Pet Writing Peeves

[txgent101]

Or you can have the computer read it aloud. One way is to paste your text into Google Translate and then click the "Listen" icon at the bottom of the box. This is a pretty good way to catch missed words and punctuation, confusing syntax, repeated words, awkward phrasing, unnatural sounding dialog, and so on.

Cool. I just tried Google translate and it helps me sense how another reader might experience what I wrote. Thanks.

 

[Domesticity]

I get skeeved when it's obvious the writer is talking about a prepubescnt girl. "She had just turned 18. She sat her bare pussy on his leg with its fine peach fuzz and he marveled at her freshly sprouted nipples. Fine buds with just a little flesh behind them. His little girl was a woman."

It's fucking obvious it's some douche writing abt a dad molesting his 10-13 year old daughter. That bugs me a lot.

 

[Handley_Page]

I get sleeved when it's obvious the writer is talking about a prepubescnt girl. "She had just turned 18. She sat her bare pussy on his leg with its fine peach fuzz and he marveled at her freshly sprouted nipples. Fine buds with just a little flesh behind them. His little girl was a woman."

It's fucking obvious it's some douche writing abt a dad molesting his 10-13 year old daughter. That bugs me a lot.

Me too

 

[TxRad]

I get sleeved when it's obvious the writer is talking about a prepubescnt girl. "She had just turned 18. She sat her bare pussy on his leg with its fine peach fuzz and he marveled at her freshly sprouted nipples. Fine buds with just a little flesh behind them. His little girl was a woman."

It's fucking obvious it's some douche writing abt a dad molesting his 10-13 year old daughter. That bugs me a lot.

Did you report it? If not, why not? We are all Laurel's second set of eyes.

 

[NotWise]

Did you report it? If not, why not? We are all Laurel's second set of eyes.

That one pretty clearly should be reported.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If the story content is powerful, spell binding and intense (and it can be, especially from novice writers), then I find I am incredibly forgiving of the "writer problems". I can tolerate crap spelling, sloppy grammar, editorials and typos if the underlying material is powerful enough.

One of my favourite stories here on Lit is a one-off, you could fly a jumbo jet through the grammatical and constructional issues, but it doesn't matter; the writing is visceral, powerful, and so intense. The writer held me over seven pages, even if the writing didn't.

I'm amused at the list of peeves (seen in this thread and elsewhere) and I see that I will never be read by some opionistas here. Shock, horror, I've got stories written first person, present tense; I'm guilty of tense shift from time to time; I use commas and (gasp) semi-colons; I let slip a grocer's apostrophe once (and got taken to task - damned autocorrect and "it's")....

Yet those same stories have scored as high as 4.94; and evoke comments like these:

"Omigosh! Exquisite. I needed this. Again!"

"Different... but highly erotic, subtle and superbly written. I liked it for the change from the norm. Bravo!"

So it seems some people don't care too much about style, if the content gets to them first.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I have never liked stories written in the present tense rather than the past tense, i.e. 'Jane sees John standing waiting for a cab' rather than 'Jane saw John waiting for a cab'. I just find present tense writing pretentious and annoying.

It has to be done just right to work. I'm no master, but all of my Rent Comes Due is first person, present tense, and the three chapters (so far) rated well. (Warning: NonCon).

Almost any style works if it matches the premise. I'd say present tense works best in Non-Con and Sci-Fi; I can't imagine making it work in Romance. But a really good writer could do it.

I mean Joyce basically deleted the concept of time and tenses entirely in Finnegan's Wake, and while it's out of my grasp as a reader, it works. Blm std p, and a page later, Bloom stood up... clear separation of intention and action, handled by someone who knew what the hell he was doing when he tore the rules of writing to pieces. The first rule of writing is, break rules when needed.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I use commas and (gasp) semi-colons;

First, I saw that. Second, what on earth is wrong with semicolons? If I have a chapter without at least a half-dozen of them I'd be surprised. It's HARD to get that sense of connected-but-distinct any other way.

 

[CyranoJ]

A little Deus ex Machina can get annoying.

I waded through over a thousand fucking pages of The Stand and at the end, King literally had the hand of God reach down from heaven and resolve the plot. I don't think I've ever been more pissed at a book than I was with that one.

 

[ElectricBlue]

First, I saw that. Second, what on earth is wrong with semicolons? If I have a chapter without at least a half-dozen of them I'd be surprised. It's HARD to get that sense of connected-but-distinct any other way.

There's a thread somewhere over in Story Feedback (I think) where an opinionista prescribed that "semicolons have no place in creative writing", or some such nonsense, much to the amusement of many.

 

[SamScribble]

There's a thread somewhere over in Story Feedback (I think) where an opinionista prescribed that "semicolons have no place in creative writing"

What do opinionistas know? If you got 'em, use 'em.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There's a thread somewhere over in Story Feedback (I think) where an opinionista prescribed that "semicolons have no place in creative writing", or some such nonsense, much to the amusement of many.

Said thread here, for anybody who enjoys rolling their eyes.

The opinionista there is not the only one to espouse this weird "semicolons evil" line. I've seen Seanan McGuire grumbling about copyeditors who take it upon themselves to remove her semicolons. It makes about as much sense as declaring that quavers are evil and we should only use crotchets or semiquavers for music.

(Granted semicolons do get misused by authors who treat them as interchangeable with commas, but that's not the poor semicolon's fault.)

 

[Bray123]

!

Exclamation marks!

Every sentence!

They suggest such excitement!

It's a rare day when I enjoy a 1st person story, a 2nd person story never survives the first sentence. Present tense is just as bad.

I do my own proof reading by leaving a story alone for at least a fortnight, so that I read it reasonably fresh.

 

[hylas_]

Of course I prefere a polished story over one with grammar and spelling issues. But generally, I'm not bothered by them all that much. The only thing that really irritates me is when punctuation and paragraph breaks are used (and abused) in such a way that, it breaks

the flow, of the story and; makes me stumble.

over the, words while reading.

 

[sr71plt]

I do my own proof reading

And then there's the thinking that "proofreading" is two words.

 

[Bray123]

And then there's the thinking that "proofreading" is two words.

Exactly.

I might have caught that

after a couple of weeks

!!

 

[ElectricBlue]

"And there's the proof; reading by leaving a story alone for at least a fortnight, so that it's read reasonably fresh, doesn't necessarily catch all the proofreading errors."


Bray, present tense and first person are not "bad". You might not personally like those styles, doesn't make 'em bad, just sayin'. That's possibly my pet peeve, someone prescribing that half of what I write is automatically "bad" because of the pov and tense I choose. Ping me on something else, sure, but not a perfectly legit grammatical device.

Seems to me you cut yourself out of a whole bunch of good writing, both here on Lit and in the real world; but hey, you're the one missing out, not me.

 

[BlackBeardedBasteerd]

I love to read, even as a kid and now as an adult. I got into erotica about 3 years ago, before I even knew Literotica existed, I was on Amazon, paying $0.99-$2.99 per story. Literotica has some top-grade stories and some stories that will put you to sleep. I was ecstatic by the idea of writing my own stories and sharing them.

Unfortunately, my ideas are great in my mind, but on paper, they're rather dull. My stories are just and to the point, but I try. I currently have one story that is pending, if it's approved and does fairly well, I might continue it in a series. Nonetheless, I enjoy writing. Creating characters and experimenting with them.

 

[Areala-chan]

Gotta jump on the defense of the first-person, present-tense. It's a tool, just like every other option in a writer's arsenal. It can be used properly, it can be used poorly, but when the story calls for it, there's no other type that will do.

First-person present offers an immediacy and intimacy not offered by a past-tense rendering. I originally started writing "Crash Into Me" in first-person past tense, but felt the story was most effective with a mixture of past and present. In this case, the flashbacks are all in past tense but the rest of the story unfolds in the present. This allows readers to easily separate what happened before the onset of the story with what's currently going on and, in my opinion, get inside the narrator's head to better connect with her.

I might be wrong about that, and I've got one comment on the story decrying my use of first-person present as being "as dumb as it gets". It's also got a rating high enough to make the top list for its category, so it can't be the deal-breaker some people on here make it out to be.

Used correctly there's not a thing wrong with it, and I think you miss out on the opportunity to enjoy some good stories by always writing it off as terrible.

 

[sr71plt]

My pet writing peeve is folks who feel they need to share their pet writing peeves with the world, presumably to encourage the writing world to cater to their individual pet peeves.

 

[Areala-chan]

My pet writing peeve is folks who feel they need to share their pet writing peeves with the world, presumably to encourage the writing world to cater to their individual pet peeves.

*laugh* I assume this is more 'friendly discussion' than it is 'attempt to get everyone to write what I like', but I take your meaning.

 

[sr71plt]

*laugh* I assume this is more 'friendly discussion' than it is 'attempt to get everyone to write what I like', but I take your meaning.

We go over this same ground every couple of weeks. Writers don't become well known and celebrated by conforming or writing to perceived committee preference.

 

[SamScribble]

We go over this same ground every couple of weeks. Writers don't become well known and celebrated by conforming or writing to perceived committee preference.

Hard to argue against this.

The only 'rules' to which a writer needs to conform are those set by the 'publisher' - be that Literotica or someone else.

Way back when (as they say), I wrote a story that was probably stylistically influenced by James Joyce. It was turned down by three major magazines. They didn't feel that the 'style' was right for their readers. A fourth magazine picked it up and, on the basis of reader feedback (and this was back in the days when you needed a stamped envelope), they ran it again in their annual 'best of' edition.

If you have 'peeves' as a reader, stop reading. End of story.

 

[SimonDoom]

We go over this same ground every couple of weeks. Writers don't become well known and celebrated by conforming or writing to perceived committee preference.

That's true, but it's also true that one can learn from how other writers/readers respond to things they read. It can make one more attentive to how one's words come across.

I can't speak to the intentions of others who have started similar threads in the past (I'm new here so I haven't read such similar threads), but my intention in starting this one was to solicit others' opinions about what they read, not just to use the thread as a sounding board for what I like/dislike. I think it's a legitimate inquiry, although perhaps beginning the conversation with the term "pet peeve" made it sound more like an excuse to gripe. It wasn't meant to be that.

 

[sr71plt]

That's true, but it's also true that one can learn from how other writers/readers respond to things they read. It can make one more attentive to how one's words come across.

You mean like the blind leading the blind? No, there aren't too many individual "authors" here who are going to help you a whole hell of a lot with a committee approach to writing. Sorry, this isn't a gathering of trained and experienced writers. It is very typical of Internet think, though--that everyone is equal in ability and experience just by posting.