Discussion Fan Fic Pet Peeves?

however thegreatyoda - The Star Wars universe may not use the same expressions - such as Obi-Wan shouting "BLAST!" when he's angry whereas earthling would yell something more vulgar.

Just my opinion.

 

Actually, Julia, that is a (relatively mild) expletive in the UK. Earthly epithets can be found in many places in the films, and mild ones like this usually don't bother me in fanfic. Severe swearing, though, is unnecessary and distracting (and yes, I remember Salacious Crumb's last line in RotJ, but that's hard to replicate in prose).

Besides that, most of my dislikes have been mentioned, but I can add that the only time they make me upset is when they happen in someone's addition to a round robin.

 

Swearing with some characters doesn't "feel" right - I can't imagine a character like Qui-Gon yelling something vulgar like our language, whereas "sith!" is more Star Warsy.

Anyway, I just realized one more thing that peeves me in fics. When a character thinks or does something completely stupid and wrong without any rationalizing.

Sure, I guess that that doesn't sound so bad as Jedi are always "unpredictable". But I was reading a fic earlier today where the master assumed that his padawan had left him and betrayed him in the most evil way. However the padawan sobbed, crying for him to not believe what he'd heard - that none of it was true and that the weirdos were evil and had tricked him into picking something up.

I've read many fics like this where the character just assumes something COMPLETELY wrong for absolutely no reason - there is NEVER ANY evidence to even LEAD to this radical conclusion. Come on people - no one is so stupid to think such non-thoughout conclusion (sorry for the lack of descriptive words, but I'm REALLY rushed right now). This whole "change of heart" is only a way to give Gary-Stu a more angsty loss to break through victoriously.

 

The other thing about swearing is I like writing about soldiers, and if you've ever been around military types...well, writing them accurately while keeping the language within the ratings is...challenging.

-Tim

 

lol, Tim. Very true.

 

Spelling and grammar is the big one. If one is going to take the time to write something and expect others to read it, take the time to proofread it. This is not nitpicking. It's just apathetic and shows lack of dedication to the art.

Some of the complaints here seem vey thin. The term "refresher" or "fresher" used a toilet or shower facility has been a staple in published scifi for 15-20 years or longer. It's not a made up word form fanfics. The words "felinx", "Sithspawn," and "sithspit" have all appeared in published Star Wars novels. Any use of these words in fanfics is as a continuation of terms that already exist in the SW universe.

Mary Sues-this was a new term to me, although I recognize the concept. I always avoid this as nmuch as possible in my writing. My characters get hurt. They limp for days with a sprained ankle. They take their turn in infirmaries and bacta tanks. They do not always score perfect kills in space battles.

 

I agree with most of the pet peeves here; but I find I must add my two cents as well.

Although spelling and grammar mistakes irk me sometimes, I can usually find a way to ignore them. (Maybe it's because my grammar isn't perfect itself. ) If a story is good enough, I can get so wrapped up in the it that grammar/spelling mistakes don't really stick out that much. It takes blatant and/or repetitive mistakes to make me stop reading. (Ex. Obi-Wan steped into a room filed with chairs and books and desks and people and sat down.)

The thing that will make me stop reading faster than anything will though is a character being out of character. I'm sorry but Obi-Wan would probably never fall over himself and ignore Qui-Gon over a girl past the age of thirteen. Likewise, Qui-Gon is not likely to suddenly smile and laugh loudly at every little thing (without being on some sort of drug). I feel that if one is going to write about a character, one make sure that they are writing the character correctly.

That's about if for me when it comes to things that really irk me.

P.S. - I know I probably made some grammar mistakes in my passage. I hope everyone can get past them enough to gather my message. As I said, my grammar isn't perfect.

 

Well, I didn't mean necessarily from fanfics. That was one of the things I hated about Shadows of the Empire, mostly, along with a few others. I thought Corran's sithspawns were just hilariously ridiculous. If I find it in a fanfic, I won't appreciate it either. I just really don't go for the EU, one because it doesn't have that same feel that the OT movies have, and it also sucks up $6 of my hardearned money each time I get one. Besides, it's not an argument, it's just a vent. Sometimes, you have to stick some of the basic ones in, just so people won't scream at you for not being Star Warssy enough. But seriously, how many femfriends (or malfriends, whichever is the case) have you ever had? It's just a stupid word that chaps my grits.

 

i don't think making up words is a bad thing. shakespeare made up words and new tenses and usages of words in all his writings. asimov coined the term robotics. i took those lesson to heart. i think reusing other people's made-up words is well... unoriginal, and it seems that that's the real complaint here.
like the gentle-being said above, fresher is an old term (15-20 years?) and since we're in a new age, it wouldn't be unappropriate to use one of the many other synonyms for bathroom, or make up a new one.
sithspit works well in parody writing, but seems kind of awkward placed into some serious literature.

the most important thing about the writing is the message, and how it is conveyed. the rest is details. for me, if the arrangement of the words doesn't appeal to me, i get bored and move on. so i guess my peeves are unoriginality and poor prose.

 

Like a lot of other people, I'd have to say spelling and poor grammar irritate me the most. I betaread for others more than I write myself (especially in the last year), so I notice every little mistake, and it never fails to rip me away from what I am trying to do: lose myself in the enjoyment of the story.

Many of my other peeves have already been mentioned: unoriginal/hybrid character names, Mary Sue/Gary Stu protagonists, crossovers, and overdone AU stories (Qui surviving TPM, etc,). The biggest peeve of mine that others have already touched on, however, has got to be Earth culture-specific terms being used in a GFFA.

Yes, the Great Flanneled One may have utilised words like "dog", but I much prefer seeing established SW creatures like "womprats", "nerfs", and "banthas" being mentioned in fic. Even understandable substitutions (made-up, "borrowed", or otherwise) for more common Earth terms, such as "equines" instead of "horses", "turbolift" instead of "elevator", or "comm unit" instead of "phone" are less jarring. Don't even get me started on how I feel about characters celebrating Christmas or playing soccer.

I'd rather reward an author with positive feedback for maintaining the illusion of a GFFA, than be violently yanked out of that literary illusion by a unignorable reminder that I'm sitting at home, in front of my computer, here on good ol' planet Earth.

- Rani

 

biggest fic pet peeve. a person writes like one chapter, has you hooked and wanting some more but the author scraps the story and leaves the readers hanging! this has happened to me a lot on ff.n, and they're all really good, interesting plots - it's just that the author doesn't follow through with the rest of the plot.

beginning, middle & end. it isn't hard people!

 

YES I totally agree! I know of so many fics around here that were totally wonderful, and the authors just abandoned them. See I have great ideas but I don't start posting unless I know I can and will finish. Finish what you begin people!

 

i have more!

Fanfic writers that do not update their e-mail address/ess. For webmistress? that want to archive their work, this can be very frustrating. This forces webmistress? to search for a current web page that has their e-mail on it and pray it is working.

Or they don?t have an e-mail address at all, so you really can?t let them know how awesome their work is and how much it touched you!

Or when they write, they misspell OT character names. I mean, if these characters have been around for a long time and people know who they are, it honestly shouldn?t be a problem spelling their name.

I mean, you got a thousand resources to find out the correct spelling. It shouldn?t be a problem!

a/n: obi-wan isn't spelled obi-won, or no dash between his name. there is a dash there.

 

Some writers don't seem to understand what Jedi are. I see them getting angry, feeling despair and breaking into tears. Not that they don't feel anything or that any of this has no place, but some of the excesses this is taken to is unrealistic. If a Jedi was unable to fight the sorrow within that they were breaking down into tears every ten minutes, they'd soon find themeselves on the dark side.

Amen. I absolutely can't stand that. What makes Jedi interesting is that they are supposed to try to master their feelings rather than being mastered by them. Aside from being out-of-character, it removes the thing that is most interesting about the character. When I see Jedi having a kegger or something, I generally assume that the rest of the story will be very pedestrian.

I don't like real or fake swearing to happen too often (and I particularly dislike the use of "sith" in any form as a curse; that was, imho, a huge mistake on the part of the EU--the Jedi aren't even sure the Sith still exist and see them as an ancient menace and heresy--can you imagine stubbing your toe and spitting out, "Oh, Gnostic!"?) SW just tends to have a more elevated vocabulary, and even the "lower" groups have very stylized speech patterns. Han's about as insouciant as you get in the SW galaxy, and his limit is "hell" and "damn."

I really dislike the use of Earth-based language. I agree that a dog should be called a dog, if it's a dog, but (if you've followed the sentence this far) it shouldn't be a dog in the first place. Nor should it be a laser-shooting sharp-clawed menace. I'd really like to see an alien pet which is, you know, a pet.

I love AUs, but am driven crazy by AUs which aren't true to the characters in them. What's the point of an AU if it's populated by people who just happen to have the same names as the characters in the original universe? They need to be constant and to make their decisions in the same way, though different circumstances would lead to different decisions.

Mischaracterization. When I see Amidala kicking back and essentially going to raves with her hip handmaidens, I want to scream. When Anakin is displayed as some kind of one dimensional evil beast, likewise.

 

i actually like the idea that Jedi have emotion and do show their emotions. otherwise if they didn't, they would just be drones.

 

Little words like "angst" and "mush" factor into it, and I understand that it's difficult to write good angst/ mush with your Jedi characters while still keeping them in perfect.... err... Jedi character. A good potential solution would be, keep it moderate. Soles doses facet venonem or something- the amount makes the poison. A little bit of something should never hurt, but too much of a good thing is bloody evil man!

 

I have a new pet peeve.


In every word that is supposed to be emphasized in a sentance and it's all done in caps.


I tried to read a story like that today and I couldn't finish the first 2 pages.


Maybe it's just me. I don't know.



Edit: Story threads that have huge conversations between posters for about five/seven pages between every updated post; that drives me crazy!

I've stopped reading afew different stories by authors because they seem to talk in their story threads more than they post parts to their stories.

I wish that could be stopped all together.

 

One thing that I really, really hate is when someone writing a story leaves out the period, explaination point, question mark ect. It just gets me confused.


I know this was from page one but someone really put the Star Wars characters celebrating St.Patricks's Day???

 

Really? Ha ha hah ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha h ah a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ! LOL! ROFL! OMG that is so hysterical!
OK totally pointless stupid post.... I'll shut up now....

 

When there is no punctuation or capital letters it is just too complicated and not worth it to read.

Also, a really serious paragraph, like a fight scene or a funeral with a really strange onomatopoeia in it. Say at a funeral, everyone was crying and giving speeches, then the door 'whizzed' open. It really throws me off the story and makes me want to laugh at really inappropriate moments in the story.

 

okay, this one's been buggin me for the past couple weeks now - the addition of an apostrophe to pluralize words.

example:
instead of heroes, hero's. it's in place of its (and vice versa).

this indicates something that the hero owns, not more than one hero.

i just can't understand how someone could legitimately write stories without knowing this simple grammatical concept.

 

Well, the latter is easy to do by accident--you're typing faster thank you're thinking, and the fingers know both it's and its. The spellcheck doesn't catch it, and the eyes may well slide over it if you've been staring at the passage long enough.

 

Wow, this is really helpful for all new writers.

Some of mine have been mentioned, but I'll put my two cents in anyway.

1. Mary/Gary Stus. So perfect, with exotic looks who are all powerful. *Massive yawn* I will instantly turn away.

2. Second main peeve is grammar and spelling. It annoys me like crazy. I try to read a couple of pages, to give the writer a chance, but then I leave, especially if the mistakes are huge. A couple of mispelled words here and there is okay. I do that all the time, but consistently--no way.

3. A smaller point to grammar, run-on sentences. You can split a long sentence into smaller parts. Hemingway went with small sentences, and he did okay. Short is often better.
4. I agree that a Jedi sobbing every 10 seconds is a bad thing. They should cry, but not every time. Just a little.
5. Mispelling a main character's name. Not good.

And lastly, a writer who leaves the story. This is a bad thing, and a real aggravation.

 

language. i'm not talking about tenses, i'm talking about the excessiveness of swear words, even ones we would say ourselves, mixed in with sw swear words.

or, words like 'gosh' or 'swell' in fics. i read a jag/jaina fic like that - everything else was beautiful but the mention of 'gosh' just bothered me. when you write these characters, you have to get inside their head and write how they would think and talk. you can't just make them say something they wouldn't normally say.

but yeah, back to another point - switching between tenses. i used to do this, and i'm willing to bet every beginning writer has gone through this. eventually with time, the writer gets over it and sticks to one tense but when others don't and call it their style of writing, it just gets annoying.

i love this topic!

 

galadriel - the occasional possessive/tense mishap is understandable - i'm sure i've done it myself - but i've seen it occur in titles, which could easily be caught and remedied. this is what i'm talking about, not mistakes and typographical errors.