To the Author of (Insert Applicable Book Titles Here):

[scatteredlogic]

If your villain murders an extremely likable secondary character (and yes, that was a huge shock, as I'm sure you wanted it to be) midway through the book, don't have your hero tell me about the villain's capture and/or punishment. Show me

Comments

[stgulik]

Do I want to know which book this was? Just so I can avoid it?

[scatteredlogic]

Hee! It wasn't one book, thank goodness. But it was six different books, and I've seen the same things turn up in other books, so I was just venting a little spleen. ;)

[apollinav]

Well said! Thank you.

[scatteredlogic]

You're welcome! I keep seeing variations of these things, and it gets really annoying!

[apollinav]

I did have a ~twitchy eye~ moment about the villain being more interesting than the hero.

[scatteredlogic]

I don't mind if the differences aren't too drastic. A book or story with an interesting villain and hero is wonderful. A book or story where the villain is three-dimensional and the hero is a Dudley Dowright cardboard cut-out isn't. :(

[islandsmoke]

I dislike those things in books, too.

When your villain is far more interesting than your hero, you're doing it wrong.

LOL! OK, OK, Snape wasn't a villain, but Jo did say, a number of times, that he wasn't a nice man. Of course, maybe it wasn't Jo who made him interesting, maybe it was Alan Rickman. ... No. There are enough people who don't like AR for the part who loved Snape. You blew it, Jo! Thank goodness.

[scatteredlogic]

You blew it, Jo! Thank goodness.

LOL - Yes, definitely thank goodness. Otherwise, I wouldn't have kept reading them. Snape was far more interesting to me than Harry.

[shiv5468]

Name names!!!!

[scatteredlogic]

I'll have to dig through my "Too Bad to Read Again" folder for some of their names, but the first is Scandal by Carolyn Jewel, and the second is Never a Gentleman by Eileen Dryer.

Edited to add: Strangely enough, neither of those books are in that folder. They're good otherwise, but they fell flat in those particular instances.

[veradee]

Give me at least one chapter of them being happy.

But only if it doesn't include them getting married right way, having children and living the perfect life happily ever after as it seemed to be the case in so many HP fanfics.

[scatteredlogic]

I know! There's more than one kind of happy ending.