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Pet-Peeves in Novels?


Magnar of Skagos

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1 hour ago, Forest Lass said:

I agree though, romantic scenes must be difficult to write. Most are cringey to me. The first love scene I remember reading had this: "He crawled atop her slowly, like a hungry tiger on the prowl" 

They're not *that* difficult, IMO.

  • Sex scenes fall under the same golden rule as fight scenes - no-one's interested in the blow-by-blow (ha!) mechanics, it's what's going on in the characters' heads that matters.
  • Most similes ("like a fat pink mast") or metaphors ("Myrish Swamp") look really silly in a sexual context, and ought to be avoided.
  • As with real sex, foreplay matters.  
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5 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

I think a lot of these go beyond pet peeves.

Yeah, true.

Mine is a genuine pet peeve. I really hate unnecessary sequels. They spoil the original work. That's probably irrational thinking but I really hate them. If it's a standalone and was meant to be and there's not an opening for a sequel, then leave it be.

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This is mainly in TV tbh, but I've seen it in books as well.

Strangling someone, and as soon as they lose conciousness, thats it, they are dead. It doesnt work like that. Strangling someone is a brutal and long process.

Similar with people being knocked out for absolutely ages and waking up and not being irrevesably brain damaged.

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4 hours ago, The Prince of Newcastle said:

This is mainly in TV tbh, but I've seen it in books as well.

Strangling someone, and as soon as they lose conciousness, thats it, they are dead. It doesnt work like that. Strangling someone is a brutal and long process.

Similar with people being knocked out for absolutely ages and waking up and not being irrevesably brain damaged.

Also in TV: people making loud slurping noises whenever they take a drink of something. On HBO is doesn't matter what is being drunk. Whether it's a glass of water being sipped, or a shot of scotch being thrown back, the morons at HBO always insist their foley artists chuck in a loud slurp. I mean, who the fuck makes slurping noises IRL apart from untamed children? 

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4 hours ago, The Prince of Newcastle said:

Similar with people being knocked out for absolutely ages and waking up and not being irrevesably brain damaged.

In TV/movies I dislike how inconsistently this is handled. Depending on the plot, people get beaten up rather badly and in the next scene, a day or only a few hours later, they have a few scratches or bruised spots and are otherwise fully functional.

And in other scenes, someone is pushed, hits their head and is dead. Of course this is possible but I think it is very rare to fall from a standing position agains some desk and hit the head so badly that one dies from the injuries.

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On 2/15/2018 at 9:59 AM, Jo498 said:

 

And in other scenes, someone is pushed, hits their head and is dead. Of course this is possible but I think it is very rare to fall from a standing position agains some desk and hit the head so badly that one dies from the injuries.

I don't know how common it is but a guy in my town was breaking up a fight, got knocked over and hit his head on the curb - dead on impact, so it does happen.

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On 2/15/2018 at 10:59 AM, Jo498 said:

And in other scenes, someone is pushed, hits their head and is dead. Of course this is possible but I think it is very rare to fall from a standing position agains some desk and hit the head so badly that one dies from the injuries.

I was personally acquainted with a man who apparently died by tripping and hitting his head on his own desk, so that one is more common than you might think.

 

-Randomly inserted rape scenes.

-Modern politics/values popping up where they don't belong.

-Hundreds of pages of filler.

-Characters who do not really feel the effects of the physical/mental trauma they suffer.

 

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o.k. the unlucky falls might be common, but this still leaves the inconsistency that other characters are badly hit on the head and are fine after a few hours or a good night's sleep, not even a concussion, if the plot demands it.

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5 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

o.k. the unlucky falls might be common, but this still leaves the inconsistency that other characters are badly hit on the head and are fine after a few hours or a good night's sleep, not even a concussion, if the plot demands it.

It is indeed very annoying when a book requires that a character be knocked unconscious (for plot reasons), but then revives them without any consequences.  Almost always just lazy writing. 

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Rowling has said that HP is not a Gary Stu - if any character is a representation of JK it's Hermoine. And she's not idealized enough to fit the template. 

I started re-reading Altered Carbon while waiting for my wife to agree to watch the series and man, Kovacs really is a Gary Stu. I've read a number of Morgan's books and his obsession with overly macho uber-warrior boner-waving protagonists has grown thin with me.

The only dream sequences that work for me are Martin's and even those get a little confusing for the reader. That's probably a feature rather than a bug. 

Info dumps - bad. I remember reading this acclaimed space opera and right in the middle of the climatic battle, the author had to veer off and explain how this one particular weapon worked. SHOW, NOT TELL DAMMIT! 

On 2/14/2018 at 5:31 PM, Sun Worshipper said:

That image is freaking awesome! Well played sir! 

 

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On 2/14/2018 at 9:06 AM, Sun Worshipper said:

Just like the title says, what are some common things you come across that just make you roll your eyes when reading a novel? Is it a particular archetype, plot point, theme, phrase, etc?

Personally, if I have to read the sentence "his eyes seemed to change colours depending the light" one more time, I am going to gouge my eyes out.

The nomeclature of currencies. Oh gods this one does hit a nerve.

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