More Pet Peeves
Hey, sorry about not updating the story. I am working on the next chapter but it is slow going. In the meantime, I have an add on to the Pet Peeve List
16. Poor Research
Writing a story can be fun. Writing a great story can be a blast, but it is a lot of work and people who attempt to do it without the work are frustrating. It is important to have accurate information if you are going to write a story. Just because you don't doesn't mean someone else out there won't. It is really hard to be reading a story when you come across information that is just plain inaccurate. For example, a story I've been following had a character being pulled towards a bed of nails and the author wrote it with everyone freaking out about the character about to be impaled on said nails. It really hard to read the chapter because I know it doesn't work that way. Things pierce due to pressure. Pressure is a combination of surface area and force. Increased force plus decreased surface area equals increased. Increasing surface area decreases pressure, which is why when I once jumped into a chair of nails I was perfectly fine, which means the character would have been fine and all that dramatic tension rolled off my back because I didn't believe it.
Of course, this doesn't mean everything has to be realistic. Take Star Trek physics. They make real physicist cry. However, with in that universe that's just the way physics work. The show stays true to its own internal rules about warp being faster than light and trinnium crystals fueling stuff. Harry Potter has magic.
However, these shows still rely upon a well researched foundation. Take Chekov. He's Russian. Now in the new movie there is this cute little scene where his Russian accent gives him problems. That is a research pointed that is crucial to characterization. A bad example of this is a Harry Potter crossover I read where all the British characters are dropping the F-bomb. The problem is that the word doesn't hold the same weight in England as it does it North America. An English citizen is more likely to use ballocks or bloody hell. That's a small detail that huge difference that people need to know to give nuances.
So research your stories. I research the crap out of mine. I spent fifteen minutes looking for the name of a friggen screw. A screw! Why? Because if I made something up a whole bunch of people would call me on it and I'd look like an idiot and lose a bunch of readers who no longer trusted me. Accuracy is important. Do the work to get the results.
17. Event Rankings
Characters are like real people. In fact, some of us really crazy authors would claim that they are real people, just ones who happen to live in our heads. Regardless of their degree of reality this means that characters react the way real people do. The event that has the most emotional impact is the one that the characters are going to deal with first, even if their response is "oh crap. I can't deal. Back-burner!" That is still a response. A lot of stories that have great potential to read are really frustrating because a character sees something that they know to be important (which is different than witnessing what the reader knows to be important) and then, because the author is trying to build suspense, they ignore it in favor of a more recent event. Spilt tea is not going to make everyone forgot about the "He's your son!" or the "I'm from the future!" revelations. Events that have emotional hierarchy need to be treated as such. Ignoring them or putting them off doesn't succeed in building suspense because it annoys the audience because it is an unnatural progression. It's like if you're watching an action movie. Someone starts shooting. Bullets are flying. Glass is shattering. The bad guy has a bead on the hero then BAM, we're watching the hero's girlfriend sip tea. Yes, we're all wondering what happened but it's more of a WTF?! kind of way, which is bad. So try to build suspense naturally instead of using artifices to force it.
18. Cliffhangers
I get that at times they are appropriate because they form a natural break in the chapter, but cliffhangers are like Cayenne pepper. They need to be used rarely, delicately, and not be left to cook for too long. An overuse of cliffhangers is a sign of a lack of self confidence in your writing ability. You don't give the audience an end to the chapter because you're afraid that if you do they won't come back or you think you're being immensely clever (I'm guilty of both of these from my days a. The truth of the matter is that most of us by the time we hit twenty can walk away from a story even if it is a cliffhanger. This is especially the case for people who write fanfiction. We just make up our ending (it is what we're all doing here). Cliffhangers can be suspenseful, they can be necessary, and they can be well used, but while they can be these things, they usually aren't, especially when you don't have the next part available. Don't torture your audience for giggles, and don't do it because you are afraid they'll leave. If they are going to a cliffie won't stop them.
In short: Cliffhangers, use responsibly.
19. Anachronistic Language
I sort of covered this under poor research, but it is a point that bears repeating. Watch your language in a story. What you write determines your tone. How consistent you are determines your audience's willing suspension of disbelief (If you have never heard that phrase before, google it. Google it now!). How suspended the disbelief is determines how much the reader enjoys the story. Things that shock reader out of their disbelief cause the reader to turn away. Language is a key element because it is what the entire story is contingent upon.
Let us say that your writing style is somewhat poetic and flowery and full of imagery. Turning crass with out justification is a shock to the system.
eg. Light slipped through the crystal, spilling rainbows across the besmear furnishings even as a breeze whispered through the room, pulling at the thoughts of no one. Dust settled across the scape, clinging to the walls as though to scream out in desperation of the abandonment of the room, of the neglected memories that haunted these halls. The desperation of the room blew monkey chunks and royally sucked. But the tragedy was not truly forgotten.
See? Totally bizarre. Worse is when it happens in dialogue. I've recently started plowing through Star Wars fanfictions and someone had a forty year old Qui Gon respond with "Whatever" to Yoda. That is like having an Arch Bishop tell the Pope to go stuff himself with that exact turn of phrase. Watch your language people! Word choice needs to be deliberate and exact! Think it through. Read it out loud if you have to. If it sounds weird, chances are it is weird. If you need help Thesauruses are a writer's best friend (Yes, they are better than grammar guides and dictionaries and you can use one free online, so no excuses!).
20. Wall O'text.
Quite simply if you have a wall of text you have done something wrong and you need to go back and fix it. This is not a nit-pic. This is a fact. Ignoring how badly walls of text mess with elements like flow and voice you are still left with the problem that they are nigh near impossible to read. There are no landmarks for people to use if they get lost or look away. They can't remind themselves they were in the middle of the third paragraph and just go there. It becomes easy to reread the same line over and over and over.
The most common cause of the wall of text is the misunderstanding of the rules of dialogue. Simply defined, if you have a new speaker you start a new paragraph, no exceptions. Ever. Period. You can fight me on this but there is a special hell for people who violate the rules of dialogue.
21. Thru
It's through, goddammit! Not threw, not thru (especially not thru!). Seriously! I don't care what your phone says! It's through! T-H-R-O-U-G-H!
22. Social Service Portrayal.
The social service system is not like the pound for children. People do not walk in and go "I want THAT one." There is a process. There is screening. There are requirements. Believe it or not the people who foster and adopt children are not all creepy abusive pedophiles. A good many of them actually like children (NOT LIKE THAT!). I understand simplifying it for a story but an oversimplification of the system coupled with an embarrassingly cliched portrayal of the system makes for a dull stock story.
23. Slash Gender Roles
Gay men are not women in men's bodies. They are men who like other men. While fanfiction is a great way to explore slash relationships it is really tiring to read the same variations on character despite the fandom. The idea of there being a dominant partner and a submissive partner, especially based on position in the bedroom, is silly. Relationships are dynamic and each person in the relationship holds some kind of power, other wise it would not be a relationship. Making a straight character gay also doesn't turn them into a bleeding heart. Seriously. In so many of the stories I read the now gay character cries at absolutely everything while their boyfriend does the whole cuddly/braveface/protector routine. It's a ridiculous portrayal that is more fit for bad romances like Twilight (and as much as I love Twilight I do so because it is a bad romance) and not for stories with any depth. If Harry Potter is being pursued by Draco Malfoy Harry does not suddenly lose his ability to cast awesome spells and function independently. If Dean Winchester is being chased by Castiel Dean will not suddenly start crying over how crappy his life is.
The characterization doesn't alter due to orientation. Being gay doesn't make people into different people. Buying in and, worse, peddling that type of misconception isn't just painful to read but is also bad for soceity. Writing reflects ideology and reading informs paradigms. If someone's only experience with homosexual relationships stems from fanfiction they carry those misconceptions on into real life and ask stupid questions like 'Who's the husband and who's the wife?" If one of them was the wife they wouldn't be a gay couple, now would they? Yet fanfiction continues to reinforce these stereotypical misconceptions about the LGTB community and, believe it or not, it is actually harmful in real life. If you are going to write slash please try to stay away from this whole "one of them is a girl" attitude. Neither of them are (unless they are trans but I have yet to stumble across that) and ignoring that fact makes for a dull story with shoddy characterization and a stereotypical setup.
If you really want a dynamic story that is interesting, focus on how the dynamics of having two, strong, independent people used to filling the same gender role must strike a balance. How would Dean handle Castiel protecting him when he is so used to being the one to protect everyone else? How are traditionally gender-stereotyped responsibilities handled? If you want to explore homosexuality then explore homosexuality, not harlequins.
24. Name Abberviations
This is different than nicknames. I'm talking about writing in the story "HP looked down Diagon Alley to see where his best mate, RW, had wandered off to." By the Power of Grey Skull, you're typing! Do you really need to try and make the process any more expedient? Seriously? How convenient do you expect life to get?
25. Using a Character to Substitute an OC
I know, a bit of a conflict with Peeve 3, but the exception to Peeve 3 is if it is well done. In this case if you are going to use a character for a completely AU role, including changing their name, back ground, stance on justice, friendship circle, and oh, I don't know, everything but their appearance just a darn OC. You've already done all the steps to create an OC. Commit to the risk! It isn't really a Clark Kent story if it's about a meat headed jock growing up on Mars with his biological parent Wayne and Bearnice, where his arc nemesis is some dude named Bob and his love interest is a chick named Marie Stellanoschavich. Fanfiction is blending the familiar with the new. It's about revitalization while playing with traditional boundaries. Some fandoms offer worlds (such as WOW), others offer characters (such as the Legend of Zelda), some a mix of both (Supernatural, Harry Potter, etc). If you aren't going to play with the traditional elements you should just post the story as original fiction because that's what it is, despite using same names.
16. Poor Research
Writing a story can be fun. Writing a great story can be a blast, but it is a lot of work and people who attempt to do it without the work are frustrating. It is important to have accurate information if you are going to write a story. Just because you don't doesn't mean someone else out there won't. It is really hard to be reading a story when you come across information that is just plain inaccurate. For example, a story I've been following had a character being pulled towards a bed of nails and the author wrote it with everyone freaking out about the character about to be impaled on said nails. It really hard to read the chapter because I know it doesn't work that way. Things pierce due to pressure. Pressure is a combination of surface area and force. Increased force plus decreased surface area equals increased. Increasing surface area decreases pressure, which is why when I once jumped into a chair of nails I was perfectly fine, which means the character would have been fine and all that dramatic tension rolled off my back because I didn't believe it.
Of course, this doesn't mean everything has to be realistic. Take Star Trek physics. They make real physicist cry. However, with in that universe that's just the way physics work. The show stays true to its own internal rules about warp being faster than light and trinnium crystals fueling stuff. Harry Potter has magic.
However, these shows still rely upon a well researched foundation. Take Chekov. He's Russian. Now in the new movie there is this cute little scene where his Russian accent gives him problems. That is a research pointed that is crucial to characterization. A bad example of this is a Harry Potter crossover I read where all the British characters are dropping the F-bomb. The problem is that the word doesn't hold the same weight in England as it does it North America. An English citizen is more likely to use ballocks or bloody hell. That's a small detail that huge difference that people need to know to give nuances.
So research your stories. I research the crap out of mine. I spent fifteen minutes looking for the name of a friggen screw. A screw! Why? Because if I made something up a whole bunch of people would call me on it and I'd look like an idiot and lose a bunch of readers who no longer trusted me. Accuracy is important. Do the work to get the results.
17. Event Rankings
Characters are like real people. In fact, some of us really crazy authors would claim that they are real people, just ones who happen to live in our heads. Regardless of their degree of reality this means that characters react the way real people do. The event that has the most emotional impact is the one that the characters are going to deal with first, even if their response is "oh crap. I can't deal. Back-burner!" That is still a response. A lot of stories that have great potential to read are really frustrating because a character sees something that they know to be important (which is different than witnessing what the reader knows to be important) and then, because the author is trying to build suspense, they ignore it in favor of a more recent event. Spilt tea is not going to make everyone forgot about the "He's your son!" or the "I'm from the future!" revelations. Events that have emotional hierarchy need to be treated as such. Ignoring them or putting them off doesn't succeed in building suspense because it annoys the audience because it is an unnatural progression. It's like if you're watching an action movie. Someone starts shooting. Bullets are flying. Glass is shattering. The bad guy has a bead on the hero then BAM, we're watching the hero's girlfriend sip tea. Yes, we're all wondering what happened but it's more of a WTF?! kind of way, which is bad. So try to build suspense naturally instead of using artifices to force it.
18. Cliffhangers
I get that at times they are appropriate because they form a natural break in the chapter, but cliffhangers are like Cayenne pepper. They need to be used rarely, delicately, and not be left to cook for too long. An overuse of cliffhangers is a sign of a lack of self confidence in your writing ability. You don't give the audience an end to the chapter because you're afraid that if you do they won't come back or you think you're being immensely clever (I'm guilty of both of these from my days a. The truth of the matter is that most of us by the time we hit twenty can walk away from a story even if it is a cliffhanger. This is especially the case for people who write fanfiction. We just make up our ending (it is what we're all doing here). Cliffhangers can be suspenseful, they can be necessary, and they can be well used, but while they can be these things, they usually aren't, especially when you don't have the next part available. Don't torture your audience for giggles, and don't do it because you are afraid they'll leave. If they are going to a cliffie won't stop them.
In short: Cliffhangers, use responsibly.
19. Anachronistic Language
I sort of covered this under poor research, but it is a point that bears repeating. Watch your language in a story. What you write determines your tone. How consistent you are determines your audience's willing suspension of disbelief (If you have never heard that phrase before, google it. Google it now!). How suspended the disbelief is determines how much the reader enjoys the story. Things that shock reader out of their disbelief cause the reader to turn away. Language is a key element because it is what the entire story is contingent upon.
Let us say that your writing style is somewhat poetic and flowery and full of imagery. Turning crass with out justification is a shock to the system.
eg. Light slipped through the crystal, spilling rainbows across the besmear furnishings even as a breeze whispered through the room, pulling at the thoughts of no one. Dust settled across the scape, clinging to the walls as though to scream out in desperation of the abandonment of the room, of the neglected memories that haunted these halls. The desperation of the room blew monkey chunks and royally sucked. But the tragedy was not truly forgotten.
See? Totally bizarre. Worse is when it happens in dialogue. I've recently started plowing through Star Wars fanfictions and someone had a forty year old Qui Gon respond with "Whatever" to Yoda. That is like having an Arch Bishop tell the Pope to go stuff himself with that exact turn of phrase. Watch your language people! Word choice needs to be deliberate and exact! Think it through. Read it out loud if you have to. If it sounds weird, chances are it is weird. If you need help Thesauruses are a writer's best friend (Yes, they are better than grammar guides and dictionaries and you can use one free online, so no excuses!).
20. Wall O'text.
Quite simply if you have a wall of text you have done something wrong and you need to go back and fix it. This is not a nit-pic. This is a fact. Ignoring how badly walls of text mess with elements like flow and voice you are still left with the problem that they are nigh near impossible to read. There are no landmarks for people to use if they get lost or look away. They can't remind themselves they were in the middle of the third paragraph and just go there. It becomes easy to reread the same line over and over and over.
The most common cause of the wall of text is the misunderstanding of the rules of dialogue. Simply defined, if you have a new speaker you start a new paragraph, no exceptions. Ever. Period. You can fight me on this but there is a special hell for people who violate the rules of dialogue.
21. Thru
It's through, goddammit! Not threw, not thru (especially not thru!). Seriously! I don't care what your phone says! It's through! T-H-R-O-U-G-H!
22. Social Service Portrayal.
The social service system is not like the pound for children. People do not walk in and go "I want THAT one." There is a process. There is screening. There are requirements. Believe it or not the people who foster and adopt children are not all creepy abusive pedophiles. A good many of them actually like children (NOT LIKE THAT!). I understand simplifying it for a story but an oversimplification of the system coupled with an embarrassingly cliched portrayal of the system makes for a dull stock story.
23. Slash Gender Roles
Gay men are not women in men's bodies. They are men who like other men. While fanfiction is a great way to explore slash relationships it is really tiring to read the same variations on character despite the fandom. The idea of there being a dominant partner and a submissive partner, especially based on position in the bedroom, is silly. Relationships are dynamic and each person in the relationship holds some kind of power, other wise it would not be a relationship. Making a straight character gay also doesn't turn them into a bleeding heart. Seriously. In so many of the stories I read the now gay character cries at absolutely everything while their boyfriend does the whole cuddly/braveface/protector routine. It's a ridiculous portrayal that is more fit for bad romances like Twilight (and as much as I love Twilight I do so because it is a bad romance) and not for stories with any depth. If Harry Potter is being pursued by Draco Malfoy Harry does not suddenly lose his ability to cast awesome spells and function independently. If Dean Winchester is being chased by Castiel Dean will not suddenly start crying over how crappy his life is.
The characterization doesn't alter due to orientation. Being gay doesn't make people into different people. Buying in and, worse, peddling that type of misconception isn't just painful to read but is also bad for soceity. Writing reflects ideology and reading informs paradigms. If someone's only experience with homosexual relationships stems from fanfiction they carry those misconceptions on into real life and ask stupid questions like 'Who's the husband and who's the wife?" If one of them was the wife they wouldn't be a gay couple, now would they? Yet fanfiction continues to reinforce these stereotypical misconceptions about the LGTB community and, believe it or not, it is actually harmful in real life. If you are going to write slash please try to stay away from this whole "one of them is a girl" attitude. Neither of them are (unless they are trans but I have yet to stumble across that) and ignoring that fact makes for a dull story with shoddy characterization and a stereotypical setup.
If you really want a dynamic story that is interesting, focus on how the dynamics of having two, strong, independent people used to filling the same gender role must strike a balance. How would Dean handle Castiel protecting him when he is so used to being the one to protect everyone else? How are traditionally gender-stereotyped responsibilities handled? If you want to explore homosexuality then explore homosexuality, not harlequins.
24. Name Abberviations
This is different than nicknames. I'm talking about writing in the story "HP looked down Diagon Alley to see where his best mate, RW, had wandered off to." By the Power of Grey Skull, you're typing! Do you really need to try and make the process any more expedient? Seriously? How convenient do you expect life to get?
25. Using a Character to Substitute an OC
I know, a bit of a conflict with Peeve 3, but the exception to Peeve 3 is if it is well done. In this case if you are going to use a character for a completely AU role, including changing their name, back ground, stance on justice, friendship circle, and oh, I don't know, everything but their appearance just a darn OC. You've already done all the steps to create an OC. Commit to the risk! It isn't really a Clark Kent story if it's about a meat headed jock growing up on Mars with his biological parent Wayne and Bearnice, where his arc nemesis is some dude named Bob and his love interest is a chick named Marie Stellanoschavich. Fanfiction is blending the familiar with the new. It's about revitalization while playing with traditional boundaries. Some fandoms offer worlds (such as WOW), others offer characters (such as the Legend of Zelda), some a mix of both (Supernatural, Harry Potter, etc). If you aren't going to play with the traditional elements you should just post the story as original fiction because that's what it is, despite using same names.