Discussion Fan Fic Pet Peeves?

Fans that don't use their brains while they are writing.

I follow one fic that takes place during and after Mortis. I had very few problems with what was going on during the Mortis stuff but they had Anakin design the Death Star after the events of the last episode.

As everyone here most likely remembers the Death Star makes its first appearance in AotC as plans. It goes without saying that "this technological terror" has been in the planning stages for some time. How long is in question. The EU would have us believe that it has several beginnings but until the Maker says something than I will not take a side.

Another thing; I expressed my belief the Bail wouldn't have sheltered a Jedi on Alderaan until Leia was old enough to follow certain instructions like run away and never come back or go here and tell no one who you are!

They used examples in the EU, one of them dated back to Bantam Era, and said that Bail would have offered shelter to any Jedi because Alderaan was friends to the Jedi.

Think of just a few seconds. If you were protecting one of the last hopes for freedom in the galaxy would you basically invite beings that could compromise her safety, her twin's safety, two Jedi Masters' safety and the galaxy's just because your planet was a friend to their order?

I know that I would tell them to leave at the least. I might even shoot at them to get my point across.

Bail was in some deep water over caring for Leia; something that could kill him at the very least and at the most take the lives of dozens of others.

and for the record I don't believe that Bail told his wife about Leia's true heritage. The fewer beings that knew the safer Leia was..

 

But for the author, things were different than how you saw Bail - I would call this a Pet Peeve per say, more a matter of choice and perception.

Hmm, and in sneaks the plot bunny - more of a line in passing for a story that's stewing (Saga era for the MMM thread that I haven't been able to get past the 'I know what I need to write... but it's not all there' stage...)

 

It's a factory building Jedi - so the smokestacks spires are in tune with that theme.

 

DarthBreezy it's a pet peeve when people think that you are stupid as far as EU things are concerned and tell you so when you state an opinion.

And you are welcome for the plot bunny.

Another thing: I'm bouncing around a plot bunny and the sister of mine that I bounce ideas off of says that it won't work because apparently Anakin hates meditation in Canon and I am silently saying "It's a freaking AU!!! So what if Anakin apparently hates meditation in Canon; he's going to need to do it to control his abilities in this!!"

Just so you know the fic mentioned above is going to be very AU.

 

Oh I get ya! I still don't think it's a 'Pet peeve' So much as an author being a PUTZ in this case! I admit to being rather 'EU' ignorant by happy choice, so they would have a hayday with me!

And I'm ALL about the AU's! Bring 'em on!!

 

Authors who don't bother to use spell-check or even separate their work into paragraphs. If it's just one giant block of text, I won't read it and I know others who wouldn't either.

 

Yeah, me too - except in the case of folks who upload onto sites and lost their formatting - that is a real pain to fix.

 

I had a fic that was a wall of text.

I got it Beta'd and didn't realize that the formatting was off.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

This is why "preview" is your friend. I've encountered those issues before, too. So, I preview in BBCode to make sure everything is good to go.

Implausible medical scenarios that are blatantly obvious. Injuries that are treated as serious when they're actually very trivial, and vice versa. Also, characters who are shot in the head and are up walking and talking, when the area of the brain that was damaged by the shot would leave them severely disabled. Just another situation of authors not doing the research beforehand.

When I want to beat up a character, say by throwing them down the stairs, I will determine how they're thrown, what body parts will hit, and derive the injuries from those impacts. Most likely, if your character is thrown head-first down a flight of stairs, they'll have at least a concussion. That's a given. But, the injuries and severity will depend on how they fall. If you're good with 3D modeling, rig up a biped and throw them down a flight of stairs and observe how the physics make them fall. Got a ragdoll? Tumble it down some steps and observe. Draw the start of the fall and determine the physics from there.

It may take some extra work, but if you want to injure your character in plausible ways, it's worth the effort.

 

As a lifelong h/c fan, I heartily approve of doing the research! All those boo-boos clinically described ...

 

There's a fic where after Padme's death Bail decides that Leia needs a decoy. He asks that one of Padme's eggs be harvested inseminated and then grown to an infant in x amount of days.

Out of curiosity I did some research and learned LOTS of interesting stuff on human female fertility. But I did find what I was looking for: a pregnant human female's eggs do not mature if she's pregnant and if an egg does it isn't when she's getting ready to give birth.

Talk about messing with biology.

And I really don't see how the girl could have fooled the baddies since if they did a DNA test it would tell them that the child was Padme Amidala's bt not Anakin Skywalker's. It would have been better and more realistic for Bail just to clone Leia.

 

I actually really like that fic, despite the fact that it's a blatant self-insert, Mary Sue. And given that it hasn't been finished yet, I suspect that the other half of the DNA will be revealed to be Anakin's.

That said, bending science to suit your purposes can be fine if you write well. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that the Kaminoans can do some strange stuff with their tech because for the most part the prose and plot are well constructed, and I'm finding it an enjoyable read.

 

I will take your word for it.

 

I have been having that problem with the wall of words. I preview and then when I go to edit it will only let me change one letter at a time and I have to wait three seconds between each letter. It drives me kriff'n nuts. Then when I go to put a break between paragraphs it doesn't show up in the area where I am editing but it does show up when I preview again. I have no idea why I am having this problem. Sometimes I am tempted to leave it all screwed up.

It doesn't happen when I edit a post where I did not cut and paste a word document into it. So it is something to do with microsoft word for Mac and this website.

 

Nah, with Windows I have the same issue. Type one letter (unless you can type really fast and squeeze several in before the freeze).

For line of text issue, I just copy/paste then manually go in and add an extra line where there already seems to be one before previewing (cuz it doesn't show up in previewing) - that solves the lack of spacing between paragraphs issue for me. Just an extra step that takes but a minute or so.

 

I blame the site's editor for that. If you open the editor in a new tab and switch to BBCode view, it works faster, and you can spot all of the weird Word formatting much quicker. RTF editing is never kind, particularly if the post is long.

Another option would be to format the story in BBCode while you type it up, so that way the copy/paste will be quick and easy, and all the formatting will be intact.

 

I just posted the following little missive on FF.net - my PP of the week...

Just a simple request.
I will NOT, nor have I ever played the 'hold a story hostage for reviews' game. I absolutely despise that kind of garbage as the lowest of the low. If I have a story, I will post it, whether it's complete or as I go along (note that I tend to try to finish before I post when I can as it keeps the flow going) BUT reviews 'feed' the muse - I can see footie-prints - a lot of them actually- but so few people have taken the time to leave me a cookie, letting me know if they've enjoyed the story. If I've passed a little time for you, and you've enjoyed the tale, please do let me know...

 

Well put. I hope this will change someone's mind, make them clicky that button. Even a 'good chapter!!!!!' feels rewarding.

 

Yeah. Even one "like" for stories on this board would be appreciated, especially if there's not been one "like" or one post in over 100 "reads."

Not as good, but acceptable, is a simple PM explaining where you went wrong (that is, if the poster has been following your story) - to me. I know not everyone wants or accepts critique (and I also know a lot of folks don't know the difference between critiquing and criticising).

But in the opposite of peeves, I totally enjoy reading response posts that are witty, questioning in a good way, or stimulate discussion. One of my fav authors, who posts more on ff.n than here, gets some totally interesting reviews that are almost as much fun to read as her stories. And that is saying something.

 

One of my pet peeves is along the medical route as well. It drives me nuts when a character is suffering from getting shot with a blaster. Why do they insist on having the character bleed? We have even seen Leia get shot in the arm in ROTJ. It was a laser beam. There was no blood because there shouldn't be any blood. A severe internal burn? Sure. Possibly life threatening if severe enough or in a more vulnerable part of the body? Sure. Blood gushing? Really?

I also agree with the begging for reviews. I know people can be lazy about leaving a review, but does it ever occur to any author that if you see a bunch of people clicking on your fic and not leaving reviews, maybe, just maybe, they don't think it's as great as you want to believe. While I respect the 'effort', I don't reward poor fic writing with a review. Plus, just because somebody clicks on your fic to read it doesn't mean they read more than 3 or 4 sentences and then decided it wasn't their cup of blue milk or whatever. Or maybe they didn't finish reading the whole chapter at that point and want to finish before leaving a review or there could be a bunch of different reasons.

Ok, I have one more and it may be more of an author deciding what is in character for themselves, but whenever a main character from the OT feels the need to break out into song and it's supposed to be serious. I don't mean a character singing a phrase or two while inebriated or something. I mean more along the lines of serenading. Sorry, it is so far out of character for me, it seems ridiculous. I suppose that is not a pet peeve per se, but it is for me.

 

I hate the "begging for reviews" but not as much as the "holding hostage." And I totally agree about the not leaving a review - if I can't say anything nice, I don't.

But, just in case you're referring to my post above, when a reader solicits feedback - good or bad - then a lack of feedback is disheartening. I've read stories where the author has asked for critique and if I'm able and find something, I'll comment - NICELY - pairing it with honest praise and suggestions on the weaker aspect. Saying "your dialogue sucks" is not critiquing, but saying the dialogue is "a bit stiff and formal for that character" but the story has great pacing and characterization and your action sequences are great is critiquing.

And while I'm aware of some of my weaknesses, it's important to me to see if others see the same and have suggestions on improving in that area, or contrary, suggest I'm being overly harsh on my own stuff.

 

That's the thing, and yeah, rereading a fic from one's early attempts makes one cringe sometimes. Then, there's a review years after the fact, and the world is rosy again! Here on TFN the story gets locked for new comments *assumes that XenForo does the same as older boards*, but on FFN the stories from '00 live on.

 

Last year when my sister RED got married she brought over a friend that was entering the medical field and while she was helping us with soething some of my siblings were watching a movie. Near the end a paramedic is rattling off the injuries that this guy has while this kid keeps asking 'is he going to live?' Finally the paramedic answers 'he'll live kid'.

The injuries that were being rattled off the paramedic either shouldn't have been able to tell or teh guy should have been dead days ago.

Some people think that it would be cool to rattle off injures most likely not understanding just how serious they are.


I request reviews and have in the recent past told my readers to strongly encourage me to write since I go through periods of time where I don't write as much as I should.

I blame some of it on NaNoWriMo since I got burned out doing it. The other part I think I am beginning to blame on my meds since they are apparently messing with me

 

Interesting that the paramedic said that - I guess paramedics get asked that a lot by bystanders and relatives, too. "We don't know yet" would be hard on little kids, but not as hard as finding out that the victim died after they'd had reassurances that he wouldn't.

 

No one said anything about begging for reviews, but on the other hand, It doesn't have to be 'great' to earn a courtesy note...

It was just an observation born of frustration for all the 'favorites and followers', it would be nice to hear from people once in a while.