You know its a bad story when...

On Aug 31, 2007 1:08 am, Lhunuial said:

*nods*  That annoys the heck out me too! I feel like the author thinks I'm too stupid to knwo what's going on.

There's nothing wrong with that, it's when it's over done that it's a problem, because it's sign of poor writing. (Even proffessional authors have done it, the same with writing a  "Mary Sue." If everytime Character A walks into the room and the author needs to point how beautiful she is, and  how creamy white her skin is and how the sunlight dancing upon her tresses (Sorry, I couldn't resist that one) makes them shine like molten gold, it becomes distracting and after the first paragraph, you feel like yelling at the author, "I ALREADY KNOW WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE, DAMN IT!! GET ON WITH THE STORY!!" that's the problem, but if  you tell us all that info the first time Character A walked into the room, that's enough of a description.  So don't worry if you are, it means you probably write too well to have done it.

I also use what a person does to describe them, the cross-dresser, the monk, the leader, etc, because hwo many times can you write their name or he/she?

That could be a matter of taste. I personally don't liek first person stories. I think someone brought up how boring they are... but that's a matter of taste and how well you like the narrator. Think of how interesting it is listening to your friend tell you something that happened to them as compared to some nameless character you're reading about telling you a similar story.

I totally agree it's wrong to switch peron in the middle of a fic. XDIt's also annoying to have each section set off with  "Goku's POV" followed by some interesting storytelling, only to come across "Sanzo's POV"  a few pargraph's later. I should as a reader be able to tell who's POV it is by how well it's written.

You knwo, I would love to see a discussion on what makes a "Good fic" good as I'm enjoying this discussion on what makes a "BAd fic" bad.

On Aug 30, 2007 9:30 am, Lhunuial said:

I use authors notes.  (I'm guilty!!!) And I certainly don't think my readers are dumb.  The reason for the notes is personal and sometimes for information that doesn't seem to lend mentioning any other way.  So I suppose if I just take away 'Author's note' it wouldn't annoy anyone.  I wouldn't annoy me to read an author's note.  I've read fantasy novels with glossary terms and notes in intalics and felt no sense of 'interuption'  In the end it's a personal preference.

On Aug 31, 2007 7:40 am, Sliverbane said:

Are you footnoting a term someone would have trouble understanding the meaning from the context? That's more helpful than disruptive. Plus there's got to be a way to covey that information so that it flows with your story. What I was referring to was when an author writes soemthing they find particularly cute  and they'll stick an author's note right in the narative like they're talking to the reading. hmmm... let me see if I cna come with a quick example.

Character A walked into the room and smiled. Character B looked up from the book he was reading to smile back at her. She felt her heart fluttering and cheeks heating up. He was the handsomest priince in the land and she was happy to ahve caught his eye. If only she was from a nobler family, one that hadn't fallen on hard times.

Character B, sensing her discomfiture, asked if she was alrright.

Unfotunately for Character A, all she could is stare dumbly at him as she nodded. (Author's note: Awe.... isn't cute!! They're so in love!!) When she finally found her voice, Character C chose that monet to enter the room.

"There you are,  your Highness! I've been looking all over for you. Remeber you promised to show me the roses after lunch?" (Author's note: She's such a Biyatch, eh? *winks*)

Stuff like that. ^^;

You know, I would love to see an example of what you're talking about when you say you're sticking in information that you can find anywhere to put it or say in your narative. You've  got me sitting here trying to think of a way to do that without an author's note. XD I honestly can't say I've read anything where that's been done other than by using a footnote and sticking the inforamtion at the bottom of the page. That's works well in a book because it's easy to keep your place while you look, but it can be a pain in the tushie if you're doing that in a fic online...

I probably have one or two of those in there.    Mostly because I was sharing with my friends in the past and they have a personal connection with my characters. That has changed, obviously. The rest I can probably integrate in to the story text.  Tis a learning process.....This is how I learn.

On Aug 31, 2007 10:45 am, Sliverbane said:

Yeah? ^^; Well, at least you've learned, no? We all make mistakes from time to time. But all authors feel that way about their characters, we can't help it. I wonder if you might be better off taking all thsoe little notes & making them into a back story for your characters. That way we, the readers would have that information & can say, yes!! I know, isn't it wonderful how he over came that? while reading.

*giggles* Maybe you should stick  thsoe personal comments in the author's "after thoughts?" Who knows, you could start a new trend!

To me- alot of that describing thing is pace. The longer and more descriptive the sentance is, the slower it is. The shorter and less descriptive is a faster sentance.

Sometimes I'll Sue a character a bit if the character is MENT to be taken by the person- for example, my lead character Alex has been completly in love with another of my characters Athena since he was born. He's not sure why, but its because his Arkillian Dragon soul has chosen her as his mate, and made it his life long mission to have a child with her... but in the mean time, he had already fallen in love with her. Because he has two aspects of himself that are driven to win her over, he often has dazzled moments where I put ALOT more description in to slow the moment down for him AND the reader. I think alot of love should be. Lust at first sight shouldn't. Not many of my characters feel that though. If they did, they'd act more than think cause it's more of a proactive emotion.

I also think Sue can be good as a completly standing character too. I have a Mary Sue character as it happens. Julia- the red haired girl in my gallery. Shes a Sue. She's a common everyday girl that's sweet and adorable, and everyone loves her, she has a hunky prince head over heals for her, and she discovers powers that she didn't realise she has in the story. Burn me down now, but you know what? She's not a bad Sue. Why?

She plays a roll in my story only a Sue could play.

In my comic posted here (Final Sunset) it shows Bryan- the prince's back story. He's had it very harsh. When he goes to correct the future, he is very bitter, cold hearted, and fails to see any beauty in life. The only thing stopping him from committing suicide is because he HAS to stay alive to destroy the evil in thier world. Julia's role, is to show him what love is. Make him happy. Show him the colour and beauty in life and their world. It's because of this, Bryan's heart opens up, and he falls in love with her (by the way- this isn't a shallow 'I love you cause you love me' thing. He couldn't see his feelings for her untill he stopped being cold hearted.)

So yeah... It takes a good writer to be able to write a Sue into a lead position (mine isn't) and from what I've gathered about Sues, its more of how much they TAKE OVER rather than how unbearibly writertastic they are. I donno- before we get real harsh on people, maybe we should complile a tutorial on good writing? (I should add to it when I do more on my writing course ^^; Lolz...)

On Aug 30, 2007 8:38 pm, arkillian said:

I actually prefer 1st person over third because to me you get to know the character a whole lot better than with third. You get to know their personality, their feelings, and thoughts. And also you get to see how they view the world and view the people around them. With third person it's like you know everything that's going on and it really leaves nothing to the imagination. 1st person stories catch my eye and hold my attention alot longer than 3rd, hmm that's probably why I never really liked Harry potter *shrug* all my favorites are in first person.  Not to say that 3rd person is a bad point of view it certainly isn't but I wouldn't write 1st off as a noob point of view to write in 'cause alot of very famous and succesfull authors write in 1st person.

I agree...you definitely get more personal with the character it seems.  I used to read and write (what little I ever attempted) just third person stories and for some reason despised reading 1st  person. It just felt almost amateur to me.. I'm not real sure what was wrong with me.

But now pretty much all my favorite authors write in 1st person, and I've been so used to it for such a long time I almost feel awkward reading 3rd person. I'll actually probably go into my bookcase and see what books I still like lately and flip through to see if those are 1st person or 3rd haha. It's wierd flipping between the two, and if I ever do write again I think I'll do it in 1st person now just because I've read so many amazing books that were written in that point of view. There are still some 3rd person books that I can read just as smoothly as 1st person though. and I enjoy reading them just as much. Just the creativity behind 1st person attracts me a whole lot more

When the story starts off with a bunch of immortal beings creating the earth.

My pet peeve is when authors are too "word heavy" and take two paragrpahs two describe how the castle gates are being guarded by two guards with halberds. Then he went and described what halberds were...

I also can't follow a story if it's too slow-paced.

Ooo here's one that kills me.  When a character has to look at herself in the mirror in order to describe herself.  AkA:

"Mary Sue looked in the mirror, checking out her nice *ss and full lips. She had dark hair that fell in ringlets around her face, and her eyes were an amazing shade of purple, blue, green, and gold all mixed into swirls like the inside of a rainbow or a marble cake."

Why go into so much unimportant detail? We don't care what the exact color of her eyes is, for god's sake!

Isn't there a better and more eloquent way to describe characters than this? 

Or how about people who tell you what a character looks like in one giant info dump - that can get annoying if it happens in the middle of something important.  As in, the good guy is fighting an evil monster, and then the author stops to describe the monster from the top of his prickly horns to the goop under his toenails.  That's when I put down the book.

On a side note though, there are some writers who can do all of this and somehow get away with it... it really depends on timing, I think.  And a succinct choice of words.

I read first person stories in the past.  My problem was that I began to dislike the person who was telling the story.  That doesn't normally put me off - when I don't like a certain character, but when he or she appears to have limited ability to relate the happenings of the world to me in a way that I like I get frustrated.  The book In question I was reading was called 'Begin Alien'  and some guy who is sucked in to an alien world and has to deal with the fact HE'S the alien.  His decriptions were crude and sometimes just stupid.  It's as if the author had handed over their intereresting story to be told by an idiot!!  That's my experience with first person stories. Naturally my example could be a really bad one.   I hope that all fist persons aren't like that!

On Sep 2, 2007 10:32 am, Sliverbane said:

Ah yeah there's always bad examples of each POV. I recomend reading the Odd Thomas series by  Dean Koontz. Excellent series and an excellent example of how well a 1st person story can be presented

On Sep 2, 2007 3:46 pm, Jill V. -S.T.A.R.S. said:

Another really good example  of first person POV (if you like modern day fantasy) is Charlaine Harris' "Dead Until Dark" series.  It's a delightful bunch of books about a souther waitress who just happens to be psychic, and her various issues with the local undead, lol. It's definitely a laugh and a half.

I like first person POV the best when it's somewhat comical and fast paced.  Otherwise I find it hard to get into. Then again, I suppose it really depends on who's writing.

On Aug 31, 2007 6:42 am, kirayasha said:

Yeah, I think it might be a good idea to start a thread on what makes a good fic. I think that would give us a lot of good suggestions and ways to improve our stories.

Over romanticized descriptions can turn me off a story really quickly.  Guys with aqualine noses that smell of sandalwood and *anyone* with finely chisled features usually cause to me to start snickering softly.  Raven hair and emerald (or saphire or amethyst) eyes usually get me laughing too. 

Characters that have no purpose in the story except to, in some way, highlight how amazing the main character is. 

Characters with no motivation.

There are a lot of grammatical things that irritate me as well.  Everytime I read a dangling participle, I die a little inside.

hmmm. to me, a bad story all starts off with the setting. I'm tired of hearing about Japan.... What happened to germany or africa or usa? Hell. even antarctica.

Nobody ever has regular hair. It's always pink or blue or some unnatural color that they don't have a dye for.

there's always some guy with a huge sword that is virtually never going to lose. He is always going to find a way to use a giant sword with spikey or abnormally long hair and win against the bad guy.

Noone ever has a name I can read.... It's always a japanese name I can't pronounce

There's always some drama. Some guy loves some chick but they don't want to show it. We don't need any more soap operas

There's always supernatural beings....

Animal/People combo's. No more beastiality to produce wierd cat people.....

the list goes on....

On Sep 4, 2007 7:42 pm, Greed said:

OMG I totally agree with you!!! And they're all written by a bunch of 13 year old girls who are crazy about Japan and are just trying to copy manga...  manga is ART, you supposed to DRAW it, not write stupid descriptions about guys with spikey hair.  It's one thing to see a character drawn with blue spiked hair, another to describe it in a book during some ancient Japanese landscape where every other word is a different language. >_< That stuff makes me so frustrated....

I don't minda animal/people combos as long as they're actually supposed to be another race of beings with their own evolution, history, culture, etc (and its a fantasy novel). I mean most aliens in scifi books are really just lizard/human people, or insect/human people. I hate it when all the characters have cat ears for no special reason...

And I also don't mind supernatural beings if the story is fantasy, that kinda comes with the territory, but just sticking them in out of nowhere is also pretty bad.

On Aug 30, 2007 9:30 am, Lhunuial said:

and thats why I need to sreiously rewrite all my damed fic's -.-; it was a requirtement on one sight I hosted on.

ok here are mine.

*when your reading a romance fic about an offical paring and the main chik getts offed for a oc that is soo mary sue bitch when the male does not mourn his falled girl and goes head over heals in one sentence for the oc. (my god thows are so BLUGH)

*When soemone genderbends a character than has them act like the steriotype guy or girl (oh come on people if Cloud was a chick the personalty would not change much trust me!)

*fics where people are "sucked" into teh game or anime (same applys for the flipside where a character is sucked into teh real world.)

*im baching myself here but my silly drunk off my ass storys that for some odd reason gadder more attention that then they are worth!

Well, I don't mind the spiky blue hair so much. Ofcourse it;s better in manga, but when it's cyberpunk it can go right too. It all depends on the setting. But not many people write actual cyberpunk anymore.  Too bad, because that genre rocks.

I think the Japan thing is just the hype these days.  I'm guilty of it myself sometimes, but that's why I'm trying really hard to write some original stuff for my fantasy story and base the societies on other societies than Japan. That was what made LOTR so incredibly cool in my eyes. It was based on Europe. Europe has an extensive history which should be used more often and appreciated more often.

Animal beings and supernatural beings depend on the setting. You can't just put them anywhere ofcourse. The setting needs to be right for it.