Fanfic Pet Hates

[Talon]

Lace Neil Singer, thank you very much for reintroducing me to my last meal

On a different note, I once had a critique of my aliens fanfic that I wasn't putting enough detail and description into my characters. I generally prefer to add small details over time, allowing readers' imaginations to fill in the blanks and have developed an image over time, on their own. Dumping a load of appearance detail all at once gets forgotten over time (assuming it's a long story).

I just realized something frightening. I suspect some Sue-authors are aware readers will forget details over the course of a long story, and continue to assault us with gratuitous descriptions again and again.. uh-oh here comes my last meal again!

[Lace Neil Singer]

XD

I've seen fanfics and RP character introductions where a Suethor uses a picture; and doesn't give out any personality description whatsoever. In writing a picture is not worth 100 words, and should only be used as a reference; purple prose, like the example given, makes everyone feel physically sick. -.-

A good reference is that if your character makes everyone want to vomit over her, then she needs work. XD

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I agree that details should be fed out over time as they become relevant. I mean, you can certainly give a basic description, but you don't need a blow by blow rundown right out of the gate.

I like to describe a character through another character's eyes. That way, you get to know them both at the same time, you get a description AND an opinion.

[Dreamstalker]

Or, as in the case of a lot of Mary Sue stories, just constant discription of the Sue, and none of the other characters, or just fleeting discription.

That's my "coauthor". Yes, the universe I write in is well-established and readers generally don't need any description of the main canon characters, but that doesn't mean only the Sue is "worthy" of such.

Another thing people do is they don't understand Point of View. Makes it very hard to follow when the writer keeps swapping who's pov we are seeing the scene from.

She did that too. When even the original author can't figure out what's going on, that's bad.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That's my "coauthor". Yes, the universe I write in is well-established and readers generally don't need any description of the main canon characters, but that doesn't mean only the Sue is "worthy" of such.

.

Well, if you are writing fanfic, that is probably true, but I might suggest it could be fun to desribe them anyways. I like it when an author describes someone I'm allready familiar with, only does it from a POV with a slightly different interpretation on the character. Everyone sees everyone differently than everyone else sees them, if that makes sense.

In my opinion, a fanfic writer should pretend cannon characters are unfamiliar to the reader, and use them like regular characters. Describe them. It will probably give a fresh feel to the story, plus it would be a fun writing exercise that would help the writier think about the characters in an objective way.

In the story I'm writing, a lot of what's going on goes on inside the character's heads. So sometimes the reader gets to see what they think of the other characters. The reader gets a lot of details about the characters that way, just not dumped on them all at once.


Here's some things I can't stand to read, in no particular order:

1. Songfics. I don't know why, they just annoy the heck out of me.
2. Characters who are described by saying they look like some actor or other famous person. Lazy writing, right there.
3. Pop culture references
4. POV all over the road
5. The purple descriptive crap described in the last couple posts here
6. Wildly out of character stuff
7. No formatting (bad spelling or punctuation, while not fun to read, is forgivable. Everyone's learning, not everyone has great spelling spills, and at least they are writing. But I cannot and will not read a solid, unbroken block of unrelieved text. )
8. People who write 50 words, call it a chapter, then say "if you want more, leave feedback." You don't get the props without doing the work. You want feedback, write something.
9. Sophmoric non-words..."majorly" is probably on the top of my list.
10. Cliche'd phrases

[Talon]

Re-hashing portions of a story that have already been written, through another character's POV.

This one goes beyond fanfiction. Orson Scott Card tried it in his Ender series, and it really wasn't that compelling. Frankly it was boring. I recently tried it in my own fanfiction. My editor who normally laps up my story like it's the only water he's seen in a weeklong drought, couldn't be bothered to finish reading my alternate POV-retelling. That spoke volumes.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Re-hashing portions of a story that have already been written, through another character's POV.

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You know, I wouldn't have seen that. That sounds like a cool concept, and on the surface, sounds like it might be fun. I haven't read any fics like that.

The concept sure works for TV...the funniest "My Name Is Earle" I've ever seen rehashed the same story through (I think) five people's eyes in one episode. Yes. Same story through all the main characters's POV in one sitting. Pure gold.

I guess maybe a lot of the humor is visual, so maybe it doesn't translate well to writing.

[Lace Neil Singer]

As I mentioned earlier, I can't stand plagurism. I once read a LOTR fanfic where the author not only wrote in a hideous Mary Sue who was the tenth walker, but when it came to describing Elrond and the council; she basically ripped off the entire movie script and stuffed it in the middle. That's just incredibly lazy, and shows that you really can't be bothered; what mattered to this author was showcasing her disgusting Mary Sue. -.-

Also, changing tense. Decide right at the start which you want to use; first person, second person or third, and stick to that. Don't start off with "she did this, she did that" and change to "I did this, I did that" half way thru. I once read a fic where the author started off with second person, changed to first, then finished in third. Ugh.

[Dreamstalker]

Well, if you are writing fanfic, that is probably true, but I might suggest it could be fun to desribe them anyways.

I always do that, if for no other reason than to make things more interesting within the story.

1. Songfics. I don't know why, they just annoy the heck out of me.

Ditto.

3. Pop culture references

I've been guilty in the past of using maybe one or two, but said references were quickly fixed before anyone else laid eyes on it (they were primarily "internal references" as a guideline to find a better phrasing/metaphor).

6. Wildly out of character stuff

I can deal if it's either an AU slashfic or very well justified, but please don't do it otherwise if there is solid evidence that the character would never act that way. It makes you look like an idiot.

8. People who write 50 words, call it a chapter, then say "if you want more, leave feedback." You don't get the props without doing the work. You want feedback, write something.
9. Sophmoric non-words..."majorly" is probably on the top of my list.
10. Cliche'd phrases

Yup, yup, and yup. I might be able to excuse #9 if it's the way a character talks, but even then it gets annoying fast. #10 has no excuse.

Re-hashing portions of a story that have already been written, through another character's POV.

I'll sometimes do that as an exercise only.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Re-hashing portions of a story that have already been written, through another character's POV.

That's what Meyer plans to do. O.o

I also hate it when people entitle their chapter "Mary Sue's POV" cuz it should be obvious by the writing who's point of view it is.

[Talon]

You know, I wouldn't have seen that. That sounds like a cool concept, and on the surface, sounds like it might be fun. I haven't read any fics like that.

Now that you mention it, the only places I've seen that are the aformentioned Orson Scott Card novel "Ender's Shadow", and an original story from a non-fanfic site.

I thought to give it a try, rewriting part of my story. The re-write was from the POV of a starship's self-aware computer control system. The AI witnessed a strained human chain of command, and began to doubt humans' ability to get things done. I thought the subject matter would be interesting, but it was just boring. It was hard to write, and I didn't like what I wrote. I tried re-writing it again, further cutting down and summarizing the parts of the story the readers were already familiar with, but it still didn't work. In the end I discarded the idea, along with about 10 pages of fanfiction.

I couldn't pull off alternate-POV retelling. One professional author I know of couldn't pull it off either. If someone can successfully pull it off, I'd love to read about it. But for now, I say the idea sounds much better on paper than in practice.

[Dreamstalker]

I think the only way second-person could work is in Choose Your Own Adventure-style books or video game scripts. It just seems odd to me especially in fanfic. I'm OK with first-person if it's a canon character POV, but from a Sue POV...gee, could you be a bit more obvious?

[Lace Neil Singer]

I hate second person; it's like the author is trying to force you, the reader, into the role of their Sue. O_o

[Dreamstalker]

During the experiment in which I gave my "coauthor" free reign, she tried to write like that for both my OC and the canon characters...being extremely favorable to her Sue and creating a borderline het/slash monstrosity (one of the listmoms maintains that she knew damn well what she was doing and that's why she did it)

That luckily was stopped before it went too far...my primary muse did hide in a corner for a few days afterwards though.

[MystyGlyttyr]

So far as haircolor descriptors, I did it in the most recent chapter of my wrestle-fic. But it was mostly because the people who I was introducing this way are literally throwaway characters (hopefully no one here is reading my fic or else I may have just spoiled something) so I never thought of them as anything more than character husks. I only offered those descriptions because the main character was "seeing them for the first time" and was identifying them to himself as they spoke.

Also, possibly once again spoiling something...what are people's thoughts on flashbacks as storytellers?