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Post by piedflycatcher on Mar 15, 2007 12:13:21 GMT
So, what are your pet peeves when reading fanfiction? It can be FF specific, or just about fanfiction in general.
One that's really been bugging me recently is the overuse of epithets. You know, when you read a scene and the author seems completely averse to using the characters' names. So you get phrases like 'the young ninja' or 'the crimson-eyed gunslinger' or 'the blonde'.
NO.
There are appropriate places to use epithets, but throwing them in willy-nilly because of some mistaken belief that using the characters' names gets repetitive is not how to do it. With the use of pronouns and a decent variance in structure, particularly with dialogue, names never get repetitive. There's just no need for it.
Well... any thoughts? I could probably go on for ages...
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yazzy
Plate Dweller
Yazzy!!! <3
Posts: 47
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Post by yazzy on Mar 15, 2007 20:47:59 GMT
Interesting. For me I guess it would have to be people who instantly shoot down OCs and say it's a Mary Sue. With almost every one of my fics I've written (95% not posted), I put an OC of mine in the fic. No there's not always pairings, and no they're not there for romantic purposes. In my opinion, OCs can help give a little twist.
For example:
My fic I've written (but haven't posted) about the SHM and what they're doing during the events of Advent Children has one of my OCs in it. There's no pairing with her or any of the SHM, she's just there to add a little difference because (in my opinion) if I just wrote about what the SHM are doing without a bit more of change, then to me it feels like I'm just putting AC in a fanfic form with some behind the scenes writings. (Though I always have her off somewhere watching or doing something whenever there are moments that included the SHM during AC, like the battle in the forgotten forest.)
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Erissa
SOLDIER Third Class
Pretty boys are FTW.
Posts: 630
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Post by Erissa on Mar 16, 2007 4:27:27 GMT
Hmm it always annoys me how some authors constantly mistake "their" for "they're" and "your" for "you're". Besides showing that you don't bother to proof-read your work and/or you don't know the difference between their usages, it also disrupts the flow of sentences.
Another thing is random scenes put in solely for romantic purposes or humour effect.
Pied I know what you mean by annoying epithets, but I guess used appropriately it can add to your style. But I don't like those overused ones like, "the spiky haired blonde with azure eyes", etc.
Yazzy I'm not too fond of OCs if they're main characters, but yeah I don't regard them straight away as Mary Sues. There are some well written fics. out there with OCs.
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Post by piedflycatcher on Mar 16, 2007 14:13:11 GMT
Oh, yeah, your post reminded me of another thing, Erissa. Writing 'orbs' instead of 'eyes'. God, that annoys me so much. That has to be one of the lamest so-called synonyms ever. Purple prose really puts me off.
As for OCs, I like them when they're well-written. OCs can and do have a valid place in a story - after all, the canon characters don't live in a vacuum. I don't like Mary Sues, and I probably won't read a story where an OC is the main character, but as supporting roles they can be very good.
They have to have a point though. Just shoving an OC in for the sake of it doesn't appeal to me. OCs have to play a role in the plot, like any other character, even if it's only a minor role.
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Erissa
SOLDIER Third Class
Pretty boys are FTW.
Posts: 630
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Post by Erissa on Mar 16, 2007 14:52:44 GMT
Haha yeah "orbs" sounds more like when you describe goblin's eyes. Or house elves's.
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Post by piedflycatcher on Mar 16, 2007 23:25:34 GMT
That would make more sense at least. But 'he gazed into the depths of her emerald orbs'? Ugh, no.
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2007 0:34:22 GMT
The one thing that really annoys me about some bits of fanfiction is the sentence structure when people are talking. It's a seriously picky thing, but I hate it when things like this are written: "I want to go to the Gold Saucer." Said Cloud. It really throws me off the pace of the story, because you're reading an incomplete sentence, and it doesn't look good for the author if they can't even get to grips with it. Erissa, you answered the thing about 'their' and 'there' for me - that's another thing that bugs me. Oh, and the misuse of apostrophes. Basically, I'm a bit of a grammar freak And about OCs - I've read some decent fics with OCs in, and I know that you can't cast them off as Mary Sues straight off: there are some really nice fics there that do a good job in canon characters and original ones, you just have to look very hard to find them, and that I guess is the reason why most OCs are dismissed before they even have the chance to prove otherwise.
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Erissa
SOLDIER Third Class
Pretty boys are FTW.
Posts: 630
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Post by Erissa on Mar 18, 2007 12:28:21 GMT
I think sometimes the importance of grammar and writing style is understated. Quite a number of people just focus on the story (if even that).
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2007 17:01:05 GMT
With a story, if there's no knowledge of decent grammar, then you can't expect it to flow nicely. The problem these days is that bad grammar flows nicely because the people who read have bad grammar as well.
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Post by Siskin on Apr 7, 2007 4:08:35 GMT
I hate that "orbs" thing too, but I don't see it often enough to call it a pet peeve.
General grammatical and mechanical errors tend to turn me off a story quickly, but it particularly irritates me to see problems with apostrophes. "'Its gonna be a busy night,' said Tifa, wiping down the bar until it's surface shone." No, I made that example up, but it's the kind of thing that seems to jar me. Tiny but annoying. If a story has a lot of problems, I just tend to mosey on to another one.
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Erissa
SOLDIER Third Class
Pretty boys are FTW.
Posts: 630
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Post by Erissa on Apr 7, 2007 8:24:26 GMT
Siskin I agree with you. It pulls my focus away from the story when I am reading a sentence and suddenly my brain goes, "hey wrong apostrophe sign over there! Arrrgggh!" Another thing that annoys me is one liner sentences for the whole chapter. When I see something like that I usually click the back button (unless it's parody in which case I usually make allowances for bad style).
There are ways to detect low quality fics without even reading the fic. One way is by looking at the summary. A lot of misspelled words, the use of net speak; overused or silly storylines usually signals that the fic isn't even decent. Sometimes reading the reviews also helps (especially for fics longer than 10 chapters). If a story gets 3 or more flames 80% to 90% of the time it's really rubbish (this sounds bad as I don't agree with flamers, but not all flamers are clueless or write flames for fun). Never let the number of reviews fool you.
If you must look at the story, browse the first 2-3 chapters (sometimes the first chapter is enough) quickly to look for glaring errors (punctuation, grammar, spelling, weird sounding sentences), bad style, 200-300 words long chapters, random/silly scenes, lame conversations/OOC-ness, etc.
Sadly it's not always that simple. Sometimes the story is okay and the style isn't bad and it's not until 3 or more chapters later that you get disappointed--the story starts getting lamer, there are *filler* scenes, the story doesn't quite take off, there are plot holes, the author runs out of ideas half-way, etc. It annoys me when I spent close to an hour reading something mediocre. </end rant> Sorry, boring Saturday afternoon...
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Post by Siskin on Apr 9, 2007 10:43:46 GMT
Really REALLY long paragraphs tend to turn me off too. I mean, I thought *I* wrote long paragraphs sometimes, but sometimes I see fics with blocks of text 20-30 lines long, and my brain just starts to shut down. You might guess I'm not much of a Dickens fan, as his first SENTENCE in Oliver Twist, for example, is about a page and a half long... It's tougher to break things up when there's a lot of narrative to get in, I know, but...ouch.
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Post by Siskin on Apr 9, 2007 10:46:26 GMT
Oh good grief.
Revising the sentence that got mauled by the undiscerning anti-cuss script:
"You might guess I'm not much of a fan of that guy that wrote The Christmas Carol and The Tale Of Two Cities, who thinks nothing of writing a sentence so convoluted that you forget what he was talking about by the third line or so."
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yazzy
Plate Dweller
Yazzy!!! <3
Posts: 47
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Post by yazzy on Apr 10, 2007 3:02:20 GMT
I agree, long paragraphs like that do get hard and boring to read for me too. (Never read "Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe!) Some of those sentences are 4+ lines long!
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Post by Admin on Apr 15, 2007 11:33:03 GMT
I've edited the anti-cuss script, Siskin - sorry about that. It looks like it was a bit too sensitive about it.
I agree about huge chunky paragraphs by the way. They're frightening. Some fics may be enjoyable to read as a whole, but if there's a colossal block of text that looks nothing more than a blob of black, I tend to skip over it altogether - it'd be too much of a mission to wade through it.
And apostrophes - I completely forgot about them! Any error with apostrophes drive me up the wall. In my college class (we're all around 18-23 years old) we actually had a revision session about how to use apostrophes. Not reassuring. It was like being back in primary school again.
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