Discussion Fan Fic Pet Peeves?

There is more to the EU than the big three. I enjoyed some of the Saga books to include the Corsucant Night series, Red Harvest, DeathTroopers, and all of Karen Traviss' Clone books. X-Wing Mercy Kill was really good and I don't remember if the big three were in those books. There were dozens of great characters that were created in the Beyond...I know because I cringed every time one was killed. All of those kids from the Young Jedi Knight books could have been developed more and gotten their own storylines.

The trouble wasn't a lack of characters, it was these characters weren't used effectively. The kids of the original Jedi Knights should have been given the lead and the older characters put into the role of mentors.

Getting back to pet peeves. I am one of those people who has their characters saying, "Gods". I sure hope nobody interpreted that as disrespectful or the work of an non-religion person. The reason I do it is because my Catholic mother would always get upset if I said, "Oh God". She thought it was blasphemy. I still avoid using the term so not to upset people of various monotheistic religions.

 

Saying Oh God is blasphemy? Was she raised in a church?

 

I lost a cushty "job" getting books for free and reviewing them, as an NJO(?) book was so bad, that it took me six months to complete it. Second half was great, just zipped along.

First half was horribly stilting, but in my view, it was doing a "clear up on aisle 19" of the mess left by the previous book's author, so I was willing to forgive, but it took me two or three goes to get through the first.

The previous book was good, but this author clearly had his own story to tell, and had to spend so long retrieving every protagonist from wherever the they had been left, hospital ships, etc., before he could kick off his own ideas, and there was a definite demarcation between the two stages.

 

Pretty much. Spanish Catholic and spent all her youth in Catholic schools. Of course we are talking about one of the ten commandants...so it is not a little known religious rule.

 

Where I grew up (in the Bible belt of the US) a lot of people felt that way. It's seen as taking the lords name in vain.

 

I learned well from my EU readings and always use things like "burning stars" or "by all the spice in Kessel" as substitutes...it's more believable that way. The only downside is that there aren't nearly enough GFFA swears to substitute for the plethora of oaths and cursings available to the mildly-creative English-speaker.

 

Sithspawn! By the Minions of Xendor! Emperor's Black Bones!

 

How about "Oh Force, no!"

 

New pet peeve, don't try to write when watching Queen live on Rock in Rio. It is impossible to do so.

 

I can't write while watching, err, a different band at that event back in 2001. Because REASONS.

*censored*

 

I am happy to say that most everything mentioned here is stuff I have avoided in my plot and characters. As far as grammar goes, I am not extremely knowledgeable in it. I know how to punctuate properly, I use capitalization when appropriate, and I structure my pages correctly with paragraphs of four to ten sentences (usually). But other than than that I rely on spell check. But to my credit, I read and re-read and re-read and re-read every paragraph over and over and over again to make sure the sentences flow. I've re-read my first chapter somewhere around 60 times, and I have made small tweaks nearly every time. I try to work out any grammar issues, but some will probably still elude me becasue I probably don't know better. I think, if I have a problem at this point, is the inclusion of to many force-users in my story-line. I have a Padawan who struggles greatly with self-confidence and cracks repeated under pressure (he turns to the dark side), A Jedi Knight of average ability, two powerful siths, two 'younglings' if you can call them that, A Jedi that was in hiding from the Clone Wars on, A grey force user who is the king of another world, and an anomalous force user who has fallen from both the Jedi and Sith Orders. This is in addition to a still growing character list of non force users, and sometimes I worry that I'll have issues developing the characters properly.

 

Yummm.

One man's jedi-heavy plotline is another man's (or Twi'lek Force Vampire's) larder.

 

Ha ha.
At least I'm aware of the problem and am early enough in my writing this first book to do something about it. I'm trying to decide if I need to either 1. R.R. Martin it and kill a bunch of people off, 2. cut the character list and various plot lines down, 3. write more than three books to more evenly disperse the characters, or 4. maybe my story will work out as is becasue not all of the said characters are ever really in the same place at the same time and the characters will. They are spread across four or five different stories (still efforting if I am going to keep one of the stories) that are intertwined and culminate in the end, and some characters will die along the way, or are only in part of the story. BTW I forgot about one other Jedi that stays in the Temple. But you only see her sparingly throughout the trilogy I am writing.

 

I don't see a problem, although someone who cracks under pressure does not seem natural Sith material; otherwise, I think you are fine.

 

Except when it comes to Kylo Ren.

 

Not that I can recall Kylo Ren cracking under pressure, he had already been a Dark Sider for a while before the film.

Okay, I have not seen that much of Sith works, but what I have seen, someone who cracks under pressure is likely to perish during training, or just get killed off by an annoyed senior Dark Jedi, or get pitched into a "survival of the fittest" lightsabre duel with another Sith student.

 

When characters end up at a place before they should.
Ex. When Obi-Wan and Anakin were at Mustafar and Utapua in TCW before their appearances in ROTS.
Just doesn't sit well with me.

 

Oh man, 1,000% agree. Dont mind a vision though.

 

Tarkin shouldn't know about Yavin 4 before ANH,
Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, shouldn't have been to Naboo or Tatooine, Padme to Tatooine, Anakin to any of the PT planets aside from Tatooine,
Etc.

Vision is fine I suppose

 

You guys talking about fanfic, or TCW?

Reviews. I suppose I should be happy with whatever I get, but I do get miffed when the reviewer teases that they could have done a longer or better one, but did not have the time. That just makes me feel short changed, and missing what could have been.

Mm. I hope I don't do that.

 

I think they mean well when they say things like that, but at the moment they are so full of emotion with your chapter that they can't figure out how to sort it all out to say everything they want to. It's a compliment, but it's not. I agree and wish they would just leave that little point out, but at least it's on the good side of things.

Hm, look at me being all Miss Positivity today. I doubt I will feel like that the next time it happens to me. I'll be thinking, " Sith-I-5 was right! What was I thinking? This stinks!"

 

I do have an issue with three-word-reviews, but they are, in no way, reflection of the person posting them. Some folks are just not good at any kind of critique, which doesn't mean they don't appreciate what we write!

 

If a story is perfect in every way, eg. the A Cold Day On The Pikes of this world, I'll just say so, but if I detect anything, I cannot help but write a full 360 degree review, praising what I can and commenting on what I can't.. If I then find the author is not signed up for concrit, I'll usually make do with an anodyne five-worder and a link to the concrit thread.

 

You leave a bunch of thoughtful, long reviews because you genuinely like the way somebody writes. And they repeatedly ignore you for no apparent reason. Not cool.

 

When you stumble across a fic you started and it is great but it's only just over 230+ words long and you can't remember where you going to go with it.