Pet-Peeves in Novels?

[4 Eyed Crow]

This happens more in movies/tv than in novels but

When people leave/enter a house or a car, they open the door AND NEVER CLOSE IT.

Then later (sometimes), it turns out the door has magically closed itself.  Which, in my opinion is even worse than leaving a door wide open.

When it happens in novels, I can forgive it sometimes, because perhaps it isn’t very important to the narrator. But in movies/TV, it annoys me.

[Prince of the North]

Heh, yeah, speaking of doors brings to mind (more in movies/shows again) how easy/hard it is to kick or break them open - depending on what the plot demands.  Also, when a door is invariably blasted open on the very first kick - it just magically sticks fully open, quivering in place even (because a wedge/door stop was placed there for exactly that reason).

Also, immaculately white, straight, modern teeth...in historical period pieces (movies and shows again).  

[The BlackBear]

On 2/26/2018 at 11:40 AM, Jo498 said:

Why, how? Care to give a few striking examples?

I'd say Rothfuss springs to mind. aSoIaF basically started out with just gold. It's also bloody hard to get a sense of scale for what constitutes a lot of money.

 

I have issues with language barriers almost never being a problem. In Joe Abercrombies world for instance, all the Northerners speak common (the idea of a 'common' language is annoying too) as well as Northern. When, and why did all these psychopathic killers decide to sit down and learn another language?

 

Also in media, I would just love to see someone try to do that slap-the-gun-away thing, and just get shot.

And why does no one ever say goodbye on the phone? They always just hang up.

[Wulfram]

On ‎19‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 0:51 AM, Andhrimnir said:

This is a REAL adventure, not like in the songs/stories/etc

Yes!

Aside from just being overdone, it often comes off as smug, the author taking a moment to congratulate themselves

[Magnar of Skagos]

On 3/1/2018 at 5:44 PM, The BlackBear said:

I'd say Rothfuss springs to mind. aSoIaF basically started out with just gold. It's also bloody hard to get a sense of scale for what constitutes a lot of money.

"How much for that axe?"

"Tree-fiddy"

ez math

[IlyaP]

On 2/26/2018 at 10:40 PM, Jo498 said:

Why, how? Care to give a few striking examples?

In reading The First Book of Lankhmar, Leiber references imaginary currencies.

Recall another book, just trying to recall which, where there is a similar instance. Suspect it was in a Magic the Gathering novel, if memory serves.

 

[IlyaP]

On 3/3/2018 at 11:15 AM, Sun Worshipper said:

"How much for that axe?"

"Tree-fiddy"

ez math

Gods. Does he actually do that? I've yet to read the King Killer books, even though I own books 1 and 2, as I am waiting for the 3rd book to be published before I sit down and read them. (Don't know why, but if the series features huge books, I wait till it's done, if the series has relatively thin books, I don't mind waiting.)

[Darth Richard II]

You'll be waiting til you die.

[Jo498]

8 hours ago, IlyaP said:

In reading The First Book of Lankhmar, Leiber references imaginary currencies.

I still do not get what is wrong/boring/stupid with that. Are the currencies made up in an unplausible way or are they too advanced/modern for the rest of the civilization described in the book or what exactly is it you dislike about it?

[IlyaP]

Not so much bad - just...jarring.

[Jo498]

On 1.3.2018 at 11:44 PM, The BlackBear said:

I'd say Rothfuss springs to mind. aSoIaF basically started out with just gold. It's also bloody hard to get a sense of scale for what constitutes a lot of money.

I have issues with language barriers almost never being a problem. In Joe Abercrombies world for instance, all the Northerners speak common (the idea of a 'common' language is annoying too) as well as Northern. When, and why did all these psychopathic killers decide to sit down and learn another language?

I think most people are too lazy too look into rather different historical societies that could serve as inspirations and so in many respects their fantasy worlds are often far too close to our world. Many are basically like discworld... E.g., in the pseudo-medieval societies there should be regions where money (or at leat actual coins) would be very rare and barter would dominate.

As for languages, I agree that this often handled lazily and I think there are several factors at play. First, there is Tolkien who cannot be reached in that department, so people for very good reasons do not even try. Second, many writers are Anglophone and monolingual so they have been living as native speakers of today's "Common" for all of their life.

"Common" is not that implausible though; there are many historical and actual examples of linguae francae and I am pretty sure there were/are illiterate people who never "sat down learning languages" but speak one local (tribal) language and one "common", e.g. Swahili. I have not looked into this but I would not be surprised if there were many people in Africa who could barely read/write but speak one local language, one regional common language (like Swahili) and one colonial (like English) reasonably well. And of course for all traders, travellers and often upper/upper middle class people learning languages (at least "common" but often several) has been historically the norm. The monolingual elite of today's anglophone world has not been the norm for most of history (and it obviously still is not in most of today's world because everyone else has to learn Common= English as a second or third language).