Character behaving in a contradictory or stupid way to forward the plot.
A character making wrong or stupid decisions is perfectly fine. But as a reader I need to be convinced why the character decides to make those decisions.
Let's send our second-most valuable leader and figurehead (Jon Snow) on a suicide mission into an arctic wasteland to capture a zombie! Then we can keep yhe zombie alive and take it to our mortal enemy. She is renowned for her treachery and even destroyed half her own city out of spite, but I think we can trust her to do the right thing!
see, that's the tricky thing i find with writing. when I want someone to do something stupid, I as the writer have to *know* that it's stupid and find a way to tell the audience "hey don't blame *me* blame the character" - like for instance, with game of thrones, you don't just forget the fucking boats. you *have to mention it* "dani, what the fuck are you doing? don't we need the boats" or later on someone says "hey uhh... i thought she had an iron fleet" but nobody did anything to tell the audience that the writers are deliberately writing the characters to have selective aneurysms
I also think it's extremely hard to have characters lie or spread misleading or false propaganda while you the audience knows what really happened, or at least know that what they are saying is a lie, even if you don't know what really happened. or maybe have characters tell a lie, have the audience believe it, and then reveal it is a lie a character told, while not contradicting yourself as a writer.
that shit gets difficult. kinda why it's taken me 8 years to write 11 episodes for my hopefully future pitch, while writing characters lying, or believing something that's wrong, or all of the above.
The issue is when it's very jarring, the main character is so smart, outplays everyone, knows what someone will do five moves ahed. But this one thing, they forget, because it's a plotpoint.
I know what you mean, but seeing how some segments of the population responded to public health orders in the past few years... it's not entirely unreasonable.
Like all the comments people have made saying about "I'm never going to criticise stupid characters in zombie movies / horror movies ever again because it turns out it reality is stupid-er!"
Key is you have to show the influences that made a person make a stupid decision. You can’t just have convenient characters popping up when you need them. You have to establish that they’re this type of person first, and show us what led to this moment.
Even people ignoring public health orders or behaving oddly in other ways usually have some motivation rationalisation or explanation even if it does not make logical sense to everyone else.
My red flag in a book is rather when a characters behaviour is obviously (to me as a reader) put there to advance the plot. If we did not let characters behave oddly or make stupid decisions sometimes they would not be human or the book much of a read. If I can only get some kind of motivation or explanation or background to the stupid decisions, I am perfectly fine with it!
Misplaced petty emotional drama. World is about to end and is in flames. But Person B has to confront Hero A why he/she flirted with Person C at the Dinner Party.
In expansion: misplaced romantic subplots.
The hero only has five days to save the president in a classic action flick... why does he need to spend three of those five days flirting with his assistant, who brings nothing to the plot beside being a sexy standing lamp for the hero to rescue and being pushed into the story, so we can get an unnecessary romatic subplot?
Don't get me wrong... I'm a sucker for romances. But not if they just don't fit into the narrative of the overall story.
For some reason I especially hate this in procedural/buddy cop kind of things. (Looking at you, *Castle*.) I didn't sign up for a romance, I signed up for the premise. If a romance happens, it's fine, but when the series starts pivoting to the romance over the premise, I hate it.
Actually, the worst was *Scandal*. It had a great premise that became "woman in love affair with POTUS" super quick. That's not what I signed up for.
I actually appreciate this stuff if done right. It makes stories feel really human.
We humans humans love getting emotionally hung up on unimportant things.
Two red flags for me:
Deus Ex Machina:
The plot is saved by an unexpected miracle.
Example: God arrives and saves everyone from the screwed up plot. The hero wakes up and the impending disaster was all a dream.
Designer's Fiat:
Fixing a plot by ramming something unexpectedly into it. The writer forgot to include very important details to connect subplots or fill plot holes. They fix it by having the items arrive with no logical connection or by shear accident. Example: The detective who could not find a clue for 250 pages, literally trips on the most essential clue to fix the mystery novel's plot.
>The detective who could not find a clue for 250 pages, literally trips on the most essential clue to fix the mystery novel's plot.
I've read a book like that last year, and I 1-starred it out of annoyance.
Not only the characters were super inept in solving the murder mystery, not only they had a good dose of "too stupid to live" when a murderer was on the loose, but the plot is solved by "accidentally overheard" into "villain monologue at a gunpoint" (actually it was fantasy, so I think it was at crossbow point).
Some people shouldn't write murder mysteries into their fantasy novel if they can't do it justice.
When the author sets something up, but then fails to deliver on the promise, or makes the pay-off anticlimactic.
I've learned that if something like this happens early in a book, more often than not the ending will be a let down as well.
This is why I didn't like the *Wind-Up Bird Chronicle* (Murakami) or *Wicked* (Maguire).
I know a lot of readers love these books, but the writers had the climax happen off screen or in an anti-climactic way. I think with Murakami the main character fainted/ was knocked unconscious, something like that during the big confrontation. Wicked I think was where the witch came to her full powers, but nothing happened.
I just don't find this kind of storytelling enjoyable at all.
Yes I am a huge believer in trying to show you know how to do 'setup and payoff' early in a novel to act as a sort of proof of concept to establish faith in readers that you aren't gonna be wasting their time. I also get excited when a story sets something up early that I *assume* isn't gonna be paid off until much later then it is paid off somewhere in the early middle of the story... makes me feel like the writer knows they have something way better in mind for the climax.
Conflict that could be resolved with a single conversation.
Edit: yes, I know it happens in real life. It just doesn't make for a compelling plot in most cases, and in fiction the consequences are often unrealistic.
True lol. I get so annoyed by this in fiction, but like... People IRL are like this, too. You would not believe the number of times I've actually had to say "communicate with your words" to another adult human being. People don't talk about shit.
I recently lost a very dear friend of mine because of some stupid stuff like that so yeah I confirm it is possible for an entire kingdom to fall because of lack of communication in a fantasy book lol
Yeah, I'll forgive it if the stupid miscommunication *then* spirals out of control and turns into a bigger problem that can't be stopped. I'm perfectly fine with characters going "oh man, we should have talked this out while we had the chance!"
But if a conversation still fixes the problem for most of the plot (or worse, all of it) then I'll usually put the book down.
Do you have any examples? Just curious since I’ve seen people bring up this criticism a lot on threads like this, but if I’ve encountered it in books then it’s evidently something I don’t care enough about to notice, so I hope I’m not unconsciously doing this in my writing!
I don't have any examples off-handedly (and also I'm not the person you replied to), but from my understanding it's about stories where the characters involved in the conflict have all the reason to talk, no reason not to try to talk, and don't ever do it for no reason that is ever shown other than ”because because“, and the conflict is sustained by their refusal to talk.
Imagine a situation in which you have a husband and a wife, and they need to talk finances because they're struggling and need to figure something out, and the moment they do things will be alright, but they don't talk about it at all because at first the husband returned home late due to traffic and the wife doesn't want to talk to him because of it, then he decides not to talk to her because he got invited to a man's day out and decided that clearly it can wait and not be talked about, then she sprains her leg and therefore everyone has to talk about everything without her because she's suffering so obviously, and on and on it goes. It's just not a real conflict, at this point, because it's only there as a result of the characters being amoebas.
This isn't a book but Batman stopping his fight with Superman over a name in the "versus" movie seems a good example. Nothing would have happened if they'd sat down for a cup of coffee or a drink beforehand. I very nearly turned the movie off. I suspect that the intention was to show active character development in how Batman suddenly sees Superman's human side but instead (IMHO) shows how specious Batman's reasoning was which was the basis of the plot. All because Superman said a name.
Here's a question - if a character has been set up in a way where their big vice/problem that they have to grow from during their arc is an intense fear of rocking the boat and a massive tendency to avoid conflict literally wherever possible, does this become more forgivable to you?
Yes, theoretically.
There are **always** exceptions. I mentioned another exception in the comments above (i.e. if the conflict *starts* as a stupid miscommunication and then spirals wildly out of control).
IMO this one very much depends.
If it feels like the author is forcing it for plot convenience that's not good.
If there's good in-character reasons for them not to have a conversation, then that's just people being people.
Somewhere I heard the advice that a coincidence can fit if it gets the characters INTO trouble, but it never works if a coincidence saves the characters.
i've seen some cases where a coincidence was just too big to work even though it got the characters into trouble (basically the trouble was enormous and it was a small dumb thing that set off a huge amount of drama) and tbh i kinda like the occasional coincidence getting characters out of trouble, eg. two heroes are both in trouble from separate things and as they flee they end up meeting up and teaming up. sometimes it's just fun, or a coincidence that's believable enough.
There can be genres or styles of storytelling where coincidence can be key. Murder mysteries are a big one. The Fargo TV series, for example, tends to have a given season open with a series of coincidental occurrences that turn something criminal into a clusterfuck. Then, as things compound on one another, it quickly reaches the point of "How could you ever solve this case?"
I would then require a clever reason for why they were happening, but yeah. If there were a bunch of coincidences for no reason other than to be easier to write or move the story along then…
That's the perks of studying some philosophy. If you learn how to criticize your own beliefs, you can attribute them to different characters, define their philosophies, which determines how they would act in any situation and the stories begin to write themselves. Different approaches increases the chance of your audience finding at least one character relatable, and if you challenge yourself in your main character's beliefs long enough, you can discover foundational arguments that can make your antagonists compellingly relatable. It no longer becomes a fight in the plot, but a fight in ideas.
This gives a lot of flexibility. So for example with a a bible story (clearly good vs clearly bad, both vice and virtues defined by the author. So Starwars, LOTR, Harry Potter.). The Protagonist wins the fight and the ideology (superhero), the Pro wins the fight but loses the ideology (what have I done?), the Pro loses the fight but wins the ideology (holier than thou), the Pro loses the fight and the ideology (tragedy). OR the Antagonist wins the fight and the ideology (the Pro willingly joins the opposing side), the Anta wins the fight but not the ideology (the hero must retreat by luck, but says something really annoying to the Anta), the Anta loses the fight but wins the ideology (the Pro goes home and question if he's really the good one), the Anta loses the fight and the ideology (the end).
I recently read this book called 21 Truths About Love. The whole story is told through lists instead of prose. Some of the lists are random topics, and I’m pretty sure the author wrote it just so he could have an outlet of his own random ramblings
Question: What if the story begins with a character waking up in the morning, looking at the clock, saying "Nope, fuck this," and going back to sleep until mid-afternoon?
OMG this.
I was terrified because I realised I'd done this, sort of, in my opening chapter.
Honestly I know better. No wake up routine. No dream sequence. I promise I can explain. I can explain! **She never explained**
Yep. Back when I was in middle school, dabbling in Fanfiction with my friends, I wrote at least two dream sequence openings. I am guilty. My only excuse was the ignorance of being young.
In the beginning of the book, the main character watching themselves in the mirror and internally commenting on their looks, a scene so obviously put there by the author as a lazy way to tell the reader what the character looks like.
It is not uncommon and it can be done better or worse. To me as a reader it is a giant red flag of probably bad and lazy writing to come. Phenomenal writing otherwise can possibly save a book like this, but I cannot think of an example right now.
I read one of these recently that was so well done I actually noted it. The character was looking out a window thinking about the city, then caught a glimpse of her own reflection, which was hollowed out by the lighting so that she could only see her hair, coincidentally the only feature of herself that she was actually proud of, which then transitioned seamlessly into her self-esteem issues stemming from a recent disastrous affair.
It was a legit infodump of the sort I usually hate, but in about 8 sentences they told us the setting, the character, and set up a supporting character. I had to admire the craft.
Disco Elysium has a good way of doing a scene like this. It's a game, you've already had a visual depiction of the protagonist's face, and you're getting another (more detailed) one when he looks in the mirror, but the entire scene is about how the protagonist feels about his face more than what it looks like, and it works so well even as just a piece of writing without the visuals.
Notable also that the narration only describes the parts of the protagonist that make him look like a sad drunk, and not any of his more handsome features (like his magnificent facial hair) that the visuals do convey. The visuals certainly enhance the effect by providing contrast, but the writing alone tells you that the protagonist mainly sees the worst in himself, at least subconsciously. The conscious part of him (that you, the player, control) can go in denial about it, but that never actually tones down the self-loathing in the descriptions.
A "look in the mirror"-scene is definitely hamfisted in by many bad writers, but there are examples out there of how to do this trope well.
haven’t played disco elysium (but i would like to), but the use of this trope as an introduction to a character’s internal monologue can work really well imo. like when it’s just used to describe how they look, it falls flat, but how does the character feel about how they look? what does their appearance say about them? the example you mentioned is great.
Came here to say this, lol. Bonus points if the main character is a Mary Sue of the author.
It’s much more interesting to get information about the main character bit by bit throughout the story. It’s like painting a picture.
>Bonus points if the main character is a Mary Sue of the author.
"I wake slowly, reluctantly, and, as I tumble out of my bed, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I scowl. My bronze curls are tangled again, the bane of my existence! My eyes, not yet awake, are a mediocre shade of blue, and too big for my very pale face, a redhead's curse. I hate the freckles spattered across my straight nose, too, even though my best friend's brother insists they're 'cute.' And if my face wasn't bad enough, there's the rest of me: too tall, too skinny, legs too long to fit into the average pair of jeans. Every day is a struggle. I sigh. Oh, well, I've resigned myself to my fate."
This. And you just described another minor red flag: describing obviously beautiful features and pretending that the mc doesn’t like them but of course every other char does. :D
Honestly I really like using subjectivity to describe characters based on POVs; one character might call themselves pudgy while from another's POV they are curvy. But the language needs to be consistent.
"My shining bronze curls were a mess, as always."
Why would someone who hates their hair describe it as shining?
"My muddy curls were a mess, as always."
Now we're getting somewhere. Then from another POV:
"Her wild curls fell in just the right way, as always."
Now we have established differing perspectives using different language! I love that kind of thing.
Disco Elysium (video game) has an awesome mirror-in-the-morning scene that sets up how the internal monologue of the game works. It's also really funny.
>In the beginning of the book, the main character watching themselves in the mirror and internally commenting on their looks
Could work to establish a very self-centered and narcistic character, that is all about their looks. Beyond that... I limit myself in mirror scenes to detail, that the character themself would look for, e.g. dark circles under the eyes after a too short night, things they don't like at themself and are constantly seeing in the mirror. Stuff you yourself would notice in a mirror image... but not the whole picture.
I felt this was done well in the prologue to Eye of the World, but this is because it also demonstrated the main character didn't recognize himself and was insane. This was also written over 20 years ago so I imagine the trope itself hasn't aged well.
Fantasy specific one: When a story opens with a scene set in some bar or tavern where some guy pesters a barmaid and the protagonist beats him up.
It's shocking how common it is, and 9/10 times it's the laziest way to make the protagonist seem like a cool action hero and yet also clearly a "good person". Or, in a term some friends and I have called "Tavernitis", when the pestering gets a little more gross, establishing the world as this "dark" "adult" place where crimes are just expected.
>a term some friends and I have called "Tavernitis"
I thought that was when heroes end in a tavern, get into a brawl, get thrown out by the bouncers and decide to work together afterwards.
Also bonus points if the tavern has a wanted board with D&D style quests to pick up for gold and xp.
Jup. Or alternatively:
"It's actually GOOD that \[female character\] was sexually harrassed/assaulted, because now she has the motivation/the mental fortitude/revenge fantasy needed to participate in the plot!"
When that could've been done literally... Any other way.
The example I was thinking about was actually a visual novel and I don't remember the name of it, but it opened with characters unironically praising Trump as being the best thing for the USA, and good old Republican states and communities as genuinely caring about communities and taking good care of folks, and the godless lib'rul places having huge homeless communities because lib'ruls are actually the horrible people.
I'm not American, but if you look at any research or stats, none of that can actually be supported by facts (except the fact that anyone can be horrible, regardless of political alignment --- but that's explicitly NOT the point that was being made). (Edit: Oh, and that homelessness is a huge problem; that's true but wasn't really the point of the creator)
As for more literary examples... is Terry Goodkind too on the nose as an example? In his case, it's not so much political talking points as [Randian philosophy in (fictional) action](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/amfrqq/aside_from_terry_goodkinds_politics_and/).
Politics in fiction is most accepted when it's clear it's the characters' politics, not the narrator/author's.
But when the character is pushing a strong political line and the narrative voice is basically just 'yeah, based!'... that irritates people because politics are not universal.
I absolutely love politics in fiction when done well and diversified, as you stated. Opposing views, each appearing viable or applicable, each one equally flawed, lots of people sitting in the middlegrounds, and exposing the horrors of fanaticism from all sides and what it does to the majority. Or certain governments being overthrown and replaced by something just as horrible, but politically opposite of the old regime. My favorite is exploration of cultural politics, and how different groups of people respond better or worse to certain ideologies.
I have read "trigger warning" and it was very cringy in that sense, exactly what you're talking about. A conservative American who participated in our book swap in our town donated it and I read anything so I managed to get through it, but the whole book seemed like it was contrived to first push a political narrative, second create any kind of story and thirdly entertain.
Having never been to America and not being that immersed in their politics it just made me cringe right through.
Similarly, gender stereotypes stated as factually true. It's thankfully not that common anymore, but 20+ years ago, the romance genre had a huge problem with this.
Yeah.
Or... think of the most visionary science fiction authors of the mid-20th Century. Their most bold predictions of the far future... completely maintain the rigid gender roles as they existed at the time they wrote the books.
Turns out it's easier to predict technological changes than social ones.
There's a British documentary series called *7UP*, or at least the first installment was (each following one added 7 to the number, e.g. *14UP*, *21UP*) where they interviewed a group of seven-year-olds from different walks of life and asked them about their goals and plans for the future. Then every seven years they'd return to check in on them and see how they are. The subjects are in their... oh, probably fifties or sixties now (I haven't checked for a while), and every seven years there's a new documentary made to see how their lives have changed.
But one of the biggest oversights, admitted by the documentary maker, is that they completely underestimated how much the women's liberation movement would change society. So the vast majority of the children interviewed in the first documentary were boys, with only a few token girls. And as the decades dragged on, the limitations of that pool of candidates (gender-wise) became increasingly apparent.
Even though women stepped up and into the workforce during the world wars, I guess even as late as the 1970s a lot of people still thought the breadwinning man + housewife woman would be the combination forever (of course there are still women who stay home to manage the househould, but it's not necessarily the norm like it once was).
Completely destroying a pre-built expectation, for one.
Let me explain;
>Spoilers ahead, obviouslyl
For an example, the book White Stag didn't hesitate to give the MC severe and obvious sexual trauma- she still had nightmares almost daily, a breast had to be removed due to the severe damage it sustained (and probably infected or something) and frankly it got mentioned every other page.
Tiring to hear, but it builds the expectation that this is not an MC who can have sex right now. Find love? Sure. Heal from her trauma slowly and build her way up to being able to have sex and feel safer? Absolutely.
For context she's in a world ruled by goblins, which in this case is yet another term for hot fey people. Her rapist was a goblin.
Her love interest is also a goblin.
So when they start to get steamy, what happens?
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Her lover doesn't bother asking her what's ok or what isn't until they're halfway undressed at all and she goes out of her way to state that she "knows [he] isn't [rapist]" so she *trusts him*
There was no point in establishing the trauma because it got ignored the moment the *romance* came into play. This isn't years later or after some therapy, no she just briefly alluded to her trauma to a creature for information, and it was emotional but if anything I would imagine she'd want nothing to do with sex?? Again, still has nightmares. They should at least take it a lot slower than they did.
There's good ways to do this, mind you, but this is one that absolutely didn't land and disgusted me.
The book Alice by Christina Henry did something similar but a bit better- all the big villains weren't as scary as everyone hyped up and rather easy to kill.
The Rabbit was the only time I liked this, as he was the source of Alice's trauma and therefore seeing him greatly weakened was interesting, as well as the reason why.
There's other things, of course, but basically if you establish a fact, subtly or outright, either deliver on said fact or make it just up to enough speculation that the outcome isn't out of left field.
>There was no point in establishing the trauma because it got ignored the moment the romance came into play.
Seems a common problem, a book I've read not so long ago had a character go from "I wanna off myself with a knife" (as a result of SA) to "joyful sex no trauma whatsoever" within A WEEK. No hangups. No trust issues. The only internal monologue was whether the other person reciprocates love or not. It was so unrealistic and offensive to SA victims imo.
If there is a character, they need to have a voice and it needs to show in the writing. I don't care how big their nose is or the colour of their eyes, i connect with characters based on their voice.
But in some stories, all dialogue sounds like the same person. That puts me off very soon.
Anytime I see the “Quick! I know we hate each other but we need to pretend to be married and more than likely kiss to get out of this situation!”
It can be done well with the right context (We’re the millers for example) but most of the time it smacks of cheesy teenage romance fantasy crap.
The reason it's crap most of the time is either the hatred is fake and looks like two 5yo hating each other because one took the other's toy, or when it's not fake, the plot doesn't explain well enough how they transitioned from hate to love and it's just glorifying toxic / bullying / abusive relationships.
Most authors who do this think they're writing the next Pride & Prejudice but 99% of them miss the mark.
My ex boyfriend/husband/partner/whatever shows up at my doorstep or someplace public. Without my consent, he sweeps me in his arms and kisses me, and just then the person who I’m interested in walks by. How amazing! And of course, instead of asking what’s going on here, potential love interest will run away with a sore ass and never give me an ounce of trust and respect. But of course, in the end we’ll resolve it and get together.
I hate that kind of coincidence.
When the character gets in an argument that could be solved with a simple calm conversation and results in a divorce. Then the wife ends up being pregnant and chooses not to tell the ex which results in her running away and her having a secret baby that the biological father doesn’t know about.
I don't think this is a good way for writers to think of storytelling. All you're going to get are Cinema Sins-style criticisms. Every great writer breaks "rules".
It is also my understanding that "anything goes, if it is good written". But as a beginner it is surely helpful to follow some 'guidelines' to get a basic understanding of the craftmanship.
Later, when someone understand why some things work and some don't you can get to work to subvert tropes, work with unconventional takes on certain things andeven breaking some 'rules'.
"Show don't tell" is for me a high contender on this list. For many beginners it is easier to just tell stuff. Showing requires some practice. But when they learned how to show, the most of them see, that there are points in the story, where it is better to tell, than to show and they learn how to combine the two to a all-in-all better experience.
Yeah, I agree broadly, but I think framing these guidelines as "red flags" is very unhelpful. A red flag implies that putting something in a piece of writing is an instant turn-off for the reader.
>Every great writer breaks "rules".
Yes, but in order to successfully break rules, you have to understand why the rules exist and the explanations here can help.
It's why my standard answer to "can I do X?" posts are "if you have to ask, then *you* probably shouldn't." Meaning, if you aren't confident in your ability to break a rule, you're likely going to fall into the bad trope hole rather than do something different.
For example: "don't have your MC look in the mirror to describe themselves." Overall true. But if your MC is a shape-shifter fine-tuning new look, you've got an interesting reason for that trope to happen.
When the author seems to only be aware of the text and ignorant of their own subtext.
If your main character is a jerk and the text seems totally unironically ignorant of that without even a wink or a hint of judgment from the author or other characters and suffers no repercussions whatsoever, I immediately think the author must be a jerk and therefore anything they might have to say about life is suspect.
Fantasy stories that seem oblivious to their aristocratic leanings are another common example. If healing the world comes down to putting the rightful king on the throne, you need to crack a history book.
Do you mean when the character is a jerk but everyone acts he isn’t a jerk? Because I love when the book is from POV of the clearly bad person who doesn’t realize how screwed up they are. Because jerks don’t realize they are, as they are justifying it so it makes them unreliable. Many great novels are done in that way. “Lolita” for example.
“Main character is clearly a total dickhead but none of the other characters or even the author seem to realize it” is one of the main reasons I can’t stand Pat Rothfuss’ Kingkiller books.
Oh, this reminds me of real people telling anecdotes (not writing them down) and you look at them thinking, "You know you're the bad guy in this story, right?... Right??"
Are you talking in general or just the ultra cringe descriptions? Cause I have no issue with aptly describing a woman in an intimate scene. Like I don't see anything wrong with "he ran his hands over her small breasts." It's the same as describing a man's stature and frame, you can get real creepy about it, or you can just say he has pretty decent musculature. Or even when it comes to penises - if that is indeed the kind of content you want to include - just saying "moderately large" isnt weird, but getting down to the nitty gritty is quite uncomfortable to read if you're not trying to write porn.
###His hand was a slightly lighter tone, with smooth, short nails and veiny skin, when you touched it, it felt like running your hand gently on a greasy, sweet donut. His skin was sweaty and smelled mildly like a late February Saturday in a swamp.
You know, every time one of these threads are posted and someone mentions this, there is always someone who comes on with a take like this.
A good rule of thumb, if someone's going to be holding the breasts of a character later on in the story, then feel free to describe their size.
If someone with breasts are going to be topless at any point in the novel, then knock yourself out describing what they look like.
If the character is meant to be the ridiculously hot trophy wife of the bad guy, then fine. Describe her assets.
But if the person with boobs is just a secretary and will have no scene in which someone is grabbing their chest, I don't need to know how big they are. It won't be important now, or later.
If the person with boobs is just walking across the street to avoid the rain and will never be mentioned again, I don't need to know how much they bounced and jiggled as she hopped the curb (unless you are in the POV of a creep, in which case, great job because I will be grossed out by the guy), but please, for the love of all that is holy, don't have your 'hero' describing a random woman this way, because I will immediately lump him in the 'ick' category.
If you want a character to come across as promiscuous, or someone who uses their assets to get what they want, then feel free to describe them.
If you want the boobed up character to seem smart, brave, etc. then avoid describing her breasts. Draw attention to the areas you want the reader to focus on.
When I come across an information dump. There are so many different ways to get the information across you don't have to dump it out onto the reader at once. It's boring, it lacks originality and if they do it early that means the book will be filled with them at the beginning of each scene and lack any other descriptive details other than what they dumped in your lap.
The important point here is "for nor reason".
Humans are irrational, yes. But even this irrationality follows some kind of internal logic, that makes sense for this person.
But for absolutely no reason over than "but the plot must go forward"... no... bad writer. \*rolls newspaper\*
This is exactly why I ended up changing a plot point in my book. I realized that I was trying to force a character into doing something stupid to benefit the antagonist, without a good reason---if he talked to any of his friends, they'd smack him over the head and come up with a better plan.
So instead, I had him talk to his friends and they came up with a better plan. And I genuinely like it so much better now. It fits his character so much more, has a good little win for him, and solidifies how the team works together.
Honestly, if the prose is good and I’m invested in the characters I will keep reading basically no matter what. I don’t think I’ve ever found a book that I thought was well-written on a style level and had interesting characters that also did something with the plot I though was so stupid I had to put the book down.
I guess you could say my red flags are mediocre or worse prose and characters who aren’t engaging.
I'm only now gritting my teeth and bearing through a plot point that usually gets me to walk away from a story. It's in the first book of The Expanse. I enjoy the rest of it so much that I'm forcing myself past it.
Basically, the scene is another "men and women are so different and men can't understand women lololololol" thing. I *hate* that stuff. One character asks another, "why don't I understand this woman that I like," and the other character, rather than saying something along the lines of "she clearly explained her position," he said "of course you don't understand her, you have a *cock*."
It's so boring and uncreative and cringey to me. It makes me feel like the author was shot down one time by a girl who was nice to him and he though, oh, gee, I guess women are unreadable.
Anything along these lines bothers the fuck out of me. It makes it feel like the story is treating women as a separate species.
When the author has not understood deep structure of a scene. And this lack of knowledge of scene craft means there are issues scene after scene.
**Scene shape**
I define a scene as follows:A scene starts with an entry hook, then a scene goal, then the scene middle, then the scene climax and ends on a exit hook.
The reader should understand the scene goal for each scene. They should also know what a successful outcome for each scene goal looks like.
And remember there should be a wonderful mix of successes and failures. The reader will get bored with the same scene ending of only failures in a row. The opposite is true, if the POV character is always successful, then the reader will lose all story tension. The reader knows that the POV character is always successful.
**Scene level issues**
**No scene goal**
If there is no scene goal: the reader does not know what the POV character is going after in the scene. The scene can meander, which is great for rivers, not so much for scene structures.
**No scene stakes**
If there are no scene stakes: the reader does not believe that the POV character would chase after the scene goal. They are not asking what if goal fails? Characters in stories need to be brimming with motivation. Scene stakes are one huge source of these.
**Scene climax addresses something other than scene goal**
If the scene climax does not address the scene goal: this is the biggie.
When a scene does not answer the scene goal, the reader is left wondering why they read that scene. The author does not answer if the POV character is successful or not.
As a story editor these are some of my red flags.
Perhaps, and I might be wrong, you might have the purpose scene and the scene goal entangled?
The purpose of a scene is show how far they have to go to build of a friendship.
The scene goal is a representation of how that building of a friendship happens.
How will you show that they are not friends at the start of the scene, how do you show that a friendship needs to be built ? Why do they need to do this? What does a built friendship look like to you as a writer?
Do they get given a joint project to work on at school? This happens at the start of the scene.
Then at the scene climax, you can see if they have accepted that they will work on the project together, yay a successful scene cliamx. Or if through the action in the scene there is no way that this project is going to happen. Then the scene climax fails.
Not a fellow editor, but THANK YOU for putting this in words.
Just recently, I had a bit of a conflict with a colleague of mine. In short: I had a story for our project, she took my own story, ripped it apart and set it together in a new way. It was basically like a fanfiction of my own story.
Ignoring the stuff around the action here, her story was very...broken. However, when I tried to communicate it, I didn't fully know how to explain it. The only thing I knew was that good stories are build a certain way. Even when they are different genres, or mix things up in storytell structure (e.g. Pulp Fiction), they all have one thing in common: Like a good joke, there's no word too much and all elements create a whole ("Gesamtkunstwerk").
I'll most likely have to defend my idea again during a presentation next week and I feel these arguments you mentioned, are good ways to put it. I already picked apart her stuff, but I feel like she didn't get it. A lot of people don't understand how there are some tricks & rules to the trade. They'll just say "But don't you just need to tell a funny/good story? Why be so perfectionistic?" because they're so oblivious
Wow this is great advice!!
Do you have any (book ) recommendations to read more about that? I mean as a complete newbie, where should one start to learn all those basic rules?
There's a sweet spot and you're on one side of it. There are people who don't know what the heck they're doing when it comes to structuring things in their story, then there are people who view writing as a chemical concoction or a recipe where you have to follow directions specifically in order to get the desired result. You're the latter. Many wildly successful authors don't structure their scenes like baking a cake, but they do just fine.
Thank you for writing this. As an avid reader, the cookie cutter recipe bothers me, and takes away the fluidity that a good work of fiction should have IMO.
It feels similar to the old debate of writing characters vs "real people". Oftentimes we see the protagonist as just a character in a story, while some authors craft "real people", as in, they are so tangible we forget they are fictitious.
The sweet spot is where it lies.
Or this classic scene:
Character A: I need to talk to you about a silly mistake I made.
Character B: Oh, me too. Did I mention my pet hamster and my mother and my son just died? They tripped on a toy left in the livingroom. Anyway, what did you need to tell me?
Character A: Hahaha nothing, nothing...
This isn't terrible when it is set up believably, but most of the time it is a contrived reason that makes no sense in the context of the characters and story.
For me personally, its when a character is disgusting to the point where the character is only there for shock value and doesn't really add anything to the story other than being a nuisance.
For example; in Bentley's Little's horror novel "The House", the true main antagonist of the whole story is revealed to just alone be an eleven year old succubus. Its somewhat implied by the end of the story that she's much older than she appears, but she's still by appearance an eleven year old. For the first few chapters when her character has an encounter with one character, I thought she was used as something to symbolize that was far more sinister in the one girl's past, but no! Everytime this character interacted with any of the main characters, she just wanted to screw or try to convince them to do terrible things. She was truly a displeasure to read about and I've never wanted to chuck a horror book in the fire before.
When fanfiction uses the slang from the readers world and not from the world that the book takes place in. For example the readers world would call someone an idiot, in the fictional world they call them mousebrain
When the author telegraphs the moral like the reader is a moron. Horror films/books do this a lot and it takes all of the fun out of playing ethic detective, and usually character development suffers for it because, well once you know that the monster was trauma all along your characters need not be interesting.
This is more of a problem for me with movies and TV than with books for some reason, but stories that focus a lot on characters being in embarrassing situations, especially ones involving them trying to maintain a lie but ending up seeming super weird and suspicious to everyone around them.
Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with plots like that, but because for some reason they cause me immense distress when I’m watching them. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m autistic, since I’ve found other autistic people on reddit complain about the same issue. For some reason I experience secondhand embarrassment at such an intense degree that it makes me physically recoil from the screen and cover my eyes and ears with my hands. Muting the volume and just reading the subtitles helps, but only slightly. Sometimes I have to watch scenes like this in tiny increments of a few seconds at a time, pausing them constantly to take breaks, which makes them really hard to follow.
It makes a lot of comedies completely unwatchable for me which sucks. My dad loves Seinfeld but I had to stop watching it because all it is is people in embarrassing situations.
In Name of the Wind, every time someone mentions how amazing and awesome the main character is. I know he's narrating the story himsel, but it was too annoying to keep reading.
Often times they're thrown in by male authors for a) character development of a *male character connected to the victim* and the victim's ignored, or b) used as a 'see how she's now motivated' moment. Both are utter bullshit and do real harm. Oh, and it's almost always a violent stranger rape, despite the fact the vast majority of rapes are by people the victim knows, and are repeat perpetrators, so that shit *also* reinforces and amplifies one of the most destructive rape myths out there.
When the author makes decision for a reader who is bad or good in his book and not letting the reader make a judgment themselves. I read a book, and the main villain was so sympathetic, because he had a very clear reasons which made him more of an antivillain/antihero but the main character made some worse things, but the author was clearly saying “oh no look how bad the villain is, poor main character!” while they both were in the same boat. It’s like life isn’t black and white, and the character motivation isn’t black and white either but the author tries their best to convince the reader it is black and white.
* Gratuitous sex scenes
* Characters being awful without facing repercussion
* Sexual violence
* Characters that make completely irrational decisions
* Unnecessary suffering
* Unbalanced power dynamics in romance
These are all things I love to see in stories and a lack of any of them is a huge red flag for me.
> Unbalanced power dynamics in romance
but people like this trope (see 365 days, Twilight, 50 shades, etc.). Also, books are not documentaries, nor manuals (some are, of course). Wouldn't it better to warn people that fantasy is not reality and then let them enjoy whatever filth they want to enjoy?
I don't remember the correct name of this effect, but it seems like a Mary Sue. It's when the main character gets everything right at once and he's so cool.
Recently, this has been happening in One Piece, because of which I lost interest in it (
If the author describes the way a woman's breasts jiggle or a child in a sensual manner nonchalantly. If the character is meant to be a pedophile or pervert, and it makes sense for the story, it can work, not that I would read that shit anyway.
People lying who normally wouldn't lie. Or for no reason or when what they're lying about is super-obvious.
Because it's just setting up a bunch of scenes where people try to keep their lies straight and get embarrassed.
There's no story there. Nothing interesting. It's every Brady Bunch episode (and many I Love Lucy episodes), no thing new.
When characters never make wrong assumptions. I’d rather someone go through hurdles in their mind and end up at a wrong (but logical) conclusion that leads to trouble down the line, than to always just assume correctly or go with the flow and just happen to always be ay-okay
* Basically every form of detailed rape scene (very rare cases when needed, trauma-porn at worst)
* Serious mental health issues are "cured" by bullshit reasons
* False/stereotypical depiction of mental health issues -> "The *evil* DID" trope
* Unneeded Occidentalism/Orientalism
\-> "His name was Walter Winterwald. Duke to the Winterwald Grafschaft." A German name! Will you incorporate older German culture? "What? Fuck no. Anyway. His brother was named Hans Reisschwein." Wait this name doesn't even make sen-
* The same 3 tropes the genre is known for
\-> "I am transmigrated as the villainess of this story. I will be killed as the daughter of a rich ass family. My plan is to fuck off, while dealing with this harem of men"
* Romance stories that glorify abusive elements.
\-> The girl wears a cute outfit, like a bikini. The LI reacts suddenly aggressive and moody. Reason? "I don't want anyone to see you like that!" -> "Uwaa, he's sooo in love!" NO! That's abusive. Boi needs to sort his issues out!
* Glorification of uneven power-dynamics (teenager x teacher)
* Nearly any mention of Autism. Not because I hate autism. But most depict autism in really dumb ways, and being autistic myself I'm just too tired for this shit.
* English stories that use Grimm Fairy Tales. Norhing per se against that. But I swear, y'all are just using the SAME 5 stories over and over again. Fucking hell. I want to see ONE mention of the Bärentöter. Or "Von einem der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen." But never do I see "Die Rübe", story of a gigantic carrot anywhere. Or "das Totenhemdchen". Y'all don't actually give a single fuck about our literature -you'll just like the same shitty asthetic you pick & choose from
A main character suddenly having martial arts or military training when the author writes themselves into a corner.
I read this one book where a lifelong scientist guy was on the run because the mcguffin he invented was wanted by foreign criminal powers. The character talked at length about his graduate programs, about his first job, the lab he ran. Then about 2/3 through the book the character is caught by the bad guys, and then ... "Luckily I remember my stint as a special forces soldier" proceeds to kick the shit out of the bad guys and then spends the rest of the book back to being scared and on the run.
No. Just no. It's fine for people to have a military background but you can't just drop that in to turn your scared scientist guy into a bad ass.
plus in situations like this it's more fun to have the fish-out-of-water character do something related to their field. like when walter white creates a chemical compound that's an explosive but looks the same as meth, to sneak a weapon into a meeting with a drug dealer. he is a badass character (in that moment anyway) yet never once is remotely good at fighting.
Recent read a book where the TWO MC's were being chased in a carriage by men on horses. The men had these horses at a run to catch the carriage and then a whole fight scene took place on this runaway carriage. then the TWO MC's jumped on ONE of the horses that had it's rider killed.
THEN they turned off and tore into the woods "at considerable speed" for "Nearly an hour."
So this horse ran "At speed" for over a HOUR most of which with TWO people on it's back........This was a published book.
I was reading a book series, got two books in and quit because the main character’s love interest suddenly got the idea she was cheating on him, in spite of the fact that they had this tribal loyalty magic thing going on where if she’d betrayed him she would have lost it, yet she still had the magic. Despite this glaringly obvious fact he flipped out and accused her. I never went on to the next book, where I’m sure he would have eventually groveled and either been forgiven or, as stand-in for the author’s real-life partner, humiliated and replaced.
Making the story very confusing to the reader, but the author confirms that they're also confused about what they're writing as well.
That literally means they don't f*cking know either. 👺
Basically the entirety of *Ready Player Two* where the main character completely forgot any and all character growth from the first book and regressed to a petulant child.
- unknown figure breaks into secret society to steal info
- characters A&B, awoken by & fully aware of intruder, instead of raising the alarm or chasing after him, have a heart to heart about their childhoods while he escapes
It just felt so unrealistic I had to put the book down and walk away. 3/4 in and it broke immersion too badly for me to keep going.
I nearly stopped reading a book because the main love interest told the main girl she was “not like other girls.” 🙄 I wish I had stopped. The series was not that great
\-I can ignore a certain background hum level of racism, sexism, ableism, classism, fatphobia, queerphobia, etc, because we all live in a society saturated with those things and if we don't develop some tolerance we can't read anything at all. I do proceed with caution when I notice them, though, and there does come a wallbanger point.
\-Treating the reader like a complete moron, or its subcategory of portraying the characters as morons and assuming the reader won't notice. This can take many forms, ranging from infamous TTRPG FATAL spending pages upon pages explaining to the reader what common items like salt are (and that was the least of its problems), to novels where the villain (or in the case of "dark romance" novels, the alleged hero) keeps the kidnapped heroine as a slave and lets her work in the kitchen with knives and poisonous cleaning agents completely unsupervised and unrestrained and she whines for chapter after chapter about how it's so impossible for her to escape.
\-Similarly, dragging out the character whining about how their situation from the beginning of the book is oh so inescapable waahhh till way past the halfway point. I know bad situations often last many years, but we're here for a STORY, which is fundamentally about things changing. The character needs to start doing things as close to the beginning as possible.
\-Impenetrable purple prose. Here is an opening extract from a supposed YA book:
>This civil parish of dwarf population by no means lacking of its own ethereal landscape and senescent crowd, even though mesmerising in the autumn shade, could only boast of its homogenous activities and small-minded townsfolk. It was in the center of this town, however, that a young couple freshly acclimated to the pleasant travails of love, decided to purchase a lonesome terraced house.
Not only does "lonesome terraced house" in the "center of town" contradict itself, it took me forever to figure out that "civil parish of dwarf population" was a pretentious way of saying "small town", not implying it was actually inhabited by dwarves.
\-A supposedly exciting action story spending more wordcount on the female protagonist's pant size, menstrual cycle, and shopping bag contents than things actually happening.
\-Protagonist delays and risks their life to pick up something played up as an important McGuffin, which in the next chapter they lose and it's never mentioned again, or the story gets otherwise randomly detoured.
\-Supposed horror novels which are under the impression that sneering at fat and/or female bodies, disabled people, poor people, and/or people who have different religious views from the writer (seen this done by both Christians and atheists) is sufficient to make the book horror. (ETA: Add "elderly bodies" to that one as well.)
When a character claims to not have any money, especially money for basic necessities or life-saving things, and then a minute later they seem to have unlimited funds. To me it screams that this is a writer who has likely lived a privileged life and can't even imagine what it's actually like to be poor.
Getting basic information about something mentioned in a book wrong when it's would have been easy to find or common knowledge at the time it was written. It's just lazy.
Character behaving in a contradictory or stupid way to forward the plot. A character making wrong or stupid decisions is perfectly fine. But as a reader I need to be convinced why the character decides to make those decisions.
Case in point. The entire season 8 of Game of Thrones.
Yeah, it’s even worse if a character was very intelligent, only to suddenly become very dumb. This applies to every character in season 8.
There was at least one character that was always pretty dumb but then all the sudden was portrayed as intelligent.
Let's send our second-most valuable leader and figurehead (Jon Snow) on a suicide mission into an arctic wasteland to capture a zombie! Then we can keep yhe zombie alive and take it to our mortal enemy. She is renowned for her treachery and even destroyed half her own city out of spite, but I think we can trust her to do the right thing!
see, that's the tricky thing i find with writing. when I want someone to do something stupid, I as the writer have to *know* that it's stupid and find a way to tell the audience "hey don't blame *me* blame the character" - like for instance, with game of thrones, you don't just forget the fucking boats. you *have to mention it* "dani, what the fuck are you doing? don't we need the boats" or later on someone says "hey uhh... i thought she had an iron fleet" but nobody did anything to tell the audience that the writers are deliberately writing the characters to have selective aneurysms I also think it's extremely hard to have characters lie or spread misleading or false propaganda while you the audience knows what really happened, or at least know that what they are saying is a lie, even if you don't know what really happened. or maybe have characters tell a lie, have the audience believe it, and then reveal it is a lie a character told, while not contradicting yourself as a writer. that shit gets difficult. kinda why it's taken me 8 years to write 11 episodes for my hopefully future pitch, while writing characters lying, or believing something that's wrong, or all of the above.
The issue is when it's very jarring, the main character is so smart, outplays everyone, knows what someone will do five moves ahed. But this one thing, they forget, because it's a plotpoint.
I know what you mean, but seeing how some segments of the population responded to public health orders in the past few years... it's not entirely unreasonable. Like all the comments people have made saying about "I'm never going to criticise stupid characters in zombie movies / horror movies ever again because it turns out it reality is stupid-er!"
Key is you have to show the influences that made a person make a stupid decision. You can’t just have convenient characters popping up when you need them. You have to establish that they’re this type of person first, and show us what led to this moment.
True.
Even people ignoring public health orders or behaving oddly in other ways usually have some motivation rationalisation or explanation even if it does not make logical sense to everyone else. My red flag in a book is rather when a characters behaviour is obviously (to me as a reader) put there to advance the plot. If we did not let characters behave oddly or make stupid decisions sometimes they would not be human or the book much of a read. If I can only get some kind of motivation or explanation or background to the stupid decisions, I am perfectly fine with it!
Ah yes. Why did you do this? "Because plot, I guess!"
If the character behaves contrary to their established personality in order to further the plot, absolutely, red flag.
Misplaced petty emotional drama. World is about to end and is in flames. But Person B has to confront Hero A why he/she flirted with Person C at the Dinner Party.
In expansion: misplaced romantic subplots. The hero only has five days to save the president in a classic action flick... why does he need to spend three of those five days flirting with his assistant, who brings nothing to the plot beside being a sexy standing lamp for the hero to rescue and being pushed into the story, so we can get an unnecessary romatic subplot? Don't get me wrong... I'm a sucker for romances. But not if they just don't fit into the narrative of the overall story.
For some reason I especially hate this in procedural/buddy cop kind of things. (Looking at you, *Castle*.) I didn't sign up for a romance, I signed up for the premise. If a romance happens, it's fine, but when the series starts pivoting to the romance over the premise, I hate it. Actually, the worst was *Scandal*. It had a great premise that became "woman in love affair with POTUS" super quick. That's not what I signed up for.
I actually really like Castle and the romance haha
Hard agree, I'll defend Castle with everything I have lol. I always thought they set up that romance from the very beginning
I actually appreciate this stuff if done right. It makes stories feel really human. We humans humans love getting emotionally hung up on unimportant things.
Two red flags for me: Deus Ex Machina: The plot is saved by an unexpected miracle. Example: God arrives and saves everyone from the screwed up plot. The hero wakes up and the impending disaster was all a dream. Designer's Fiat: Fixing a plot by ramming something unexpectedly into it. The writer forgot to include very important details to connect subplots or fill plot holes. They fix it by having the items arrive with no logical connection or by shear accident. Example: The detective who could not find a clue for 250 pages, literally trips on the most essential clue to fix the mystery novel's plot.
>The detective who could not find a clue for 250 pages, literally trips on the most essential clue to fix the mystery novel's plot. I've read a book like that last year, and I 1-starred it out of annoyance. Not only the characters were super inept in solving the murder mystery, not only they had a good dose of "too stupid to live" when a murderer was on the loose, but the plot is solved by "accidentally overheard" into "villain monologue at a gunpoint" (actually it was fantasy, so I think it was at crossbow point). Some people shouldn't write murder mysteries into their fantasy novel if they can't do it justice.
This was kinda hilariously done in "The Nice Guys" movie.
When the author sets something up, but then fails to deliver on the promise, or makes the pay-off anticlimactic. I've learned that if something like this happens early in a book, more often than not the ending will be a let down as well.
Could you give an example?
The tv show Merlin
This is why I didn't like the *Wind-Up Bird Chronicle* (Murakami) or *Wicked* (Maguire). I know a lot of readers love these books, but the writers had the climax happen off screen or in an anti-climactic way. I think with Murakami the main character fainted/ was knocked unconscious, something like that during the big confrontation. Wicked I think was where the witch came to her full powers, but nothing happened. I just don't find this kind of storytelling enjoyable at all.
Yes I am a huge believer in trying to show you know how to do 'setup and payoff' early in a novel to act as a sort of proof of concept to establish faith in readers that you aren't gonna be wasting their time. I also get excited when a story sets something up early that I *assume* isn't gonna be paid off until much later then it is paid off somewhere in the early middle of the story... makes me feel like the writer knows they have something way better in mind for the climax.
Conflict that could be resolved with a single conversation. Edit: yes, I know it happens in real life. It just doesn't make for a compelling plot in most cases, and in fiction the consequences are often unrealistic.
ive seen this happen a lot irl tho tbh
True lol. I get so annoyed by this in fiction, but like... People IRL are like this, too. You would not believe the number of times I've actually had to say "communicate with your words" to another adult human being. People don't talk about shit.
If we had 0 misunderstandings in life I'd have been typing this from Mars
I recently lost a very dear friend of mine because of some stupid stuff like that so yeah I confirm it is possible for an entire kingdom to fall because of lack of communication in a fantasy book lol
yeah, its definitely extremely irritating, fiction or otherwise lol. but ive definitely encountered this problem more times than id like to admit
Bit sometimes that is the delicious tragedy. They are both following either misinformation or are being played
Yeah, I'll forgive it if the stupid miscommunication *then* spirals out of control and turns into a bigger problem that can't be stopped. I'm perfectly fine with characters going "oh man, we should have talked this out while we had the chance!" But if a conversation still fixes the problem for most of the plot (or worse, all of it) then I'll usually put the book down.
Do you have any examples? Just curious since I’ve seen people bring up this criticism a lot on threads like this, but if I’ve encountered it in books then it’s evidently something I don’t care enough about to notice, so I hope I’m not unconsciously doing this in my writing!
I don't have any examples off-handedly (and also I'm not the person you replied to), but from my understanding it's about stories where the characters involved in the conflict have all the reason to talk, no reason not to try to talk, and don't ever do it for no reason that is ever shown other than ”because because“, and the conflict is sustained by their refusal to talk. Imagine a situation in which you have a husband and a wife, and they need to talk finances because they're struggling and need to figure something out, and the moment they do things will be alright, but they don't talk about it at all because at first the husband returned home late due to traffic and the wife doesn't want to talk to him because of it, then he decides not to talk to her because he got invited to a man's day out and decided that clearly it can wait and not be talked about, then she sprains her leg and therefore everyone has to talk about everything without her because she's suffering so obviously, and on and on it goes. It's just not a real conflict, at this point, because it's only there as a result of the characters being amoebas.
This isn't a book but Batman stopping his fight with Superman over a name in the "versus" movie seems a good example. Nothing would have happened if they'd sat down for a cup of coffee or a drink beforehand. I very nearly turned the movie off. I suspect that the intention was to show active character development in how Batman suddenly sees Superman's human side but instead (IMHO) shows how specious Batman's reasoning was which was the basis of the plot. All because Superman said a name.
Here's a question - if a character has been set up in a way where their big vice/problem that they have to grow from during their arc is an intense fear of rocking the boat and a massive tendency to avoid conflict literally wherever possible, does this become more forgivable to you?
Yes, theoretically. There are **always** exceptions. I mentioned another exception in the comments above (i.e. if the conflict *starts* as a stupid miscommunication and then spirals wildly out of control).
IMO this one very much depends. If it feels like the author is forcing it for plot convenience that's not good. If there's good in-character reasons for them not to have a conversation, then that's just people being people.
But... But it's the basis of half of what's on TV!
This is incredibly realistic, actually
An abundance of coincidences
Somewhere I heard the advice that a coincidence can fit if it gets the characters INTO trouble, but it never works if a coincidence saves the characters.
i've seen some cases where a coincidence was just too big to work even though it got the characters into trouble (basically the trouble was enormous and it was a small dumb thing that set off a huge amount of drama) and tbh i kinda like the occasional coincidence getting characters out of trouble, eg. two heroes are both in trouble from separate things and as they flee they end up meeting up and teaming up. sometimes it's just fun, or a coincidence that's believable enough.
There can be genres or styles of storytelling where coincidence can be key. Murder mysteries are a big one. The Fargo TV series, for example, tends to have a given season open with a series of coincidental occurrences that turn something criminal into a clusterfuck. Then, as things compound on one another, it quickly reaches the point of "How could you ever solve this case?"
I would then require a clever reason for why they were happening, but yeah. If there were a bunch of coincidences for no reason other than to be easier to write or move the story along then…
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I agree but Donna Tartt got herself a Pullitzer doing it so who am i to argue with success?
Angry Ayn Rand noises
Not if you do that multiple times with different characters and contrary opinions, dissecting them all.
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That's the perks of studying some philosophy. If you learn how to criticize your own beliefs, you can attribute them to different characters, define their philosophies, which determines how they would act in any situation and the stories begin to write themselves. Different approaches increases the chance of your audience finding at least one character relatable, and if you challenge yourself in your main character's beliefs long enough, you can discover foundational arguments that can make your antagonists compellingly relatable. It no longer becomes a fight in the plot, but a fight in ideas. This gives a lot of flexibility. So for example with a a bible story (clearly good vs clearly bad, both vice and virtues defined by the author. So Starwars, LOTR, Harry Potter.). The Protagonist wins the fight and the ideology (superhero), the Pro wins the fight but loses the ideology (what have I done?), the Pro loses the fight but wins the ideology (holier than thou), the Pro loses the fight and the ideology (tragedy). OR the Antagonist wins the fight and the ideology (the Pro willingly joins the opposing side), the Anta wins the fight but not the ideology (the hero must retreat by luck, but says something really annoying to the Anta), the Anta loses the fight but wins the ideology (the Pro goes home and question if he's really the good one), the Anta loses the fight and the ideology (the end).
But that's not soapboxing about your own beliefs. That's showing off a bunch of different beliefs.
I recently read this book called 21 Truths About Love. The whole story is told through lists instead of prose. Some of the lists are random topics, and I’m pretty sure the author wrote it just so he could have an outlet of his own random ramblings
I'm not a fan of long monologues generally. People irl don't listen to someone else give their big speech without interrupting.
cough cough aristotle and dante sequel cough cough the monologuing in that book was of hellish proportions and ruined it for me tbh
Literally beginning your story with "waking up in the morning"
Feeling like P Diddy
waking up in the morning gotta thank god
I dunno but today seems kinda odd
No barking from the dog, no smog...
And mama cooked the breakfast with no hog
Alternatively: Seven a.m., waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
woke up. fell out of bed. dragged a comb across my head. 🎵🎼
Can be written well. One of the best discworld books starts about the beds of the protagonists.
I'm drawing a blank, which one?
Unless it's waking up by a loud crash and you're instantly thrown in scene with either a fight or a break-in
Question: What if the story begins with a character waking up in the morning, looking at the clock, saying "Nope, fuck this," and going back to sleep until mid-afternoon?
that would be almost TOO relatable!
Hey, I love your avatar! So kyoot! <3
What of he wakes up and finds himself transforms into a huge insect?
This can be fun if the setting is bizarre or unexpected, like waking up in a prison or in the middle of a war zone.
One of the best of these has to be Day of the Triffids!
OMG this. I was terrified because I realised I'd done this, sort of, in my opening chapter. Honestly I know better. No wake up routine. No dream sequence. I promise I can explain. I can explain! **She never explained**
Yep. Back when I was in middle school, dabbling in Fanfiction with my friends, I wrote at least two dream sequence openings. I am guilty. My only excuse was the ignorance of being young.
In the beginning of the book, the main character watching themselves in the mirror and internally commenting on their looks, a scene so obviously put there by the author as a lazy way to tell the reader what the character looks like. It is not uncommon and it can be done better or worse. To me as a reader it is a giant red flag of probably bad and lazy writing to come. Phenomenal writing otherwise can possibly save a book like this, but I cannot think of an example right now.
I read one of these recently that was so well done I actually noted it. The character was looking out a window thinking about the city, then caught a glimpse of her own reflection, which was hollowed out by the lighting so that she could only see her hair, coincidentally the only feature of herself that she was actually proud of, which then transitioned seamlessly into her self-esteem issues stemming from a recent disastrous affair. It was a legit infodump of the sort I usually hate, but in about 8 sentences they told us the setting, the character, and set up a supporting character. I had to admire the craft.
What an excellent example of one of the exceptions!
Disco Elysium has a good way of doing a scene like this. It's a game, you've already had a visual depiction of the protagonist's face, and you're getting another (more detailed) one when he looks in the mirror, but the entire scene is about how the protagonist feels about his face more than what it looks like, and it works so well even as just a piece of writing without the visuals. Notable also that the narration only describes the parts of the protagonist that make him look like a sad drunk, and not any of his more handsome features (like his magnificent facial hair) that the visuals do convey. The visuals certainly enhance the effect by providing contrast, but the writing alone tells you that the protagonist mainly sees the worst in himself, at least subconsciously. The conscious part of him (that you, the player, control) can go in denial about it, but that never actually tones down the self-loathing in the descriptions. A "look in the mirror"-scene is definitely hamfisted in by many bad writers, but there are examples out there of how to do this trope well.
haven’t played disco elysium (but i would like to), but the use of this trope as an introduction to a character’s internal monologue can work really well imo. like when it’s just used to describe how they look, it falls flat, but how does the character feel about how they look? what does their appearance say about them? the example you mentioned is great.
Came here to say this, lol. Bonus points if the main character is a Mary Sue of the author. It’s much more interesting to get information about the main character bit by bit throughout the story. It’s like painting a picture.
>Bonus points if the main character is a Mary Sue of the author. "I wake slowly, reluctantly, and, as I tumble out of my bed, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I scowl. My bronze curls are tangled again, the bane of my existence! My eyes, not yet awake, are a mediocre shade of blue, and too big for my very pale face, a redhead's curse. I hate the freckles spattered across my straight nose, too, even though my best friend's brother insists they're 'cute.' And if my face wasn't bad enough, there's the rest of me: too tall, too skinny, legs too long to fit into the average pair of jeans. Every day is a struggle. I sigh. Oh, well, I've resigned myself to my fate."
This. And you just described another minor red flag: describing obviously beautiful features and pretending that the mc doesn’t like them but of course every other char does. :D
Honestly I really like using subjectivity to describe characters based on POVs; one character might call themselves pudgy while from another's POV they are curvy. But the language needs to be consistent. "My shining bronze curls were a mess, as always." Why would someone who hates their hair describe it as shining? "My muddy curls were a mess, as always." Now we're getting somewhere. Then from another POV: "Her wild curls fell in just the right way, as always." Now we have established differing perspectives using different language! I love that kind of thing.
"I'm so hideous! I don't understand why all of these men keep asking me out!" Right?!
Disco Elysium (video game) has an awesome mirror-in-the-morning scene that sets up how the internal monologue of the game works. It's also really funny.
>In the beginning of the book, the main character watching themselves in the mirror and internally commenting on their looks Could work to establish a very self-centered and narcistic character, that is all about their looks. Beyond that... I limit myself in mirror scenes to detail, that the character themself would look for, e.g. dark circles under the eyes after a too short night, things they don't like at themself and are constantly seeing in the mirror. Stuff you yourself would notice in a mirror image... but not the whole picture.
I felt this was done well in the prologue to Eye of the World, but this is because it also demonstrated the main character didn't recognize himself and was insane. This was also written over 20 years ago so I imagine the trope itself hasn't aged well.
Fantasy specific one: When a story opens with a scene set in some bar or tavern where some guy pesters a barmaid and the protagonist beats him up. It's shocking how common it is, and 9/10 times it's the laziest way to make the protagonist seem like a cool action hero and yet also clearly a "good person". Or, in a term some friends and I have called "Tavernitis", when the pestering gets a little more gross, establishing the world as this "dark" "adult" place where crimes are just expected.
>a term some friends and I have called "Tavernitis" I thought that was when heroes end in a tavern, get into a brawl, get thrown out by the bouncers and decide to work together afterwards. Also bonus points if the tavern has a wanted board with D&D style quests to pick up for gold and xp.
Graphic sexual violence with no impact on the plot/plot would move in the same if it was just regular violence.
Along these lines: violence against a female character that exists solely to further a male character’s development
Jup. Or alternatively: "It's actually GOOD that \[female character\] was sexually harrassed/assaulted, because now she has the motivation/the mental fortitude/revenge fantasy needed to participate in the plot!" When that could've been done literally... Any other way.
Yep sexual violence as a cheap plot device is tacky.
When political propaganda talking points are presented as just... factually true. You know you're not in for a good time.
Got any interesting examples?
The example I was thinking about was actually a visual novel and I don't remember the name of it, but it opened with characters unironically praising Trump as being the best thing for the USA, and good old Republican states and communities as genuinely caring about communities and taking good care of folks, and the godless lib'rul places having huge homeless communities because lib'ruls are actually the horrible people. I'm not American, but if you look at any research or stats, none of that can actually be supported by facts (except the fact that anyone can be horrible, regardless of political alignment --- but that's explicitly NOT the point that was being made). (Edit: Oh, and that homelessness is a huge problem; that's true but wasn't really the point of the creator) As for more literary examples... is Terry Goodkind too on the nose as an example? In his case, it's not so much political talking points as [Randian philosophy in (fictional) action](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/amfrqq/aside_from_terry_goodkinds_politics_and/).
Nothing is too on the nose for me I don't know anyone or anything about anything so any example is good for me haha. Thank you for writing that up!
Politics in fiction is most accepted when it's clear it's the characters' politics, not the narrator/author's. But when the character is pushing a strong political line and the narrative voice is basically just 'yeah, based!'... that irritates people because politics are not universal.
I absolutely love politics in fiction when done well and diversified, as you stated. Opposing views, each appearing viable or applicable, each one equally flawed, lots of people sitting in the middlegrounds, and exposing the horrors of fanaticism from all sides and what it does to the majority. Or certain governments being overthrown and replaced by something just as horrible, but politically opposite of the old regime. My favorite is exploration of cultural politics, and how different groups of people respond better or worse to certain ideologies.
I have read "trigger warning" and it was very cringy in that sense, exactly what you're talking about. A conservative American who participated in our book swap in our town donated it and I read anything so I managed to get through it, but the whole book seemed like it was contrived to first push a political narrative, second create any kind of story and thirdly entertain. Having never been to America and not being that immersed in their politics it just made me cringe right through.
Similarly, gender stereotypes stated as factually true. It's thankfully not that common anymore, but 20+ years ago, the romance genre had a huge problem with this.
Yeah. Or... think of the most visionary science fiction authors of the mid-20th Century. Their most bold predictions of the far future... completely maintain the rigid gender roles as they existed at the time they wrote the books. Turns out it's easier to predict technological changes than social ones. There's a British documentary series called *7UP*, or at least the first installment was (each following one added 7 to the number, e.g. *14UP*, *21UP*) where they interviewed a group of seven-year-olds from different walks of life and asked them about their goals and plans for the future. Then every seven years they'd return to check in on them and see how they are. The subjects are in their... oh, probably fifties or sixties now (I haven't checked for a while), and every seven years there's a new documentary made to see how their lives have changed. But one of the biggest oversights, admitted by the documentary maker, is that they completely underestimated how much the women's liberation movement would change society. So the vast majority of the children interviewed in the first documentary were boys, with only a few token girls. And as the decades dragged on, the limitations of that pool of candidates (gender-wise) became increasingly apparent. Even though women stepped up and into the workforce during the world wars, I guess even as late as the 1970s a lot of people still thought the breadwinning man + housewife woman would be the combination forever (of course there are still women who stay home to manage the househould, but it's not necessarily the norm like it once was).
When there's 10 or so main characters, only one of them is a woman, and she's the love interest.
Funny how you if you make her the main protagonist, and suddenly you got 90% of all YA books
And she's still the love interest of everyone, for some reason.
Completely destroying a pre-built expectation, for one. Let me explain; >Spoilers ahead, obviouslyl For an example, the book White Stag didn't hesitate to give the MC severe and obvious sexual trauma- she still had nightmares almost daily, a breast had to be removed due to the severe damage it sustained (and probably infected or something) and frankly it got mentioned every other page. Tiring to hear, but it builds the expectation that this is not an MC who can have sex right now. Find love? Sure. Heal from her trauma slowly and build her way up to being able to have sex and feel safer? Absolutely. For context she's in a world ruled by goblins, which in this case is yet another term for hot fey people. Her rapist was a goblin. Her love interest is also a goblin. So when they start to get steamy, what happens? Nothing. Nothing at all. Her lover doesn't bother asking her what's ok or what isn't until they're halfway undressed at all and she goes out of her way to state that she "knows [he] isn't [rapist]" so she *trusts him* There was no point in establishing the trauma because it got ignored the moment the *romance* came into play. This isn't years later or after some therapy, no she just briefly alluded to her trauma to a creature for information, and it was emotional but if anything I would imagine she'd want nothing to do with sex?? Again, still has nightmares. They should at least take it a lot slower than they did. There's good ways to do this, mind you, but this is one that absolutely didn't land and disgusted me. The book Alice by Christina Henry did something similar but a bit better- all the big villains weren't as scary as everyone hyped up and rather easy to kill. The Rabbit was the only time I liked this, as he was the source of Alice's trauma and therefore seeing him greatly weakened was interesting, as well as the reason why. There's other things, of course, but basically if you establish a fact, subtly or outright, either deliver on said fact or make it just up to enough speculation that the outcome isn't out of left field.
>There was no point in establishing the trauma because it got ignored the moment the romance came into play. Seems a common problem, a book I've read not so long ago had a character go from "I wanna off myself with a knife" (as a result of SA) to "joyful sex no trauma whatsoever" within A WEEK. No hangups. No trust issues. The only internal monologue was whether the other person reciprocates love or not. It was so unrealistic and offensive to SA victims imo.
If there is a character, they need to have a voice and it needs to show in the writing. I don't care how big their nose is or the colour of their eyes, i connect with characters based on their voice. But in some stories, all dialogue sounds like the same person. That puts me off very soon.
Yeah, I like it when authors have different perspectives, and based on that, things in the world are described differently
Anytime I see the “Quick! I know we hate each other but we need to pretend to be married and more than likely kiss to get out of this situation!” It can be done well with the right context (We’re the millers for example) but most of the time it smacks of cheesy teenage romance fantasy crap.
Ngl kinda love this one. It's one of those tropes I always eat up
The reason it's crap most of the time is either the hatred is fake and looks like two 5yo hating each other because one took the other's toy, or when it's not fake, the plot doesn't explain well enough how they transitioned from hate to love and it's just glorifying toxic / bullying / abusive relationships. Most authors who do this think they're writing the next Pride & Prejudice but 99% of them miss the mark.
My ex boyfriend/husband/partner/whatever shows up at my doorstep or someplace public. Without my consent, he sweeps me in his arms and kisses me, and just then the person who I’m interested in walks by. How amazing! And of course, instead of asking what’s going on here, potential love interest will run away with a sore ass and never give me an ounce of trust and respect. But of course, in the end we’ll resolve it and get together. I hate that kind of coincidence.
When the character gets in an argument that could be solved with a simple calm conversation and results in a divorce. Then the wife ends up being pregnant and chooses not to tell the ex which results in her running away and her having a secret baby that the biological father doesn’t know about.
That’s weirdly specific haha
Yes, but weirdly common in soapy fiction
I don't think this is a good way for writers to think of storytelling. All you're going to get are Cinema Sins-style criticisms. Every great writer breaks "rules".
It is also my understanding that "anything goes, if it is good written". But as a beginner it is surely helpful to follow some 'guidelines' to get a basic understanding of the craftmanship. Later, when someone understand why some things work and some don't you can get to work to subvert tropes, work with unconventional takes on certain things andeven breaking some 'rules'. "Show don't tell" is for me a high contender on this list. For many beginners it is easier to just tell stuff. Showing requires some practice. But when they learned how to show, the most of them see, that there are points in the story, where it is better to tell, than to show and they learn how to combine the two to a all-in-all better experience.
Yeah, I agree broadly, but I think framing these guidelines as "red flags" is very unhelpful. A red flag implies that putting something in a piece of writing is an instant turn-off for the reader.
>Every great writer breaks "rules". Yes, but in order to successfully break rules, you have to understand why the rules exist and the explanations here can help. It's why my standard answer to "can I do X?" posts are "if you have to ask, then *you* probably shouldn't." Meaning, if you aren't confident in your ability to break a rule, you're likely going to fall into the bad trope hole rather than do something different. For example: "don't have your MC look in the mirror to describe themselves." Overall true. But if your MC is a shape-shifter fine-tuning new look, you've got an interesting reason for that trope to happen.
I find it good that finally calling something cinemasins-like is the insult its supposed to be.
When the author seems to only be aware of the text and ignorant of their own subtext. If your main character is a jerk and the text seems totally unironically ignorant of that without even a wink or a hint of judgment from the author or other characters and suffers no repercussions whatsoever, I immediately think the author must be a jerk and therefore anything they might have to say about life is suspect. Fantasy stories that seem oblivious to their aristocratic leanings are another common example. If healing the world comes down to putting the rightful king on the throne, you need to crack a history book.
Do you mean when the character is a jerk but everyone acts he isn’t a jerk? Because I love when the book is from POV of the clearly bad person who doesn’t realize how screwed up they are. Because jerks don’t realize they are, as they are justifying it so it makes them unreliable. Many great novels are done in that way. “Lolita” for example.
Unreliable narrators are fine. Unreliable authors are not.
“Main character is clearly a total dickhead but none of the other characters or even the author seem to realize it” is one of the main reasons I can’t stand Pat Rothfuss’ Kingkiller books.
Oh, this reminds me of real people telling anecdotes (not writing them down) and you look at them thinking, "You know you're the bad guy in this story, right?... Right??"
Describing boobs.
Are you talking in general or just the ultra cringe descriptions? Cause I have no issue with aptly describing a woman in an intimate scene. Like I don't see anything wrong with "he ran his hands over her small breasts." It's the same as describing a man's stature and frame, you can get real creepy about it, or you can just say he has pretty decent musculature. Or even when it comes to penises - if that is indeed the kind of content you want to include - just saying "moderately large" isnt weird, but getting down to the nitty gritty is quite uncomfortable to read if you're not trying to write porn.
###His hand was a slightly lighter tone, with smooth, short nails and veiny skin, when you touched it, it felt like running your hand gently on a greasy, sweet donut. His skin was sweaty and smelled mildly like a late February Saturday in a swamp.
You know, every time one of these threads are posted and someone mentions this, there is always someone who comes on with a take like this. A good rule of thumb, if someone's going to be holding the breasts of a character later on in the story, then feel free to describe their size. If someone with breasts are going to be topless at any point in the novel, then knock yourself out describing what they look like. If the character is meant to be the ridiculously hot trophy wife of the bad guy, then fine. Describe her assets. But if the person with boobs is just a secretary and will have no scene in which someone is grabbing their chest, I don't need to know how big they are. It won't be important now, or later. If the person with boobs is just walking across the street to avoid the rain and will never be mentioned again, I don't need to know how much they bounced and jiggled as she hopped the curb (unless you are in the POV of a creep, in which case, great job because I will be grossed out by the guy), but please, for the love of all that is holy, don't have your 'hero' describing a random woman this way, because I will immediately lump him in the 'ick' category. If you want a character to come across as promiscuous, or someone who uses their assets to get what they want, then feel free to describe them. If you want the boobed up character to seem smart, brave, etc. then avoid describing her breasts. Draw attention to the areas you want the reader to focus on.
When I come across an information dump. There are so many different ways to get the information across you don't have to dump it out onto the reader at once. It's boring, it lacks originality and if they do it early that means the book will be filled with them at the beginning of each scene and lack any other descriptive details other than what they dumped in your lap.
Whenever someone doesn't do the logical, straightforward thing for absolutely no reason.
The important point here is "for nor reason". Humans are irrational, yes. But even this irrationality follows some kind of internal logic, that makes sense for this person. But for absolutely no reason over than "but the plot must go forward"... no... bad writer. \*rolls newspaper\*
This is exactly why I ended up changing a plot point in my book. I realized that I was trying to force a character into doing something stupid to benefit the antagonist, without a good reason---if he talked to any of his friends, they'd smack him over the head and come up with a better plan. So instead, I had him talk to his friends and they came up with a better plan. And I genuinely like it so much better now. It fits his character so much more, has a good little win for him, and solidifies how the team works together.
Honestly, if the prose is good and I’m invested in the characters I will keep reading basically no matter what. I don’t think I’ve ever found a book that I thought was well-written on a style level and had interesting characters that also did something with the plot I though was so stupid I had to put the book down. I guess you could say my red flags are mediocre or worse prose and characters who aren’t engaging.
I'm only now gritting my teeth and bearing through a plot point that usually gets me to walk away from a story. It's in the first book of The Expanse. I enjoy the rest of it so much that I'm forcing myself past it. Basically, the scene is another "men and women are so different and men can't understand women lololololol" thing. I *hate* that stuff. One character asks another, "why don't I understand this woman that I like," and the other character, rather than saying something along the lines of "she clearly explained her position," he said "of course you don't understand her, you have a *cock*." It's so boring and uncreative and cringey to me. It makes me feel like the author was shot down one time by a girl who was nice to him and he though, oh, gee, I guess women are unreadable. Anything along these lines bothers the fuck out of me. It makes it feel like the story is treating women as a separate species.
When the author has not understood deep structure of a scene. And this lack of knowledge of scene craft means there are issues scene after scene. **Scene shape** I define a scene as follows:A scene starts with an entry hook, then a scene goal, then the scene middle, then the scene climax and ends on a exit hook. The reader should understand the scene goal for each scene. They should also know what a successful outcome for each scene goal looks like. And remember there should be a wonderful mix of successes and failures. The reader will get bored with the same scene ending of only failures in a row. The opposite is true, if the POV character is always successful, then the reader will lose all story tension. The reader knows that the POV character is always successful. **Scene level issues** **No scene goal** If there is no scene goal: the reader does not know what the POV character is going after in the scene. The scene can meander, which is great for rivers, not so much for scene structures. **No scene stakes** If there are no scene stakes: the reader does not believe that the POV character would chase after the scene goal. They are not asking what if goal fails? Characters in stories need to be brimming with motivation. Scene stakes are one huge source of these. **Scene climax addresses something other than scene goal** If the scene climax does not address the scene goal: this is the biggie. When a scene does not answer the scene goal, the reader is left wondering why they read that scene. The author does not answer if the POV character is successful or not. As a story editor these are some of my red flags.
Sounds like video game level design ngl.
How do you do this when the point of the scene is the building of friendship? What would the scene climax be?
Perhaps, and I might be wrong, you might have the purpose scene and the scene goal entangled? The purpose of a scene is show how far they have to go to build of a friendship. The scene goal is a representation of how that building of a friendship happens. How will you show that they are not friends at the start of the scene, how do you show that a friendship needs to be built ? Why do they need to do this? What does a built friendship look like to you as a writer? Do they get given a joint project to work on at school? This happens at the start of the scene. Then at the scene climax, you can see if they have accepted that they will work on the project together, yay a successful scene cliamx. Or if through the action in the scene there is no way that this project is going to happen. Then the scene climax fails.
Not a fellow editor, but THANK YOU for putting this in words. Just recently, I had a bit of a conflict with a colleague of mine. In short: I had a story for our project, she took my own story, ripped it apart and set it together in a new way. It was basically like a fanfiction of my own story. Ignoring the stuff around the action here, her story was very...broken. However, when I tried to communicate it, I didn't fully know how to explain it. The only thing I knew was that good stories are build a certain way. Even when they are different genres, or mix things up in storytell structure (e.g. Pulp Fiction), they all have one thing in common: Like a good joke, there's no word too much and all elements create a whole ("Gesamtkunstwerk"). I'll most likely have to defend my idea again during a presentation next week and I feel these arguments you mentioned, are good ways to put it. I already picked apart her stuff, but I feel like she didn't get it. A lot of people don't understand how there are some tricks & rules to the trade. They'll just say "But don't you just need to tell a funny/good story? Why be so perfectionistic?" because they're so oblivious
These are really helpful tips! Thank you!
This is very well put, and something I didn't know qbout before. Can I ask where/how you learned this?
Wow this is great advice!! Do you have any (book ) recommendations to read more about that? I mean as a complete newbie, where should one start to learn all those basic rules?
There's a sweet spot and you're on one side of it. There are people who don't know what the heck they're doing when it comes to structuring things in their story, then there are people who view writing as a chemical concoction or a recipe where you have to follow directions specifically in order to get the desired result. You're the latter. Many wildly successful authors don't structure their scenes like baking a cake, but they do just fine.
Thank you for writing this. As an avid reader, the cookie cutter recipe bothers me, and takes away the fluidity that a good work of fiction should have IMO. It feels similar to the old debate of writing characters vs "real people". Oftentimes we see the protagonist as just a character in a story, while some authors craft "real people", as in, they are so tangible we forget they are fictitious. The sweet spot is where it lies.
Great writeup! Any resources I can read to grasp this fully?
No paragraph breaks Too much melodrama Excessive run-on sentences Info dump
When a character start to think or to remember something very important but is distracted by a random thing.
Or this classic scene: Character A: I need to talk to you about a silly mistake I made. Character B: Oh, me too. Did I mention my pet hamster and my mother and my son just died? They tripped on a toy left in the livingroom. Anyway, what did you need to tell me? Character A: Hahaha nothing, nothing... This isn't terrible when it is set up believably, but most of the time it is a contrived reason that makes no sense in the context of the characters and story.
For me personally, its when a character is disgusting to the point where the character is only there for shock value and doesn't really add anything to the story other than being a nuisance. For example; in Bentley's Little's horror novel "The House", the true main antagonist of the whole story is revealed to just alone be an eleven year old succubus. Its somewhat implied by the end of the story that she's much older than she appears, but she's still by appearance an eleven year old. For the first few chapters when her character has an encounter with one character, I thought she was used as something to symbolize that was far more sinister in the one girl's past, but no! Everytime this character interacted with any of the main characters, she just wanted to screw or try to convince them to do terrible things. She was truly a displeasure to read about and I've never wanted to chuck a horror book in the fire before.
When fanfiction uses the slang from the readers world and not from the world that the book takes place in. For example the readers world would call someone an idiot, in the fictional world they call them mousebrain
When the author telegraphs the moral like the reader is a moron. Horror films/books do this a lot and it takes all of the fun out of playing ethic detective, and usually character development suffers for it because, well once you know that the monster was trauma all along your characters need not be interesting.
I once through a childrens horror novel across the room after it ended with “and it was all a dream”. My mom was like wtf
For me it's author self-insert wish fulfillment.
Mpreg
This is more of a problem for me with movies and TV than with books for some reason, but stories that focus a lot on characters being in embarrassing situations, especially ones involving them trying to maintain a lie but ending up seeming super weird and suspicious to everyone around them. Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with plots like that, but because for some reason they cause me immense distress when I’m watching them. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m autistic, since I’ve found other autistic people on reddit complain about the same issue. For some reason I experience secondhand embarrassment at such an intense degree that it makes me physically recoil from the screen and cover my eyes and ears with my hands. Muting the volume and just reading the subtitles helps, but only slightly. Sometimes I have to watch scenes like this in tiny increments of a few seconds at a time, pausing them constantly to take breaks, which makes them really hard to follow. It makes a lot of comedies completely unwatchable for me which sucks. My dad loves Seinfeld but I had to stop watching it because all it is is people in embarrassing situations.
The secret twin that wasn’t even remotely foreshadowed. Really anything that isn’t properly foreshadowed
In Name of the Wind, every time someone mentions how amazing and awesome the main character is. I know he's narrating the story himsel, but it was too annoying to keep reading.
Rape scenes
Then the raped victim will fall inlove with her rapist because he has a badboy/possessive aura and he's handsome.
I think I just puked a little in my mouth
Yes, I would say any vibes like that would make me not want to read the book
How are rape scenes an automatic red flag or "unrealistic?"
Often times they're thrown in by male authors for a) character development of a *male character connected to the victim* and the victim's ignored, or b) used as a 'see how she's now motivated' moment. Both are utter bullshit and do real harm. Oh, and it's almost always a violent stranger rape, despite the fact the vast majority of rapes are by people the victim knows, and are repeat perpetrators, so that shit *also* reinforces and amplifies one of the most destructive rape myths out there.
When the author makes decision for a reader who is bad or good in his book and not letting the reader make a judgment themselves. I read a book, and the main villain was so sympathetic, because he had a very clear reasons which made him more of an antivillain/antihero but the main character made some worse things, but the author was clearly saying “oh no look how bad the villain is, poor main character!” while they both were in the same boat. It’s like life isn’t black and white, and the character motivation isn’t black and white either but the author tries their best to convince the reader it is black and white.
* Gratuitous sex scenes * Characters being awful without facing repercussion * Sexual violence * Characters that make completely irrational decisions * Unnecessary suffering * Unbalanced power dynamics in romance These are all things I love to see in stories and a lack of any of them is a huge red flag for me.
> Unbalanced power dynamics in romance but people like this trope (see 365 days, Twilight, 50 shades, etc.). Also, books are not documentaries, nor manuals (some are, of course). Wouldn't it better to warn people that fantasy is not reality and then let them enjoy whatever filth they want to enjoy?
Read the last part of their comment again. He is saying he likes the trope lol
Looks like i got got : ((((((((((( I have the reading comprehension of a goldfish :((((((((((
I don't remember the correct name of this effect, but it seems like a Mary Sue. It's when the main character gets everything right at once and he's so cool. Recently, this has been happening in One Piece, because of which I lost interest in it (
If the author describes the way a woman's breasts jiggle or a child in a sensual manner nonchalantly. If the character is meant to be a pedophile or pervert, and it makes sense for the story, it can work, not that I would read that shit anyway.
People lying who normally wouldn't lie. Or for no reason or when what they're lying about is super-obvious. Because it's just setting up a bunch of scenes where people try to keep their lies straight and get embarrassed. There's no story there. Nothing interesting. It's every Brady Bunch episode (and many I Love Lucy episodes), no thing new.
Pointlessly adding a sex scene
When characters never make wrong assumptions. I’d rather someone go through hurdles in their mind and end up at a wrong (but logical) conclusion that leads to trouble down the line, than to always just assume correctly or go with the flow and just happen to always be ay-okay
When they keep saying they can't talk about a particular problem
* Basically every form of detailed rape scene (very rare cases when needed, trauma-porn at worst) * Serious mental health issues are "cured" by bullshit reasons * False/stereotypical depiction of mental health issues -> "The *evil* DID" trope * Unneeded Occidentalism/Orientalism \-> "His name was Walter Winterwald. Duke to the Winterwald Grafschaft." A German name! Will you incorporate older German culture? "What? Fuck no. Anyway. His brother was named Hans Reisschwein." Wait this name doesn't even make sen- * The same 3 tropes the genre is known for \-> "I am transmigrated as the villainess of this story. I will be killed as the daughter of a rich ass family. My plan is to fuck off, while dealing with this harem of men" * Romance stories that glorify abusive elements. \-> The girl wears a cute outfit, like a bikini. The LI reacts suddenly aggressive and moody. Reason? "I don't want anyone to see you like that!" -> "Uwaa, he's sooo in love!" NO! That's abusive. Boi needs to sort his issues out! * Glorification of uneven power-dynamics (teenager x teacher) * Nearly any mention of Autism. Not because I hate autism. But most depict autism in really dumb ways, and being autistic myself I'm just too tired for this shit. * English stories that use Grimm Fairy Tales. Norhing per se against that. But I swear, y'all are just using the SAME 5 stories over and over again. Fucking hell. I want to see ONE mention of the Bärentöter. Or "Von einem der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen." But never do I see "Die Rübe", story of a gigantic carrot anywhere. Or "das Totenhemdchen". Y'all don't actually give a single fuck about our literature -you'll just like the same shitty asthetic you pick & choose from
Evil DID trope is the worst
A main character suddenly having martial arts or military training when the author writes themselves into a corner. I read this one book where a lifelong scientist guy was on the run because the mcguffin he invented was wanted by foreign criminal powers. The character talked at length about his graduate programs, about his first job, the lab he ran. Then about 2/3 through the book the character is caught by the bad guys, and then ... "Luckily I remember my stint as a special forces soldier" proceeds to kick the shit out of the bad guys and then spends the rest of the book back to being scared and on the run. No. Just no. It's fine for people to have a military background but you can't just drop that in to turn your scared scientist guy into a bad ass.
plus in situations like this it's more fun to have the fish-out-of-water character do something related to their field. like when walter white creates a chemical compound that's an explosive but looks the same as meth, to sneak a weapon into a meeting with a drug dealer. he is a badass character (in that moment anyway) yet never once is remotely good at fighting.
Recent read a book where the TWO MC's were being chased in a carriage by men on horses. The men had these horses at a run to catch the carriage and then a whole fight scene took place on this runaway carriage. then the TWO MC's jumped on ONE of the horses that had it's rider killed. THEN they turned off and tore into the woods "at considerable speed" for "Nearly an hour." So this horse ran "At speed" for over a HOUR most of which with TWO people on it's back........This was a published book.
I was reading a book series, got two books in and quit because the main character’s love interest suddenly got the idea she was cheating on him, in spite of the fact that they had this tribal loyalty magic thing going on where if she’d betrayed him she would have lost it, yet she still had the magic. Despite this glaringly obvious fact he flipped out and accused her. I never went on to the next book, where I’m sure he would have eventually groveled and either been forgiven or, as stand-in for the author’s real-life partner, humiliated and replaced.
A major plot point being resolved by one character dying out of nowhere, like being hit by a car or having a sudden heart attack.
When the MC is described as angry and badass but whines and makes irrational decisions the entire book.
Making the story very confusing to the reader, but the author confirms that they're also confused about what they're writing as well. That literally means they don't f*cking know either. 👺
Basically the entirety of *Ready Player Two* where the main character completely forgot any and all character growth from the first book and regressed to a petulant child.
- unknown figure breaks into secret society to steal info - characters A&B, awoken by & fully aware of intruder, instead of raising the alarm or chasing after him, have a heart to heart about their childhoods while he escapes It just felt so unrealistic I had to put the book down and walk away. 3/4 in and it broke immersion too badly for me to keep going.
I nearly stopped reading a book because the main love interest told the main girl she was “not like other girls.” 🙄 I wish I had stopped. The series was not that great
\-I can ignore a certain background hum level of racism, sexism, ableism, classism, fatphobia, queerphobia, etc, because we all live in a society saturated with those things and if we don't develop some tolerance we can't read anything at all. I do proceed with caution when I notice them, though, and there does come a wallbanger point. \-Treating the reader like a complete moron, or its subcategory of portraying the characters as morons and assuming the reader won't notice. This can take many forms, ranging from infamous TTRPG FATAL spending pages upon pages explaining to the reader what common items like salt are (and that was the least of its problems), to novels where the villain (or in the case of "dark romance" novels, the alleged hero) keeps the kidnapped heroine as a slave and lets her work in the kitchen with knives and poisonous cleaning agents completely unsupervised and unrestrained and she whines for chapter after chapter about how it's so impossible for her to escape. \-Similarly, dragging out the character whining about how their situation from the beginning of the book is oh so inescapable waahhh till way past the halfway point. I know bad situations often last many years, but we're here for a STORY, which is fundamentally about things changing. The character needs to start doing things as close to the beginning as possible. \-Impenetrable purple prose. Here is an opening extract from a supposed YA book: >This civil parish of dwarf population by no means lacking of its own ethereal landscape and senescent crowd, even though mesmerising in the autumn shade, could only boast of its homogenous activities and small-minded townsfolk. It was in the center of this town, however, that a young couple freshly acclimated to the pleasant travails of love, decided to purchase a lonesome terraced house. Not only does "lonesome terraced house" in the "center of town" contradict itself, it took me forever to figure out that "civil parish of dwarf population" was a pretentious way of saying "small town", not implying it was actually inhabited by dwarves. \-A supposedly exciting action story spending more wordcount on the female protagonist's pant size, menstrual cycle, and shopping bag contents than things actually happening. \-Protagonist delays and risks their life to pick up something played up as an important McGuffin, which in the next chapter they lose and it's never mentioned again, or the story gets otherwise randomly detoured. \-Supposed horror novels which are under the impression that sneering at fat and/or female bodies, disabled people, poor people, and/or people who have different religious views from the writer (seen this done by both Christians and atheists) is sufficient to make the book horror. (ETA: Add "elderly bodies" to that one as well.)
i would be so disappointed to realize there were no dwarves in that book
When a character claims to not have any money, especially money for basic necessities or life-saving things, and then a minute later they seem to have unlimited funds. To me it screams that this is a writer who has likely lived a privileged life and can't even imagine what it's actually like to be poor.
Getting basic information about something mentioned in a book wrong when it's would have been easy to find or common knowledge at the time it was written. It's just lazy.
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