Writers: Pet Peeves When Reading Novels

[bulmabriefs144]

I was reading the Black Magician Trilogy. It was my third time, and I realized that while I mostly liked Sonea's character, I was really annoyed that the author decided to shove in a gay sideplot. I think I was okay with it, so long as it was presented as a romance in context of Danny exploring with Tayend.

But then, a few things happen: (1) they visit Lonmar and someone is actually killed for being gay, (2) every fifth person points out how it's like soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo obvious that Tayend is gay, and (3) the author uses the entire thing not to attack religious cultures (like Lonmar being a stand-in for real world Islam) who put LGBT people to death but instead talk about how fairly moderate Kyralia, who simply refuse to enlist gay magicians. In other words, it was shameless leftist hypocrisy, attacking the easy target who probably would give a position to those who could prove themselves talented (just as they gave trial basis for the slum kid), while blatantly ignoring the people who were just put to death.

No, the thing I hate is not preachiness. I'm guilty of this too. It's side plots to characters where it barely matters. You could take out his character and replace it with about half the content and nobody would miss the change. This is particularly bad in Terry Brooks novels where they pull out an uninteresting character to solve the fact that the author basically wrote themselves into a corner. Unless the character is literally incapacitated, and you need a backup hero, the back and forth between the characters means you love one (or none) and hate the other.
While we're on Terry Brooks, he's pretty prone to setting up a romantic lead that you root for, only to thwart it at the last second with some random that you can't be bothered to like because the first broke up, died, or turned into a tree/faerie/etc.

When you read a novel, what are things you hate so much from other authors that you try not to include from your own work?

 

[K5Rakitan]

Love triangles that don't end in polyamory.

 

[SailusGebel]

Lack of sex.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

Love triangles that don't end in polyamory.

Aaaaaaaagggh this.

Especially if you explicitly set the character up as bi-curious, yet somehow there is some invisible barrier to them just doing that.

Honorable mentions when there is a really stupid reason why a romance can't work like "He/She's too nice" for a Korean drama romantic lead.

 

[Shard]

Poor spelling and/or grammar can cause pain. If you can't do them properly, I struggle to read, and often just drop the story. Characters that are OP from the start are typically highly annoying as well, though some, such as Death March have managed to make it work well by not focusing on the main character so much as how they interact with others. Additionally, smut for the sake of smut, if you can't get/keep readers without sex, you suck at writing IMO. A little is fine, especially if it is lore-based such as in Blue Core, but basing your whole story on it and just throwing in filler to not get banned for too high a percentage is not.

 

[melchi]

I was reading the Black Magician Trilogy. It was my third time, and I realized that while I mostly liked Sonea's character, I was really annoyed that the author decided to shove in a gay sideplot. I think I was okay with it, so long as it was presented as a romance in context of Danny exploring with Tayend.

But then, a few things happen: (1) they visit Lonmar and someone is actually killed for being gay, (2) every fifth person points out how it's like soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo obvious that Tayend is gay, and (3) the author uses the entire thing not to attack religious cultures (like Lonmar being a stand-in for real world Islam) who put LGBT people to death but instead talk about how fairly moderate Kyralia, who simply refuse to enlist gay magicians. In other words, it was shameless leftist hypocrisy, attacking the easy target who probably would give a position to those who could prove themselves talented (just as they gave trial basis for the slum kid), while blatantly ignoring the people who were just put to death.

No, the thing I hate is not preachiness. I'm guilty of this too. It's side plots to characters where it barely matters. You could take out his character and replace it with about half the content and nobody would miss the change. This is particularly bad in Terry Brooks novels where they pull out an uninteresting character to solve the fact that the author basically wrote themselves into a corner. Unless the character is literally incapacitated, and you need a backup hero, the back and forth between the characters means you love one (or none) and hate the other.
While we're on Terry Brooks, he's pretty prone to setting up a romantic lead that you root for, only to thwart it at the last second with some random that you can't be bothered to like because the first broke up, died, or turned into a tree/faerie/etc.

When you read a novel, what are things you hate so much from other authors that you try not to include from your own work?

I think what you are looking at here is a straw man.

https://helpfulprofessor.com/straw-man-fallacy-examples/

And I hate it too. It doesn't even have to be gay vs religious. Though that is a very common one. Golden compass is another example. An author makes groups of people who hold to a faith seem homogeneous and portrays them in as bad of light as possible.

This can go the other way around too. Like I just read a book where people north of the wall in Brittan are barbarians. They break treaties, raid town take slaves. Obviously, their pagan beliefs are to blame for them being so uncivilized right?

This is a poor way to create an antagonist. I think @TheEldritchGod once said your protagonist can only be as good as the antagonist. So relying on straw men types of villains limits a story.

What makes a good antagonist? One that makes the team good seem like the bad guy. Yeah, they may be murderers but if the protagonist tribe has blood on their hands too then who really has the moral high ground?

Poor spelling and/or grammar can cause pain. If you can't do them properly, I struggle to read, and often just drop the story. Characters that are OP from the start are typically highly annoying as well, though some, such as Death March have managed to make it work well by not focusing on the main character so much as how they interact with others. Additionally, smut for the sake of smut, if you can't get/keep readers without sex, you suck at writing IMO. A little is fine, especially if it is lore-based such as in Blue Core, but basing your whole story on it and just throwing in filler to not get banned for too high a percentage is not.

As someone who read blue core, the sex scenes there don't really add much. Also, someone who is a large plot of land having sexy time with women... ummm...

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

When it is not Well Done.

 

[Placeholder]

> As someone who read blue core, the sex scenes there don't really add much.

"Must have sex with these women for important plot reasons!"

 

[LORD_SHAXX]

Love triangles that don't end in polyamory.

Love triangles in general.

if you can't get/keep readers without sex, you suck at writing IMO

Bruh... why you calling me out like this?

 

[ArchlordZero]

Overpowered MCs that they can 1v1 Frieza after Chapter 1

 

[Anon2024]

Multiple love interests that don't end up in a harem, or don't find someone else to latch on to. I hate it when they are going to always be pining for the MC and have no one else i mind.

Stupid reasons for why a love interests falls in love so madly, unless it's some sort of 'fate'

Preachy protagonists. I hate preaching protagonists the most.
Jerk protagonists that aren't explicitly jerks.

Like if the whole point is the protagonist is a jerk and the author intends for it then it's cool, but if the author wants us to think the protagonist is justified in what he does despite being a jerk then screw that. A flawed jerk protagonist is better than a 'virtuous' stupid protagonists who thinks they're right and the author thinks they're right when they're clearly fucking wrong!

 

[Deleted member 113259]

Multiple love interests that don't end up in a harem, or don't find someone else to latch on to. I hate it when they are going to always be pining for the MC and have no one else i mind.

Stupid reasons for why a love interests falls in love so madly, unless it's some sort of 'fate'

Preachy protagonists. I hate preaching protagonists the most.
Jerk protagonists that aren't explicitly jerks.

Like if the whole point is the protagonist is a jerk and the author intends for it then it's cool, but if the author wants us to think the protagonist is justified in what he does despite being a jerk then screw that. A flawed jerk protagonist is better than a 'virtuous' stupid protagonists who thinks they're right and the author thinks they're right when they're clearly fucking wrong!

Language.
Look at how much more virtuous I am than you.

 

[SomethingStuffHappend]

Idk I will drop a novel in a heartbeat if I lose interest. Ig when the story is boring nothing new happens

 

[Empyrea]

How do you get a woman that's more powerful than you into your harem? Aphrodisiacs of course. It's not your fault she was tricked by some second rate villian. You saved her from him so you deserve her maidenhood and the weird affection she got for you afterwards. Right? This comes in a lot of different forms, but usually the woman wants nothing to do with the mc or even hates them before getting drugged. Then it's shown to be a good thing and maybe she protects him once or twice before he out power scales her and finds a new woman to trick into his harem. I'd be fine with it if the mc was supposed to be evil, but they usually aren't and I see it so much that it bugs me. I know a lot of people like it though so I won't judge the authors who use it. It's just my preference.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

How do you get a woman that's more powerful than you into your harem? Aphrodisiacs of course. It's not your fault she was tricked by some second rate villian. You saved her from him so you deserve her maidenhood and the weird affection she got for you afterwards. Right?

I'll be perfectly honest, any sort of mind control makes me want to punch the screen.

I HATE mind control/brainwashing plots. I get some people like to write evil stories where the bad guy wins, just put it in the goddamn tags. If your MC is TAKING AWAY SOMEONE'S FREE WILL, he/she is evil. Period. End of statement. That is one of those things that are NOT on the Subjective Morality scale, but OBJECTIVELY EVIL.

Sometimes I get into arguments with people about God, and yeah, as a Deity's Rights Activist, I come down on the side of arguing for the Gods. One of those arguments I get into is, "If god is all-powerful, why does he allow X to happen?" Where X is some horrible thing.

In the case of the Abrahamic God, the answer is simple. He offered you paradise. You said, 'I want to know what good and evil is.' In other words, you wanted to make your own choices. You wanted free will. Since he is, you know, God, he knows what as close to a perfect existence is as you can get. Anything less than what he laid out for you, would be, by definition, not perfect.

Why would he help with X and not go all the way to give you paradise?

If you want free will, then it's hands-off. You can't interfere a little bit, even in just this ONE CASE, and still let people have free will. You can't have it both ways. You can have perfection or free will. It is one or the other, not both. A perfect society and free will cannot co-exist. (This argument holds true, regardless or not He exists, for those of you who don't believe.)

So, if allowing Free Will is more important than living in paradise, then free will is on the whole good and evil scale of things, one of the Good Things to have, even if it leads to less-than-perfect outcomes. Mind control, aphrodisiacs, brainwashing, gaslighting, or any sort of interference in the free will of another self-aware being by using direct or indirect interference in how they think, or using lies to change someone's mind to make them behave as you wish, is not only wrong but flat out, frickin' EVIL. What bothers me is when some writers DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT. Some think mind control is fine IF THE OUTCOME IS "GOOD".

You go down the path of evil. That's your choice. Don't compel others to join you.

Let me clue you all in, as an eldritch horror from beyond the pale, I know what I'm talking about here:

You cannot use the tools of evil for good outcomes. ​

The moment an author introduces Mind Control and tries to convince me it is GOOD to mind control someone, to turn them into a slave as long as you treat them right, or any such nonsense, AND it is OBVIOUS he actually believes the shit he's spewing, I'm done. I'm beyond done, I'm disgusted. If you wanna write that shit, FINE. Just put the right tags on the story so I know that it's something I am going to hate. Don't LIE to me. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

In fact, I guess that's what I hate most. Mislabeled tags. Like this one Manga, I'm hate reading. it's about this FL lead who gets mind-controlled by her father to betray the man she loves. Okay, FINE. At least the author knows who the bad guy is. Except that he makes the ML a complete asshole who treats the FL like complete shit. That isn't the problem. The problem is, the author labels this... A ROMANCE.

No.

This is 90 chapters of the FL lead being tortured only for the ML to finally figure it out, the FL to kill her father (yay) then the ML to be sorry. NO. Even if she wasn't mind controlled what you did to the FL was GODDAMN EVIL. You have done UNFORGIVABLE THINGS.

And so the story proceeds to make the FL forgive the ML.

THIS WAS A TRAGEDY. YOU WROTE A TRAGEDY. But because you think that women should just be fuckin doormats, you're gonna make her forgive him. I don't CARE how sorry he is, or how much he tortures himself, or how sad his eyes are. Both of them should part ways and just be happy WITH SOMEONE ELSE. But Noooooooo... she's got to forgive him, he's got to make her the 'Queen' and blah blah blah blah BLAH.

There is no romance in this manga, except the first chapter. Everything else was PAIN.

Just label it a Tragedy so I know what I'm getting into, rather than reading... what? Over 100 chapters now of total suffering where I pray the ML dies screaming and the FL finds someone else who isn't a sociopath and finds a way to overcome the trauma of being mind controlled for years only to see her mother DIE in the end, which wouldn't have happened if the ML had just trusted her EVEN ONCE. He's the one who got your mom killed, and you are going to wind up back with him.

WHAT THE FUCK?

That's not a romance. That's a tragedy. Which is fine. Just call a spade a spade. Don't LIE TO ME and get me committed to wanting to see these evil mutherfuckers die screaming, only to find out that it was all a lie and I'm supposed to be happy they eventually get back together. So Maybe... MAYBE there will be 2 maybe 3 chapters of them happy after 120 chapters of me wanting to fuckin murder the author for lying to me. That isn't a romance. That is TORTURE PORN.

If I wasn't a speed reader, I'd be pissed at how much of my life was wasted. At least it served as an excellent example of what NOT to write.

 

[PyrusMG]

Also, someone who is a large plot of land having sexy time with women... ummm...

He's got huge tracts of land.

 

[ElijahRyne]

I was reading the Black Magician Trilogy. It was my third time, and I realized that while I mostly liked Sonea's character, I was really annoyed that the author decided to shove in a gay sideplot. I think I was okay with it, so long as it was presented as a romance in context of Danny exploring with Tayend.

But then, a few things happen: (1) they visit Lonmar and someone is actually killed for being gay, (2) every fifth person points out how it's like soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo obvious that Tayend is gay, and (3) the author uses the entire thing not to attack religious cultures (like Lonmar being a stand-in for real world Islam) who put LGBT people to death but instead talk about how fairly moderate Kyralia, who simply refuse to enlist gay magicians. In other words, it was shameless leftist hypocrisy, attacking the easy target who probably would give a position to those who could prove themselves talented (just as they gave trial basis for the slum kid), while blatantly ignoring the people who were just put to death.

No, the thing I hate is not preachiness. I'm guilty of this too. It's side plots to characters where it barely matters. You could take out his character and replace it with about half the content and nobody would miss the change. This is particularly bad in Terry Brooks novels where they pull out an uninteresting character to solve the fact that the author basically wrote themselves into a corner. Unless the character is literally incapacitated, and you need a backup hero, the back and forth between the characters means you love one (or none) and hate the other.
While we're on Terry Brooks, he's pretty prone to setting up a romantic lead that you root for, only to thwart it at the last second with some random that you can't be bothered to like because the first broke up, died, or turned into a tree/faerie/etc.

When you read a novel, what are things you hate so much from other authors that you try not to include from your own work?

I don’t like stories where slavery is seen as good or when common people are portrayed as stupid and helpless needing a rich person, strong person, and/or smart person to help them figure out how to do something simple. I don’t like melodrama or pointless conflict. I don’t like when a character(s) or the narrator is being a blatant nationalist/racist and it is seen as good ( I mean non-libratory nationalism). I don’t like it when a third party comes into what would be the final act of a romance and starts lying, twisting words, and/or blackmailing one of the partners just to drag out the story a bit longer, this is especially bad when the partners have yet to get together and the story was about to end the will they won’t they stage. I don’t like it when the ’only’ way for the protagonist to get stronger is for them to do and/or experience something traumatizing, without the author or story meaningfully addressing it (Think Tokyo Ghoul’s anime). I don’t like when a disabled person is cured of their disability without that person‘s consent, or on that note when consent is not acknowledged in general. There are a couple more but I can’t remember them at the moment.

Another one I remembered is fights that have no purpose outside of making someone stronger or obtaining some sort of mcguffin.

 

[Santaisblue]

When the MC is always right and nobody fights it, just let's the MC walk all over them. A character changing their ways for the better is not bad but when they go from being racist assholes to shame filled pups because of one sentence from the MC it makes me hate the novel instantly and I drop it soon after

 

[3guanoff]

Don't tell me everything, leave some mystery. Don't spell it out.

Spoiler: Obnoxious example

Lo looked at Joe, "Why did you eat my pudding?"
Joe stared at her while trying to remember the circumstances. Actually, Joe had not eaten the pudding. Yesterday, while Lo was sick at home, Joe had encountered an unexpected problem.
Unlike what Lo thought, Joe was not an accountant but a spy. That day he had received a secret message from his boss, "Pro".
He did not know that "Pro" was Lo's codename. Joe considered Lo just another ordinary co-worker.
Anyway, the mission was to bring in his boss Bob, but Joe had not brought any colorless sleeping powder with him that day. The white flakes of the only drugs he had brought that day would be too obvious if mixed in a liquid. Hence, he had taken Lo's pudding, added the white flakes on top, and brought it to Bob. Bob had always liked pudding. When Bob was younger, his mother's specialty was pudding. Back then he hated pudding, and it was only after her death...

Of course, I am guilty of that myself more often than I would like.

 

[Corty]

Characters hide their true strengths and play the weak.

Spineless MCs who even after gathering a harem can’t get to hold their hands and the author just blueballs the readers.

Most shounen-like mcs in general.

Power loss and restarting from zero.


These are what truly grinds my gears.