What would make someone drop a story?

CynicalStrawberry

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I don't normally drop stories per say since I try and read at least a books worth of content(around 600 pages) before deciding a story isn't for me. It can be for a number of reasons. My top reason being if your characters aren't interesting. I've only ever dropped a book before completing it once, and that was because the characters were literally clichés personified. Hotheaded protagonist, tsundere girl, mysterious girl, bully turn best friend, and tactical dude were all they had to offer.

So what makes everyone else drop a story. Knowing this, I can create the perfect story to trap readers for eons, then I'll disappear out of nowhere and leave everyone shocked and speechless. Mwahahaha.

Eh not really cause I'll probably trap myself into writing it now that I've started. The writer traps themselves trying to trap readers. The drama intensifies.
If the grammar is horrible, I'm dropping unless I'm choosing to read MTL. If it's a tragedy, I'm usually dropping because I can't handle those. Otherwise, it's more of a mood-emotional thing. If I'm in the right mood, I can almost read the most cliche, brainless novel. Generally, though, I don't have that tolerance so I usually drop novels if the characters behave too brainlessly.

For example, I don't know if you've ever read the manga Black Lotus? The entire first part is purely the male lead abusing the main character for some stupid reason, supposedly being a replacement for his white moonlight when the main character is the true white moonlight, blah, blah...I read a handful of chapters to the point where the male lead started destroying the main character's fingers for almost no apparent reason, so I decided to drop it. I've read plenty of other novels with similar tropes/patterns but that novel was just taking it too far.

Positive brainlessness can also be exhausting, I feel myself lose a few brain cells every time the main character is praised by the entire world for doing something completely normal. Occasionally, such scenes have a feel-good quality to them but eventually, I feel sick to my stomach.

On the other hand, I sometimes also drop when it gets too intense or there's too much embarrassing comedy. If I'm not in the mood to get emotionally involved too much but the plot winds into bizarre twists and turns, I'll just leave it be. On occasion, I've dropped novels for that very reason then come back to them, only to discover that they're precisely my cup of tea. Those are my primary reasons for dropping but quite frankly, it's all about mood.
 

EchoingRuby

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Something nobody's mentioned here yet is when a story just refuses to end. I get the urge to keep writing the thing you know is popular, but you're tainting how good the story is with this pointless continuation. Like, you have all these plot threads you established earlier, and you either just drag them out for the sake of word count, or neatly tie them all up before suddenly bringing in an outside context thing (looking at you Halo 4). This is one of the reasons why movie endings are almost always sequel-bait: to give them the option to continue if they want to!

God am I really saying "please learn from Hollywood"? I might be going insane.

Also authors who don't understand that characters evolve over time, or that killing someone is a huge deal, or think that action scenes alone can hold up the entire story, or who gender-bend a character just to have an excuse for "not knowing how to write a female character" or similar.

Edit: Also the authors who turn the MC into a girl, write it as if that's the only way anyone can be a lesbian, and then give them a cis female love interest anyway. Reductive and inconsistent, my favourite!
 
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SakeVision

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For example, I don't know if you've ever read the manga Black Lotus? The entire first part is purely the male lead abusing the main character for some stupid reason, supposedly being a replacement for his white moonlight when the main character is the true white moonlight, blah, blah...I read a handful of chapters to the point where the male lead started destroying the main character's fingers for almost no apparent reason, so I decided to drop it. I've read plenty of other novels with similar tropes/patterns but that novel was just taking it too far.

that's clearly torture porn. You were simply not in the target audience of having such a fetish.
 

Zirrboy

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Whiny MCs and deviation from the original premise.
In my case, the latter is often from action to slow life.
 

EternalSunset0

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I don't normally drop stories per say since I try and read at least a books worth of content(around 600 pages) before deciding a story isn't for me. It can be for a number of reasons. My top reason being if your characters aren't interesting. I've only ever dropped a book before completing it once, and that was because the characters were literally clichés personified. Hotheaded protagonist, tsundere girl, mysterious girl, bully turn best friend, and tactical dude were all they had to offer.

So what makes everyone else drop a story. Knowing this, I can create the perfect story to trap readers for eons, then I'll disappear out of nowhere and leave everyone shocked and speechless. Mwahahaha.

Eh not really cause I'll probably trap myself into writing it now that I've started. The writer traps themselves trying to trap readers. The drama intensifies.
I haven't experienced "hard dropping" a story I read. Just lost interest and get back to it soon types. And it's probably either because I got busy with something I'd rather do more (like playing games or writing my own series, etc) or just lost interest temporarily.

Granted, there are cases I stop reading when encountering horrible grammar or formatting, but if I only spent a couple of minutes into it and have gone no further than a chapter or two without even getting myself invested emotionally, is it even considered a drop? Personally, I don't think so.
 

InceTagn

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I often drop a story when I find too much inconsistency.
Exemple1: the Mc sees someone who is going to die willingly. He attempts to save the person but is stopped by those close to the person. The MC feels genuinely concerned for the unfamiliar person who survives in the end.

Three days later, the mc kill a teammate to steal her talent convincing himself that she was going to die anyway.
I know that some people like antihero Mc, even I like them, but they need to be consistent. You can not right them compassionate now and transform them into cold-blooded fellow two chapters later with nothing justifying it In between.
 

T.K._Paradox

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People drop stories for a multitude of reasons.

I personally can't stand the Gary Stu protagonist.
 

dreamver2

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Hm, I think my main list of reasons why I'd drop a story would be:

-Bad grammar/punctuation.
-Lack of an engaging voice/writing style, including just a boring protagonist.
-Too much info-dumping, mainly in SF/F.
-Lack of interest after a while, not necessarily due to the quality of the story itself.
-Certain cliches.
-Exceptionally poor treatment of heavy/sensitive subject matter, though this is extremely variable.

The first three points may make me drop a story almost immediately, while the last three tend to come later.
 

Viator

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One thing I personally despise is when you have joined an MC on a journey, and they have slowly and with difficulty accumulated power; only to have that amount of chapters you've read mean nothing as all of that work is stripped away from the character in a contrived event. A single moment made for power scaling purposes, or because of an author's poor planning. All that progress gets taken away. I don't care if it's for added drama in the story or whatever. The moment I see this, it is an instant drop.

*Also overuse of cliffhangers (like every chapter)make me feel as if the author is trying to manipulate the reader so I drop it. To be clear, the cliffhanger is a good tool as long as it's not overused. Using it all the time means to me that the author doesn't have the confidence to maintain interest in the story without resorting to basic psychological tricks.
 
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MyukiMruieast

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If it's not my cup of tea and if the events get repeated, an example of that is when harem gets involved and if the direction of the story continues to move towards ‘entertainment arc’ or ‘A thousand chapters before the ending’

But in reality, I just read things if its good and drop it if I wanna read another because multi reading is a hassle
 

skillet

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oh this reminds me! someone once commented that they were dropping my novel because they apparently got super invested in this one very minor character's arc and got really angry over him lol
I'm not sure why because he really was a very minor character, but that was an interesting experience :blob_sir: hehe

as for me, I personally don't really start a lot of novels in the first place, but I assume I'd drop something I'd been originally interested/invested in if the story refuses to progress or the characters are deteriorated into mere frustrating and unreasonable plot devices to elongate the drama.
(Looking at you, detective conan, and you, soredemo sekai wa utsukushii)
 

Ai-chan

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I don't normally drop stories per say since I try and read at least a books worth of content(around 600 pages) before deciding a story isn't for me. It can be for a number of reasons. My top reason being if your characters aren't interesting. I've only ever dropped a book before completing it once, and that was because the characters were literally clichés personified. Hotheaded protagonist, tsundere girl, mysterious girl, bully turn best friend, and tactical dude were all they had to offer.

So what makes everyone else drop a story. Knowing this, I can create the perfect story to trap readers for eons, then I'll disappear out of nowhere and leave everyone shocked and speechless. Mwahahaha.

Eh not really cause I'll probably trap myself into writing it now that I've started. The writer traps themselves trying to trap readers. The drama intensifies.
Extreme leaps of logic. Like, okay, it's fantasy. That's fine. What's not fine is if the author make the characters make stupid choices that somehow works due to deus ex machina.

If you know the road in front of you is fraught with fatal danger, why would you go straight out of pride? Go around! And then he'd be saved by a friend who just happened to arrive where he is despite the friend not knowing where he went because of 'the power of love'.

And there's this scene in "I am the daughter of this house" or some manhwa with that name. In this scene, the protagonist 'decides' to climb a big and tall tree, and then got stuck. That's not how kids think. Kids do not decide to climb a tree, they just climb it. It's instinctive. Getting stuck on a tree is the result of following their instinct, not because they 'decide' to climb the tree.
 

SakeVision

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And there's this scene in "I am the daughter of this house" or some manhwa with that name. In this scene, the protagonist 'decides' to climb a big and tall tree, and then got stuck. That's not how kids think. Kids do not decide to climb a tree, they just climb it. It's instinctive. Getting stuck on a tree is the result of following their instinct, not because they 'decide' to climb the tree.

I never had an instinct to climb trees. I was always afraid. If I did try, it's because I decided to prove something to my father, my friends, or myself.
 

Ai-chan

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I never had an instinct to climb trees. I was always afraid. If I did try, it's because I decided to prove something to my father, my friends, or myself.
Most people don't have the instinct to climb trees. A lot of kids do not think that climbing trees are fun. If you decide to prove yourself to someone else by climbing a tree, that is not illogical. There is an impetus, a reason that you feel like you have to climb it.

In that scene, there was no reason other than "There is a tree. Hm, should I climb it? Yes, I should climb it. Oh, this is hard. Okay, I decide to jump out to the tree from the 3rd floor window. Yes, this finally works, but how do I get down now?" That scene was just put in to make her an adorable damsel in distress. The author could've easily just make it so that she climbed the tree to save a cat or a bird instead of "It exists, I decide to climb it."

Here's another example:
Oh, there's a road! I decide to stand in the middle of the road and stop cars despite all the traffic because why the hell not?
 
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bigbear51

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If it's so bad that I lose any possible interest in seeing how it all ends. That can be a mix of things like grammar, dumb story decisions, hating the characters, whatever. Concept isn't one that would cause me to drop something because you can't drop something you never picked up. Really it's just a matter of looking forward to something and becoming disappointed with the results.
 
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