar classes, back when I was doing my B.A. The teacher handed us such examples on a regular basis, to see who'd catch the mistake. Not everyone did, but then, we weren't native speakers either.

[Harmony]

I am so totally in agreement withe the dialogue tag comments. My personal most hated has to be 'Opined' ... whaaat????? A simple said is much better. The dialogue should be speaking for itself, as should the character's actions.

I have to agree with the 'As' comments too ... and word repetition ... there are plenty of Thesauri online if the writer doesn't have one at home

"Walking across the kitchen, I turned on the faucet." There are so many things wrong with this sentence construction. The first word is passive and leads into the simultaneity mistake ... much better would be: "I walked across the kitchen then turned on the faucet." Or, to keep the comma; "I walked across the kitchen, and then turned on the faucet."

Okay, rant over! :)

[Virginia]

You guys have made me a bit nervous about the amount of dreams I write. I just love writing dream logic and conveying the feelings of the characters through the morphing of their physical surroundings.

[Lily]

Token character whose only purpose is represent a minority and make a complete mockery out of all minorities.

[Rachel Annie]

G.G. wrote: "I said it in another discussion group but I'll repeat it here. The word I can't stand is one of the smallest: 'AS'.

As I walked the street I saw a man as he came out of his car. He fell face first..."

It's funny you mention the "as" thing because I removed some from a WIP last night. The count was nowhere near your example but I felt the need to clean some up in editing.

I'm pretty careful with using "that", but "as" slipped under the radar a little bit.

Ah well, just something else to consider during edits. ☺

[Meri]

Sarah wrote: "Really unnatural dialogue."

In that regard, one of the things that irks me is when I read a YA/Teen book (as a teenager myself) and the dialogue sounds like my grandfather overusing text-speak. I guess it might be excusable if you were really trying to make a character seem silly, but most of us don't sound like that. I just feel insulted.

[Michael]

A character that has no other purpose than to advance the plot. The type that gets little (if any) screen/word(?) time and absolutely no character growth but becomes a plot point when they need to push the story along. I don't hate it, but it is a bit cheap to me

[Lily]

The same could be said for any element, and it just depends I guess. Come to think of it, I've only seen that work in stories that involve a mystery and that one element is actually a clue. For everything else... yeah you're right, it's cheap.

[Michael]

I haven't read too many mysteries so I can't say for sure on that, but there was one story I was reading that did that to me. I don't remember much other than it was my sister's book, and a character that was mentioned once or twice in the beginning turned into the overall villian. Okay book but that dropped it down for me.

[Lily]

Ah, I see. I prefer for the villain to be introduced early on and then continued interplay between the antagonist nd the protagonist. I find that builds things up nicely. I'm not fond of the bait-and-switch trick. As in, hah! Fooled you. It's actually THIS character who's the villain. Yeah.... not cool.

[C.G.]

I hate love triangles. There's nothing more annoying than reading a perfectly good story and then out of the blue a love triangle is introduced and I realize the story is only just padding for the "who will she/he end up with" plot. If I even get a whiff of a love triangle, I will stop reading the book.

[Michael]

Bait-and-switch I don't mind because it keeps me guessing. But when the that person is only mentioned once with no hint of being -incerpt special role here- then the big reveal comes and you're left wondering, who the hell is that?
I love interplay between villians and heroes especially if you don't know which is which, it makes it all the more special when you find out

[Lily]

C.G. wrote: "I hate love triangles. There's nothing more annoying than reading a perfectly good story and then out of the blue a love triangle is introduced and I realize the story is only just padding for the ..."

I haven''t read the Hunger Games yet, but I've heard that's the number one complaint.

Michael, me too :)

[Sara]

I've already talked about how sex in books irritates me so I won't re-iterate here (for those who didn't read or follow that discussion - it's not sex scenes that bothers me but when they get in the way of the plot).

However, one thing that really kills me (and hope I can explain this) is when the author misuses a concept or "object" even though the misuse is culturally acceptable. For example, the malleus maleficarum - it horrifies me when an author uses that book as if it's some magical tome. I read a mg book that had the main female character use it to save her witch parents. I can't tell you anything else about the book because it made me so mad. If you are going to use something that is historical - do your research! The littlest things are misinterpreted over time and mis-remembered. It takes a minute to google it. Along that line - the upside down cross just kills me as well.

[Ericka]

Sara, that one kind of surprises me. I'm surprised someone would know the name malleus maleficarum without knowing what it is...I mean, it's not something that just comes up in standard conversation. I read about it in grad school, lol.

So the love triangles...those don't bother me unless they feel like a silly ploy to make the main female character seem uber attractive, like everyone's just falling over themselves for a chance with her. Basically, anything that serves that purpose ends up sounding ridiculous.

Oh, and is there a special way to quote someone's post?

[Sara]

When I was in college, I hung out with a bunch of pagan wannabes (I say that because it was true not because I believe that all pagans are wannabes). I had always had a strong connection to the inquisition and actually thought my first book would be about the inquisition. I had a number of friends who claimed to have read the book. For a paper, I got a copy of it and read it. It was at that time, I realized that people are full of crap (I was a naive farm girl). I couldn't believe that anyone would promote the reading of that book or even treat it like it's a great book for witches. I see it now and again in books and it makes me angry. First, they have no idea what they are talking about and second because they are promoting a book that encourages violence towards women.

[Lily]

Love triangles are not plots within themselves. When they're used as such, it can ruin any story.

re: Apple products and computers. In movies, computer companies such as Apple pay to be seen. It's advertising. Not entirely the movie's fault, but tends to be rather transparent. And when that's imitated in books, even more transparent.

re: Improper verbs in dialogue.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he said in an angry tone. (standard dialogue tag)

"What the hell are you talking about?" he murmured while spitting on the ground for no apparent reason. (wrong verb and useless action tag)

[Library Lady 📚]

Lily wrote: "
re: Apple products and computers. In movies, computer companies such as Apple pay to be seen. It's..."

I recently went to see " Walter Mitty" w my sis, and within the first 30 seconds caught at least 3product placements. Maybe 10 seconds. And those were only the ones I caught (Apple was one).

"he said in an angry tone" is just a way to squirm around an adverb ( he said angrily) and bothers me more than the adverb BC it's transparent and less precise.

[Lily]

That's why I wrote "standard". ;)

[Lily]

Thank you! I've long since learned that dialogue tags are optional. Tags, whether dialogue or action, are just to make sure it's clear who's talking, and usually only useful when there's multiple characters in one conersation. The average reader doesn't even need all the nitty-gritty details of exactly and precisely how a character speaks. The dialogue, if natural, often speaks for itself.