Biggest turn-offs when reading fics?

I tend to like sentence fragments if they fit with the story. I use them sometimes

I guess I don't really like when people post and there paragraphs are sp close together, they don't format it! It just makes it easier for the reader to read I guess

 

Probably the writing the characters way out of character a little is okay (especially if it is mushy) but when it's so out of character you're like 'Have they seen the movies?' that's when I can't read it.

Hannah

 

Ditto again, DarthIshtar, and Amen Rokangus.

One thing that bugs me is a huge error that I rarely see on the boards but have seen in the work of my favorite fanfic authors. It is along the lines of sentence fragments- the use of relative clauses as complete sentences. A sentence beginning with "Which" has come up in some of my absolute favorite fanfics; I guess that's why it bugs me to death.

 

If the story seems like it has no end in sight. Ever!! Even after reading the best Sw fic, eventually I'll lose interest and read somthing else. I don't like reading fanfics that are the size of a novel. Ani/Ami mush story's are a peeve of mine too. There are way to many and alot share the same plotlines. It makes it a boring read. To me, anyway. Drama's are more my thing.

 

I don't like soap opera ones, eg. "Callista comes back with Luke's long-lost kid" or "Bria comes back with Han's long-lost kid". They just don't fit in SW.

Fics that obviously were never betaed or proof read because they have so many grammatical and spelling errors.

Slash, although I guess you can't find it here, is the worst turn-off.

Mary Sue fics. These are very popular with Han fics.

 

Thanks Ty-gon.

Hmm, though I am probably guilty of that "which" thing in a few cases.

I have to agree with what people have said about smut. IN a forum like this? Definitely a no-no. Even in general I avoid smut or slash. I just have a hard time seeing how that kind of stuff contributes to the story. if you can work it in symbolically where it has a great message, fine, but rarely do circumstances like those require a great deal of detail.

And I just don't want to know how many positions Han and Leia know.

For me and my created couple, Kelak and Dejirra, I find that my audience and myself are satisfied with all that stuff happening behind "closed doors". I hint at it, maybe joke about, but I keep it clean and I don't go into detail.

As for profanity, it's a thin line. Excessive use is plain old unnecessary, an i try to avoid it in my own writing as much as possible. But sometimes, a situation is just so overwhelmingly crazy, that a character's only plausible reaction is to curse. Even then, the EU has supplied a plethora of "clean" curses like Sithspawn, or Emperor's Black Bones. Curse if you absolutely must, but I agree with most people, it is better to avoid it altogether.

 

My college english teacher mentioned that if one is too lazy (or doesn't care enough) to proofread his/her own work then why should the reader care enough to read it in the first place? ?

That kinda of stuck on me. I prefer to proofread my own stuff with a good ol' diciotnary at my side for the sake of sharpening my editing skills and grammar eagle eye...even though a few slip into the mix every now and then.

My only main gripe is that characters nowadays are too perfect. I prefer, every now and then, a character with a possible speech impediment when under extreme stress. Why not a character that has to be excused during a crucial meeting in order to go to the little boy's room? They have to go sometime. A little more reality helps sell a rather dull character I find.
Give 'em the flaws I say...

 

I admit, that I'm a very mushy person and also tend to enjoy reading small amounts of torture. But, torture that has a meaning please. In one of my fics Anakin's haunted bu two old torture scenes, from when he was captured by a Sith. That fits into the fic, because it's centred around what the Sith did to Anakin (Anakin became a mute) and how he manages to overcome this.

The worst turn-off I find is when a whole story is squashed up into one paragrapgh, no spaces, I cannot stand that. Also that and spelling, I make occasional errors in my posts, but if you continually make errors you may find that the readers get turned off, because I certainly do.

I was never one for Obi-Wan shirtless and screaming, that in itself I can not understand. Everything must be for a reason. Oh and one last turn-off, how fast people rush into fics. It may be only the second post and your characters could already be doing something which has no depths or plot, of such. I think parts of a fic should be taken slowly and described well.

Am

 

I was in a play four years ago when someone told me very pertinent to acting and writing--"If you offend half the audience within 5 minutes, whatever else you do won't matter. It'll be tainted and forgotten."

 

I have no problem whatsoever with frags, if they're deliberate, and not overused. If, on the other hand, someone just starts a run-on sentence and forgets half-way through that it hasn't actually come to a predicate, that's another matter.

Italicized thoughts? Love 'em. It's a way that poetry has influenced prose: making the way words look on the page part of the effect of the writing. I love Stephen King's broken-sentence italic thoughts.

I like writing that feels like thinking, which is why informal grammar doesn't bother me much. If I have a formal grammar bugaboo, it's the use of "they" to indicate a single person of undetermined gender (as in "Someone left their book on the table"). There's actually a movement to make that proper English, but makes my hair stand on end. As a woman, I just can't find myself terribly offended by the fact that the default would be "his book"... but if I were writing in Han's point of view, I can't see him using things like "one's book" (Amidala, on the other hand, or Vader...), so I'd grit my teeth and use it.

Ellipses... they bother me, too.

 

One thing I really hate is that I'll read an interesting summary...and then the story itself will be about a page long. People who think five paragraphs is a fic need some help. I'm not talking about deliberately writing a single scene or a vignette, those are fine. But people will write a "story" that should emcompass most of Ep. III in one page ("Amidala realized Anakin had turned to the Dark Side. She was horrified. She took the twins and ran. Anakin became Darth Vader. Amidala died later, and everyone was sad. The End.") And they think they've written some great, angst-filled epic. I appreciate sites that let you know how long a story is before clicking on it.


The love triangle, though that's just my personal peeve. That's an automatic turn-off.


Agreed with the complaints about grammar, spelling, and formatting.


Also with the ones about characterization and dialogue. I think there are plenty of "authors" who don't really care about the movies at all (they just think Ewan/Natalie whoever is "hot" and write some nonsens accordingly). Uggh.


Crossovers with Earth. I've never seen one that wasn't just plain silly.


This venting feels good!

 

Figured I'd drop in my two cents. I need to rant and rave anyway...


Grammar. I am the pickiest person with grammar. I read a story once, on FanFix.com (I think you'll find it in the Crossovers section), where a Terminator was sent to kill Darth Vader. In almost every sentence, there was some pointless pun or cliche (hasta la vista, baby; I'll be back; etc..), and the grammar, spelling, and just the writing STYLE of it was all wrong.

Pointless torture. I must agree with DarthIshtar's point of "the only reason Obi-torturers do what they do is to get Obi shirtless and screaming." Angst is wonderful; it adds to the story, and torture is fine if it has a POINT. But torture just for the sake of torture is demented and wrong.

Smut. Ah, yes, the smut factor. People love it, hate it, ignore it. I tend to do a bit of everything. I don't mind romance. Romance is wonderful! But pointless smut--say, from the Estrogen Brigades--is kinda strange and odd, not to mention gross.

Plot! Plot is EVERYTHING. It's the way a story flows; what happens during the story. If the plot sucks, I'm outta there.

Characterization (did I spell that right?) is one of the most important points that I will make. If a person or character does not act like themself, then the story, no matter how good the plot, will be a total drag.

Well, those are my nits to pick. Sorry to do so, but I needed to vent my feelings

 

OK, my major points:

Grammar -- from your posts all of you have been there, done that and got the t-shirt. I'm also a clause-killer when I'm beta-reading for my "clients." Tighten up your prose! Your readers will appreciate it.

Point of View -- I'm a stickler for POV. I know that many (published) authors break the rules when it comes to this, but unless you're Stephen King, you shouldn't do it. Don't go in and out of a half dozen characters' heads in the course of one scene. It's confusing to your readers and definitely a red flag for me.

Gratuitous anything -- what's the point? If you have one (a point, that is), then that's what we should be seeing, not your deciding that it's time for a heavy breathing/gore/damsel in distress scenario, because you can't think of anything else. Mercifully, most fanfiction is free of this.

A hook on the first page! C'mon, gimme a reason to keep reading!

"He said She said" -- using "said" to indicate who's speaking what in dialog is not a bad thing. Much, much better than '"I think that's funny," he chuckled."' You can't chuckle speech, friends. You can say he said something, chuckling while he said it, but that's it.

Woo hoo, that's a lot of hot buttons. I can go on about the balance of description versus dialog, creating effective, "standout" characters, writing plot lines without holes, but I won't. The other posters on this board have covered that pretty well.

 

Bad grammar.

Poor spelling.

Inconsistency of style or plot.

Lack of variety in the vocabulary. Some people have never heard of a thesarus?!

Childish silliness. I can't stand sillifics.

Italicized thoughts. The keyboard has other little-used symbols such as * / [] {} and ^, all of which can be used to differentiate thoughts from telepathy from emphasized speech.

And the biggest one of all: Earth/Star Wars crossovers in which Star Wars(the movies and franchise) also exist. I have seen a few Earth/SW crossovers in which SW movies etc. did not exist, and they made for much better stories.

 

Well, never found it here but personally, slash. Just not my thing.

Bad grammar only bothers me if the story is lame as well.

Wow, reading through this is a little overwhelming. Reading people's opinions is enough to give any new fan fic writer second thoughts about posting. I hope none of my stuff annoys people that much!

 

Italicized thoughts. The keyboard has other little-used symbols such as * / [] {} and ^, all of which can be used to differentiate thoughts from telepathy from emphasized speech.

I totally disagree -- I think all those things make a manuscript look unprofessional; they're replacements for bold and italics in systems that don't support them, and really shouldn't be used when the fonts are available.

 

Guilty of generously using italics, and bolds for that matter. I like them a lot (comes from reading too much Tom Clancy). However, the main reason why I use them so much is because I just got tired of writing a variation of 'he thought' over and over and over...

I hate Wallpaper Characters. This isn't just a fanfic problem, but it is also a profic problem. Several of the EU novels include official characters that serve no real purpose to the plot! They are just 'there'. And not just secondary ones, but a few of the major characters have been treated in this fashion! Lando seems to suffer the most from this, but Han, Chewbacca, and even Leia have, too.

I detest the Obi/Ami/Ani love triangle. Especially the ones that take place during TPM (shudder, ages 14 and mid-20s, sick). Same goes for smut and slash, it totally turns me off. And that is why I spend so much time here.

Ditto on the massive typos and grammar errors, and especially when capitalization is forgotten.

Hmmm, perhaps we now need a 'Biggest turn-ons when reading fics?' thread.

 

Hm, I think there is one... isn't there something in this area about "elements you like to see in stories?"

Actually, we should start the "Mea Culpa" thread; where fanfic authors confess to their most grievous faults. Me, I am trying very hard to stop my characters from SIGHING so much! I'm also trying to cut down on my use of adverbs. And I have a terrible time thinking up titles.

 

I'll support a MeaCulpa thread. I'd post there WAY too much.

 

Poorly written/formatted dialogue.

It cheeses me off when I can't figure out who is saying what--and if it's consistant--then I just quit reading it altogether. I must confess that I've gotten lost in a few passages in profic as well though

also--dashes--they gotta go--

 

Mea culpa...

I don't know what I'd --

(dashes, ellipses, unfinished thoughts, and absurdly complex sentences... )

"Well, I'm sure I'd think of something," she says vaguely, her eyes moving from one member of the conversation to the next...

 

Mea culpa. Let's see, in my trials, the "objection, counsel is leading the witness" five times a post... It makes the lawyers look inept or overeager.

And snorting. My characters do that way too much.

And because my best friend does it to me, I have the universal sign of comfort be hand on the forearm.

And my mush sucks!

 

Well, people seem to be turned off when they see my name as author...but enough self-deprecation. Seriously what turns me off reading anything is when the author fails to make me care either way. I really hate a story with a protagonist that I am completely indifferent to. Even if I hate the protagonist and want him to fail I'll read the story to see if he does.

 

I also don't like Song Fics....they don't make sense to me...put those thoughts from the song into dialoge that the characters are speaking!!! garrrr....I just hate them!!

~Obischick

 

Phanan, hmmm, I have that same problem. In The Other Half, I put the Skywalkers on trial for war crimes, tortured them both, attempted to assassinate Leia twice, broke their arms and legs, then turned Luke to the Dark Side, tortured Han, pitted Luke and Leia against each other in mortal combat, killed off Yoda, killed off Rieekan, eviscerated Darth Vader, drove a saber through Palpy's throat, impaled Leia... While and after writing All the Wrong Places, in which I have Padme raped by a Sith, Anakin tortured, the Jedi killed off very gruesomely, Padme hacked up a bit, Anakin turned to the Dark Side, him raping his wife, then the entire lava pit scene, and then killing his wife...Yeah, people got this weird idea that I like brutality. But, honest, it's necessary to the storyline. So every time I start a new story, people say "Oh, gosh, no. I like these characters too much. She'll just go and kill them off."