I find myself mostly seeking out stories in worlds I already know like D&D campaign world novels or stories set in game worlds like the Dragon Age books because of this.
I’m interested in the world already, and everyone that is writing already has this world in mind. If it is a new world, I need to be invested in the story first, and then you can provide a lore dump.
So, IF writers… make me interested in who I am first, and then you can give me all the juicy details of the world you are interested in.
Thank you! Finally someone has said it! I have read too many books where the MC gets kidnapped or was mistreated by one or several ROs and we are still supposed to like them? Hell no!
My main hatred is probably with Gary Stu/Mary Sue characters. Now, many people have tried to describe them, y’know, saying that they’re impossible to beat, or that the story revolves around them, or that everyone good loves them, etc. but I think I have a better explanation for what these characters ACTUALLY are.
They’re the personification of author bias, a thing that can ABSOLUTELY kill a piece of writing if not addressed.
In basic terms, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu problem comes up when the author’s favorite character is the main protagonist, and they are willing to sacrifice every part of the plot in order to make the audience see them the same way they see them.
Also, another thing that’s a lot more minor but still hurts me, STOP FUCKING SAYING ORBS JUST SAY EYES LIKE A NORMAL PERSON
Writing in the historical style of the book, not in the style of the age the reader is in, is a torture for non-native English speakers. Yes I am talking about Choice of the Vampire
“It was all white men during [X historical time period], I couldn’t possibly include anyone else!” Uh, sorry, but that’s almost certainly not the case.
Something I’m pretty sure might have been mentioned before but I’m definitely not a fan of the helpless (or near enough) MC’s in a lot of stories. Pops up a lot in the fantasy setting where the MC is just plain ordinary and they always have to rely on the other characters who are stronger to help them. Some people might dig the damsel in distress angle but I don’t.
Plot Armour is also something I’m not a fan of, don’t get me wrong though I’d hate to see a character I loved die, but that’s what makes a story I read so much more interesting, that there is the possibility it can happen. When the MC and their allies are shrugging off everything that comes their way while the other characters drop like flies takes me out of it a little.
Those are more tropes I suppose, another thing that tends to irk me is the mindset that a story needs to be expansive with dozens of different branches, I personally think less is more, I’d happily read a good story that’s shorter than a longer story that has lots of different options that’s just average.
So, these are obviously just personal preference and there exceptions to these.
I really dislike useless MCs. Not in the sense of a lack of combat or magic, but just general uselessness. Do you want to have an MC be new to your world? Thats fine! But make their experiences give them a niche or an edge in some aspects. This is especially prevelent in team building style chapters where your group gets a character that covers every niche (the driver, the hacker, the healer, the face, etc) so that the group will be covered no matter what the MCs niche is, but usually that leads to the MC being completely useless and having their role in the group being superceded by the NPC (usually because the author can predicitably write the NPC off handedly solving problems without making it player choice). Honestly I don’t know how solvable this is, because its an incredibly prevelent trope, but I always end up just groaning, rolling my eyes, and then either abandoning it or regretting my purchase. I’ve found no game that does this right, though I’d be open to suggestions.
Kidnapping stories, but specifically where you’re supposed to just drink the kool aid and forget what happened to you. I understand needing or wanting your mc brought to an uncomfortable, unusual group where your mc has to navigate their new scenario, but oftentimes, especially in games with a strong romance bend, you never get justice, an explanation, or anything. This is especially frustrating when, in these romance driven games, all of your romance options are a member of this community or group that kidnapped you and see nothing wrong with what happened to you. It just is usually poorly handled and there are few games to do it well. The only WIP (and game) I’ve seen do it well is OFNA.
This has been a bad one for me lately, though I think it’s minor in the scheme of things: Re-describing unimportant details throughout the book? Like… when a character is described as having black hair, or their cellphone is red with a little frog keychain, the author goes out of their way to say 'She walked in, black hair gleaming" or “he pulled out his red phone, the keychain still existing” every time the character or object in question is mentioned.
This is especially bad with eyes. My roommate has very pretty eyes, and in the fifteen or so years I’ve known her, I’ve only noted the color when we’re sitting close or she’s dressed up and they stand out. Meanwhile, I’ve had a slew of fiction lately just keep adding the color as a tag every time a character’s face exists in a scene. It frustrates me to the point where, by the time we’re at a poignant scene where “her green eyes flashed in the sunlight” or "their brown eyes were dark with their shadowy past’ or something, I’m just frustrated and tired instead of captivated, and I’ve started imagining them with purple eyes just out of spite.
Story puts you in a situation that there’s no other choice, you’ve already doing the career, you’ve already going down the path, you’ve already wearing this filthy and stinky trchen coat, since the beginning of the story, and then some character or even the story itself, ask why you decided to do this. ಠᴥಠ
cause that would be really cool
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