Things You Don't Like in Stories

When people put song lyrics as their summary. I don't have an issue with using a couple of lines, as it can be an effective way of setting the tone for the story, as well as giving the reader some insight as to where the author got their inspiration from. However, if you're just going to copy and paste the entire set of lyrics and use it as a summary, it loses my interest.

Overly sappy and romantic relationships. Relationships are not romantic all the time. A little joking and a little arguing here and there would be nice.

I have a friend who writes scat. It's not my kink, but we should be mindful that we shouldn't be insulting it so much when others may write it.

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I dislike unrealistic dialogue and awkward narration.

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

I really dislike when people over-describe a character's actions. I'm guilty of that myself, but I try to catch it, because it drives me insane. Like, "He ran his hands through his hair and looked from side to side as he took the cigarette out of his mouth, flicking the ashes on the ground before tossing the cigarette to the ground and stomping on it." I may be exaggerating (I'm not, I've read stories like this), but this is just ridiculous. A simple, "He tossed his cigarette on the ground and tousled his hair." would work sufficiently.

@ The Westerner
Or something as small as a "With a toss of his head, he dropped the cigarette and stamped it out."
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I agree. Dialogue especially; unless your character is old-fashioned, they will use slang, and lots of it.

For the short summary: "~click to find out~" I find it kind of obnoxious.

Random tragedy for no reason at all.

When original fiction stories use fandom tags, if only because it makes it even more difficult to sort through stories to find what I'm looking for.

I'm not talking about a tag like "Supernatural" or something of that nature that could be a blanket term for both the fandom and stories involving the supernatural, but tags that are names of actors or specific television shows, films, novels. I've never actually searched this, but for example, if I search tags for "Taylor Lautner," I don't want to have to sort through stories that just use a photo of Taylor Lautner to portray the male lead or stories that are inspired by Twilight but aren't actually fanfictions, if that makes any sense. That's cool if you're inspired by Twilight or use a photo of TayLaut as a representation of your character, but if it's not actually about that, you shouldn't include it as a tag.

It just kind of seems like piggy-backing off of something to me, and it just adds to the main reason I don't read a lot on Mibba anymore: it's too difficult to find what I'm looking for when it comes to stories.

Descriptive long summaries. I love it when summaries are maybe two sentences long with a quote and a soundtrack, but when you all-out tell a chapter in your summary, it's not worth my time to read.

Self insertion. It's awkward and rather unnecessary to read about the author fantasising about herself fucking Avenged Sevenfold.

Romance. Do not want. Do not want. Can no one write a good action, mystery, or sci-fi without gluing a tacky romance plot onto it?

herobrine:

Self insertion. It's awkward and rather unnecessary to read about the author fantasising about herself fucking Avenged Sevenfold.

Because everyone that writes self-insertion obviously writes about themselves fucking Avenged Sevenfold Yeah, that's not true. At all.

Just sayin'.

herobrine:

Romance. Do not want. Do not want. Can no one write a good action, mystery, or sci-fi without gluing a tacky romance plot onto it?

THIS. I especially hate it when authors throw in romance for absolutely no reason. YA authors seem to be especially guilty of this.

Along the same vein; why can't there be any asexual characters?

i saw sparks:

Because everyone that writes self-insertion obviously writes about themselves fucking Avenged Sevenfold Yeah, that's not true. At all.

Just sayin'.

Well, obviously. That was an example. A7X is one of the most popular fandoms on here and SI with bands is weird to me.

That super-strong, I-don't-need-no-man-so-get-lost type of female lead who then inevitably gets herself into a problem that only her male companion can get her out of and then all of a sudden he's a hero and she loses every notion of her previous super-strong character and marries him and they all live happily ever after with her as the loving cook / damsel in distress character.

I don't know, I just think that if you're going to have a character saved and have her be like that after, make her the damsel in distress type to start with. Otherwise, have her kick the guy in the balls and say she doesn't need him after he saves her. I don't think I've seen anyone use such drastic character changes to their advantage ever, so it irks me when I see it done at all.

@ house of cards.
So true! Or they should at least make the change more gradual!

When people use words like "member" and "warmth" instead of penis and vagina.
When reading fanfics like MCR or something or even original and the main character is always bullied, emo/goth, depresses, hated by all of the popular kids, and when they're best friends with everyone in the band. Then their parents abused them and then die in front of her and they were raped by the football quarterback later on. Basically Mary Sues.
When the author uses big words like the used a thesaurus for every damn word in the sentence. A little goes a long way, you don't have to use huge words for every one.
The parents of the teenage main character girl are never around and don't seem to mind that her boyfriend is sleeping over.
Self-insertion.

And when the main charater girl has a ridiculous name "euthanasiana" or something.

I'm not a huge fan of prologues. Most of the time I think they're just ways for writers to have a starting point so that the first chapter isn't so scary, and I get that, but they can usually be cut and that background information can be dispersed throughout the main story.

caves of steel.:

Along the same vein; why can't there be any asexual characters?

One of my oldest is asexual. His name's Corey Collier.
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I agree. Why's everyone's characters either gay, straight or bi? There's other sexualities out there.

i knit sweaters yo:

When people use words like "member" and "warmth" instead of penis and vagina.

On the flip side, I hate the use of the words "cock" and "pussy" in stories. But I'm not a huge fan of smut to begin with and don't generally read enough of it to be used to hearing those words. I almost want to laugh out loud when I read them, or I just roll my eyes and think to myself, This is a teenager's way of trying to sound erotic.
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So this one isn't exactly IN stories but it is sort of a part of it.

I really hate when it's been a long time since you've updated - especially when it's due to writer's block or a total lack of inspiration - and the readers precede to whine at you about it. Or, even worse, they give you a backhanded compliment where they tell you that they love your story but it's a shame that you don't care enough about it to update anymore. I hate the feeling of being pressured into updating because that just makes me less inclined to do it.

And I get that it's super frustrating when you love a story and you feel like you're left hanging when the author goes on a temporary hiatus and never ends the story, but I also just find it really insulting. Especially when you have intentions of finishing the story, just not when you're not constantly being plagued by a lack of inspiration to write. It's difficult at times and I can't stand losing subscribers because of it. I don't think I've ever un-subbed from a story just because it's taken the author forever to update. Sure, you could lose interest in the story over time but to un-sub because the author hasn't written in what you believe is the standard time it takes to update seems silly if you still like it. I enjoy holding onto that slight chance the author may update again when I can see that they're so regularly active in other areas of the site or that they're updating their other stories still.

This is sort of a broad thing, but when it's pretty obvious a writer is writing about something they know very little about and have made no effort to research. I see it a lot with pretty much everything from mental health problems to asexuality to illnesses to technologies to basic science and so on. Nothing puts me off a story more than if I'm sat there correcting facts all the time.