If you take a gander at my Shelfari account, you’ll notice something hilarious and sad: I hate nine out of every ten novels I try to read. I don’t finish them. Sometimes, I get so frustrated that I quit very, very early.
The truth is that I’m very impatient with fiction. I’ve been spoiled by some great, exciting stories, so it takes a lot to impress me. These things, especially, will drive me away:
1. Describing things too much or monologuing endlessly.
The Wheel of Time series is so famous that I had to check it out. However, I couldn’t finish The Eye of the World because of all the fatiguing, boring, unnecessary description. I understand that some people enjoy that, but I can’t stand it. It starts me saying, “Get to the point!”
In the same sense, first-person books or those written wryly (I’m looking at you, Terry Pratchett) bore me quickly because the monologuing delays something happening.
2. Characters I can’t relate to or root for.
In a book, I absolutely need at least one character I understand. If I want to know what happens to them, whether they succeed, and how events transpire for or against them, I’ll stick around. The first example to spring to mind is the character of a financially comfortable, self-centered woman who cheats on her husband because her life is ‘like, so meaningless’. Think The Good Girl.
3. Not enough action.
Again, The Eye of the World comes to mind. Barely anything happened in the fifty pages I read. You could argue that the author was setting up plot progression that would come later, but you need to have at least a little action or plot progression right off the bat; without movement or the sharp promise of movement to come, the book stagnates.
4. Confusing.
Some books like to be crazy and unrealistic. That’s alright. I’m a fan of Jhonen Vasquez and can understand the appeal of Alice in Wonderland. But on the other hand, I don’t like Beavis and Butthead. Being random and crazy without making any sense at all isn’t going to entertain me, only confuse me.
5. Predictability and a reliance on tropes.
Avatar was annoying for this reason (why am I naming so many movies in an article about books?). Yes, Tropes Will Ruin Your Life, but that doesn’t mean there are no new ideas.
6. Vulgarity.
I don’t encounter this much. Lolita contained quite a bit of sexual deviance, but I mostly hated it for Reason #1. Excessive profanity is what stopped me in the first thirty seconds of The Taking of Pelham 123. Finally, incredible violence (‘torture porn’ in movie terms) is harder to convey in a book, but I imagine I’d be offended if a book managed it.
7. Soapboxing (especially if I disagree).
When a book starts blasting what I care about (religion and, more specifically, Christianity; America; sugary iced tea). I find it hard to enjoy a book written by an author with a clear vendetta or chip on his shoulder.
8. I can’t understand them.
I gave Finnegan’s Wake a terrible review and caught some badly-thought-out flak for it. When I called Lolita hard to read, I got a reply pointing out that ‘Nabakov doesn’t write for the reader’ (one of the dumbest writing philosophies I’ve ever heard). I’ve called Gardens of the Moon ‘a hilariously awful parody of fantasy’. If I have to think through every sentence at least three times in order to understand what’s going on, I’m not having fun. Therefore, the writer has failed.
Conclusion
I don’t just petulantly refuse to read certain books after one little offense; most of the books I put down break two or more of the above rules. Since I read for pleasure and to become a better writer, I don’t see the point of slogging through junk unless I’m getting paid to fix it.
But here’s the beautiful upside: While the majority of books are lazily-, amateurishly-, or just poorly-written, I occasionally stumble upon one that really works, even given my harsh demands. And when it does, it’s good. These are truly diamonds in the dumpster, and they make it worth giving up on book after book. So you can keep slogging through crap and dealing with writers who don’t know what they’re doing; I’ll continue my shorter quest to the happy ending.
“If I have to search through a dumpster for a lost wedding ring, I could convince myself that the dumpster will be full of cakes and freshly-picked flowers, but I’d only be fooling myself.” Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, Zero Punctuation: Dark Void
About Fiona Canteberry
A novelist from northwest Arkansas, Fiona's range of topics include writing, tropes, and self-improvement. She goes by 'FekketCantenel' online.
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Ah, I feel like I’ve met an old friend LOL.
In my case, add to the above some of my top annoyances:
-Major characters lacking depth
-Pretty writing with poor plotting
-A sense of deja vu (haven’t I read this before?)
The deja vu one is a little vague (unless you mean that the story is trope-/cliche-heavy, hence #5).
‘Pretty writing’ is part of what I mean in point #1 — one mark of an amateur is favoring phrasing and wording over not wasting my time.
As for characters, I imagine that depth is necessary to achieve likeability, hence point #2.
See, you can always integrate with an existing list if you’re lazy enough.
Yeah, the deja vu is very close to #5 (I had to debate with myself if it was different or not). I mainly just mean a lack of originality altogether. Not, “I know what’s coming next,” or “I’ve seen this storyline before.” More like, “Lord no, not more elves, dwarves, and dragons!” :-)
#2 is related, but different, IMO. Not being able to relate to or root for a character is one kind of major problem. Feeling that a character simply isn’t well fleshed out is another. In my reading, the latter bugs me a lot more often.
The #1 I think is very different, though. What I mentioned means your text is very nicely written per se, but you can’t plot your way out of a brown paper bag LOL
However, I admire your categorizing and organizing skills, and your low threshold for annoyance when it comes to fiction. :-)
Btw, you inspired me to add CommentLuv to my blog. What a cool plug-in!
“Comment Notifier” is one you might want to check out.
I’m the only admin on the site, and I already get an email whenever someone comments (I just don’t always see a need to respond).
I’m wondering why my commentluv isn’t showing the icon, and is putting a \ in ‘III’s’. Going to go tweak the settings.
The comment notifier really encourages discussion. It brings people back to the site for conversation, when they otherwise would’ve forgotten to go back to the blog and check for responses to their posts. Very sticky feature.
Ohhh, I see what happened. I googled and found ‘Comments Notifier’, which notifies multiple admins. You’re talking about ‘Comment Notifier’ (no S), which lets users subscribe to comment threads.
Installing it as we speak. It’s weird that WordPress doesn’t come with this feature out of the box.
Yeah, I was really glad to find it. I leave the check-mark on by default, but that’s just personal preference. You can mess with that in the settings for it.