I do a lot of reading. For one thing, I love to read. For another, I'm a college professor, and I assign speeches and papers...and I then I have to read them (which is often why I get to the end of a semester and ask myself, "What were you thinking when you assigned this?"). I'm also a professional and volunteer beta, so I read for a living.
Here are a few of my pet peeves and irritations in my various reading roles.
- As a reader. Typos. This is a published book, for heaven's sake. How many people have had their hands on these galleys? How do typos that are obvious to me get by that many professional book producers? There is at least one in the Twilight series, but I can't remember where it is right now.
- As a beta. Punctuation around quotations. Actually, there could be dozens of items on this list, but this is something I'll correct once, and if it's fanfic, I'll send it back after that. If it's original, I'll explain the rule and ask the author to fix all the errors. This is an extremely common error.
- As a teacher. Plagiarism. I failed 4 students for plagiarism this semester, even after I explained to them what it was, what would happen if I caught them, and how I always caught them. In addition to plagiarism, which I oppose on principle, I am offended by bad plagiarism. At least try, people! This semester, I had students copy first-person stories told by doctors...as though they were telling the story! And I had students copy from websites and include all the typos (not to mention all the erroneous information out there). Look, if you're going to cheat, at least do it well!
- Bonus...because I can't let it go unsaid. Using apostrophes for plurals. "There were two soda's in the fridge." That means, "There were two soda is in the fridge." Makes no sense.
Kat
i hate when people use text talk, i'm not going to read this unless it's in English. i also hate when there aren't any indentions or spaces between paragraphs and it's all one long run on sentence.
ReplyDeletethat comment wasn't from Kathy it's from me, Abby
ReplyDeleteNancy's Top 5 Peeves:
ReplyDelete1. Not dealing with a character's trauma. Example: your character is an angry young woman/young man whose anger is based on the fact that he/she was abused as a child. This character is NOT going to be tossing around rainbows and teddy bears because of one encounter with your (you, as the author) hero/heroine. Same goes for a violent act committed against your character.
2. Inconsistancy: In a previous scene, your hero gets into a raging fist-fight with the villian while rescuing your heroine. He's got a bloody lip, possible bruised/broken ribs, a swollen eye and he's sore and tired. As much as we'd love him to sweep his newly-rescued off her feet, carry her across the threshold and bed her - it's not gonna happen! So don't write it! Your hero is more than likely to throw up on his woman than kiss her due to the concussion he incurred while fighting the fore-mentioned villian!
3. Bad Dialogue: Gah! That's about the worst crime a writer can commit! Your anti-hero, smokin' hot, oh-so-taciturn guy is NOT going to talk to strangers the same way he speaks with those he trusts/has taken into his confidence. Same way with pillow-talk. Pet-names come with time and interpersonal interaction. Save the 'oh, babys' for scripts with an XXX rating.
4. I'm with Kat on this one: bad grammar, spelling and punctuation. Nothing breaks the flow more quickly than stopping in the middle of a passage to re-write it in my head in order for the passage to be more readable.
5. Plot Holes: How did your hero *suddenly* figure out that the love-of-his-life is being held in an abandoned car that is scheduled to be crushed? Oh yeah - because the author wrote it that way. But for me, as a reader, I want - no, I *need* - to know how 'a' connects to 'b' connects to 'c'. And, if you the author won't tell me, I won't read the rest of your story or your subsequent stories.
All the usual grammatical errors and muddling of homophones (your for you're, where for were etc) irritate me. But what really rattles me is when on a writers' forum someone will ask for advice about grammar but then argue that the common errors are preferable to correct usage.
ReplyDeleteNan, I am so with you on #2! Movies do this, too. I often wonder, are those bruises ALREADY healed? In fact, that error is so common that when an author IS consistent, I'm pleasantly surprised!
ReplyDeleteRob...yeah, me too! I know languages change and evolve, but there IS right and wrong! Gah! Thanks for writing in !
Abby, would you believe I get academic papers turned in with textspeak in them? And when I beta, a lot of stories will do that, too. They are automatic rejections!
One of my dialogue peeves is the frequent use of names. We just don't use each others' names in dialogue that much. I had to call my husband by his first name the other day, and it was so weird. I always call him, "hon," or "sweetie," or "Daddy." I never say, "Matt could you pass the potatoes..."
ReplyDeleteThis mainly applies to fanfic, but I really don't like it when people pair two characters together who would not be together. An example of this would be Draco and Hermione. If you are going to have two unlikely people together, give a good reason that they are together.
ReplyDeleteI see your point, Sharon. Fanfic does give us a chance to do things the book doesn't, but the writer has to put the work in to make it believable! The same thing happens in romance novels. If these two people don't seem to fit, then show us how complicated it's going to be to make them fit!
ReplyDeleteI write non-fiction, especially health information. I cannot tolerate only half-told health stories (which, I'm sad to say, applies to a good chunk of so-called journalism). If you tell half a story about the President's morality you may get him impeached, but at least no one dies. You can easily kill people, or make them ill, if you tell only one side of a health topic. (Depends on the topic, of course.)
ReplyDeleteAlong the same lines, I can't stand sensationalism in journalism, or hardly disguised advertorials (e.g., "On ABC tonight, John Stossel reports on the treasure of Al Capone. World News Tonight has a closer look at who this famed gangster really is...." (or some such thing).
One of my peeves regarding myself is how I always have to struggle to remember when to use it's vs. its. Probably sounds basic to everyone here, but I always have to ask myself if this sentence works with "it is" . (Hey, at least I bother to worry about it! :) )
Wendy, THANK YOU for worrying about it! With small words like that, sometimes our fingers just do whatever they want, but the trick you named is an easy way to tell the difference. I wish more people would use it!
ReplyDeleteKat
I have a few struggles like that, too. I'm never sure if I've spelled "necessary" correctly, and and I really have to think through "conscious" and "conscience."
ReplyDeleteNancy, I thought of you the other day when I was reading the Maximum Ride series, and the main character tries to cut a microchip out of her arm... and we don't hear anything about it until the next book when some reference is made to her scar. No pain, no infection, no bandages, even though they are on the run and without medical care. They do heal faster than full-humans, but not THAT fast. And those books are written by James Patterson, who is mucho published and famous.
ReplyDeleteMy peeve is the misuse of a/an. No, a apple did not fall from the tree. Yes, an apple fell from a tree.
ReplyDelete