The Love and the Hate: Alex Edition

So Ella tagged me to do the love and hate tag thingy 25 days ago and I'm only now getting around to finishing this thing off OOPS. Here's her blog if you're confused since she also added another bit to do and I really cbf going into the nitty gritty of what I'm supposed to do so yeah let's do this ~

THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE IN STORIES

I kinda don't like love triangles, but if written correctly, they can be good. As long as the characters are written well, and the love triangle fits into the overall plot without detracting the story, then I'm fine with them.

I got no clue if the love triangles I’ve written are good or not, but the one I wrote in Crooked was so unnecessary and I think I only just wrote it to fill in space, oops. How that story was popular is beyond me.

No speech tags. I don't want to go back and re-read a conversation so I can remember who is talking. It's annoying.

I have two dialogue only stories: Dick Destroyer and Damn, Daniel. I like that they're only dialogue because it forces you as an author to show personality and emotion and all the other fun stuff through dialogue instead of relying on description and whatnot. I establish names early on in the chapter so the reader knows who is who but for the rest, I think it's easy to follow (though I admit when I'm writing said story, I get confused for a moment).

I tend to dislike first person stories, especially if the character is a teenager or the story is romance.

I identify as a YA author who "specialises" (if you will) in first person teenage romancey shit. I try not to make romance the focus but it's definitely included. Where the Wind Takes Us is definitely guilty of this, though I like to think that romance isn't the main plot.

THINGS YOU'D LIKE TO SEE IN STORIES ON MIBBA

Strong female characters. Women that have to make the hard decisions for themselves and think of more than what they want. I can't read weak female characters. I come from a family of all girls and subservient girls/women drive me crazy.

I also can't read weak female characters, and if I do I make sure they undergo some serious character development to become a strong ass individual. I like to think I attempted this in Fools, where there's one strong female character and the other female character's strength is questioned in a sense, but she rises on top. At least, this is how I pictured it in my mind. Not sure if it transferred into the story. Isla in Alice's Coffee Shop is a tough cookie - she's one of my favourite characters to write about because although she's a little naive, she's independent and can really hold her own.

Stories with ensemble casts.

I mean:
- Radley - eight youths
- Where the Wind Takes Us - five teens
- The Fuckers - this chick lives in a house of like, seven brothers

I like my ensemble casts, clearly.

Stories that focus more on friendship.

Where the Wind Takes Us and its sequel, Set Sail are more friendship based stories than anything else. Fools is centred around friendship as well, this one is more like a strong friendship that slowly breaks over time but because I like happy endings it fixes itself.

Even though this took me a long ass time to complete, I really enjoyed writing this up. I TAG EL and whoever else wants to do this!