What I Hate in Stories - Comments

I agree with almost all of this, with the exception of the chapter length thing, because I'm in two minds about it. I've noticed that in the last couple of years as my writing has improved, my chapters have been getting much much shorter. I think it's because I've managed to cut out a lot of the unnecessary descriptive crap that I used to go for, so I'm putting as much plot continuation in just in less words. I guess that's one reason why word count could be shorter for other people, if they have a clear idea of how much of the story they want to put in to each update and are able to condense it. I do think that only comes with practice though, and I've written a whole bunch of over-simplified crap in my time. There is such a thing as too little description.

I do know the stories you're referring to, though, and they can irritate me sometimes as well (though I think I'm guilty of writing a couple of them). There does seem to be some sort of idea that it's 'artsy' to write whole chapters shorter than this comment. Call me old fashioned, but sometimes I want to read a story that has obvious continuation and doesn't take me 20 minutes to decode. There's such a fine balance between writing interesting and beautiful prose, and then tipping that too far and writing things like 'Jason went to the store. He bought a pint of milk.' and then expecting everyone to get some deep existential meaning out of it.

i dunno. i kind of disagree with the chapter length one because i find it physically impossible to write a seven hundred word chapter without dying on the inside a bit because i feel like a four thousand chapter of nothing does not equal a short chapter that can be packed with emotion. i feel shorter chapters are harder to write than long ones, because to keep people interested, you need to make those two hundred words pretty damn great.

I read a story composed of one hundred word chapters that totaled over one hundred thousand words in its completion, so I disagree on chapter length. I think an author who can write short chapters and still move the story along are much more talented than people who write 2000 words of filler that essentially goes nowhere and does nothing for the story.

@ semolina
I think the kind of details she's talking about are like when people describe every inch of every article of clothing that their character puts on instead of just saying the character got dressed or even if they said the character put a sweater on to infer that the weather is cold. I don't even care, but when someone says "She put on a blue knitted sweater with a hole approximately 0.22 inches wide, a stain on the sleeve, and her initials on the tag." Like who the fuck cares. HOw does that at all contribute to the story. Details that add beauty to the writing are wonderful, but those absolutely useless "filler" details are not ok.

1. Short Chapters
I fucking can't stand stories that are 500 words or less a chapter. Especially if they're much shorter than that, like 100 words or less. So many people on this website do this as thought it's obscure and mysterious or something, but in reality, let's be honest - it's laziness. What can you really get out of a story that's that short? It used to not bother me so much when there were only a handful of stories like this, but now there's so many that it's not even funny. Honestly, I don't even think stories like this should be considered real stories. It's a joke.

I vary between short chapters and medium length chapters, most of the times it's because I have a short attention span and find it difficult to write for very long, or when I write on paper it'll be two-three refill papers long but on word it's like 1 and a half pages long.

I agree with the one-dimensional characters. That gives me a good idea though. I think it'd be cool if there were people who did blogs stating they would look at people's characters in their stories and review if the character needed working on or if the author was doing a good job.

1. Short Chapters
I fucking can't stand stories that are 500 words or less a chapter. Especially if they're much shorter than that, like 100 words or less. So many people on this website do this as thought it's obscure and mysterious or something, but in reality, let's be honest - it's laziness. What can you really get out of a story that's that short? It used to not bother me so much when there were only a handful of stories like this, but now there's so many that it's not even funny. Honestly, I don't even think stories like this should be considered real stories. It's a joke.

I died at this part. Sometimes I'm a bit irritated by it, other times I'm like oh well. But when you don't update is when I get a little irate. -_-'

LOL all of my chapters were less than 50 words long oops not sorry.

@ fitzpleasure
Maybe short chapters can make a statement, but it's impossible to get emotionally invested in stories that short. Details are not diarrhea.

I disagree with the short chapters thing. I wrote a story and all my chapters were under 200 words but I think people got a lot out of it. Really good writers can use sentence variety and diction and make short chapters have a bigger impact than a 2000 word chapter full of pointless details and word diarrhea