Pet Peeves in Literature

[An-chan]

Have you ever grabbed a book, read the first few pages and been instantly put off? Have you ever stopped reading a book only halfway through it because it annoyed you so much? Have you got any pet peeves when it comes to literature?

Personally, for example, I can't stand it when novels are written in the present tense. o_o I don't even know why, I just can't read them. I've tried many times, but it just annoys me so much I always stop reading before reaching even the 50th page.

Of course, there are many other things that annoy me as well, but this is one of the biggest issues I have with books, because it prevents me from reading books that would be potentially interesting. ;_; I should get rid of a pet peeve like that, but...

So, what annoys you? Discuss!

[Comedy of Circumstance]

Hmm...what peeves most in literature? That would have to be authors who clearly did not do their research. (*cough* Dan Brown *cough*) I still recall that one book where someone supposedly native to Iceland spoke up and I immediately recognized his words as Swedish. I could not take that character seriously for the rest of the story. I also caught my dad reading the Da Vinci Code and got a few choice picks.

Such as the supposedly well-versed historian/physicist/whatever believing that the most suitable thing to put on Newton's grave was an apple. The apple story was a proven fallacy even in Newton's own lifetime, for frak's sake. <<

It is also interesting that among the big names of cryptology, or indeed any given trade, the ones mentioned in the book were not the actual great pioneers of the science but the ones who took others' work and made popularized versions of it in their own name.
...those, incidentally, convinced me that his 400 pages+ of awkwardly phrased nonsense were not worth the read.

Beyond that...I do resent it when the author just tries to hammer in an obvious good guy/bad guy divide into their story. I mean, having a jerkass group is one thing, but when said jerkasses are also universally ugly and/or slimy in appearance, kick puppies just for the thrill of kicking them, and even come with distinctly villain-themed names it just gets grating. This was probably the number one thing that peeved me about the Harry Potter series, though our titular hero's stu shield is a very close second.

And yes, canon Stu is also a peeve of mine. Pretty self-explanatory, really; it just gets irritating when one character is the exception to just about every supposed 'rule' in the story's universe.

Oh, and blatantly obvious political agendas too. Of all the tedious coursework books I've been handed for reading, Captain Corelli's Mandolin just about takes the cake. It's also very heavy on both the neglected research and good/bad divide fronts.


Aaaand I think that's it.

[Dragonfree]

Well. Jim Butcher, author of one of my favorite series The Dresden Files, has also written a high fantasy series, Codex Alera. When I read the first book of that, it really bothered me that the main character was not really flawed at all. No, I don't mean a Gary-Stu, precisely; he's technically disadvantaged in his world because essentially everyone has magic except him, and he doesn't come across as perfect or bending the world around him at all... but he's intelligent, resourceful, righteous, brave and has a big part in saving the day in the end, and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't really care about him. It may not just be the character per se; that was the author's first attempt at writing third person and the writing is thus sometimes a bit clunky, I find myself not really liking the world, and so on, but overall the book was awfully disappointing compared to what I expected from that author and a large part of that is that I don't care about the main character.

I started the second book, and got as far as where said main character, after failing miserably on some combat tests, is revealed to really be better than anybody else at all that and he only had to pretend to fail so that the students after him would be inspired to do better! ...and pretty soon after that I started reading some other book instead. I mean, it makes sense how somebody without magic in a world where everyone relies on it would be driven to working harder on things like physical combat and figuring out alternative solutions, but I just dislike reading about it anyway. :/ It doesn't help, either, that judging from the titles of the later books in the series, he ends up ascending quickly on the social ladder and eventually becomes king.

Again, I love the author, so it's annoying to not be able to enjoy what is essentially the series he always wanted to write. I've heard it actually gets better after this, but I haven't found the motivation to try to find out yet.

[Bay Alexison]

Don't get me started on Ian McEwan's Atonement. :< His work is what my pet peeves in literature are. Basically, I hate when the story is all purple prose, the chunky paragraphs, and the feelings flat without much of a plot going on. I know many people like Atonement, but I just can't stand the writing style. Because of that, the characters weren't clicking for me.

[An-chan]

I also greatly dislike it when people try to deliberately make their work deep and meaningful and do it by purple prose and obscure metaphors and whatnot. >:[

If you really want to write something deep, do it by having some substance in your text, or by having a genuinely meaningful plot or cast of characters. You don't make awesome literature (nor poetry) by making everything so vague your reader can't really tell what's going on, nor by breaking every rule the language in question has. If the novel really calls for stuff like that, the reader will know it and recognize it. If it's there for the heck of it, the reader will know it. D:<

In those cases, the words you'll be looking for aren't "deep", "meaningful", or "ingenious". They'll be "stupid", "pretentious", and "condescending towards the reader".

As for why I'm ranting about this... That's because this seems to be the trend of Finnish writers nowadays, and I simply can't stand it. :c

[Post Office Buddy]

I dislike it when an author randomly starts killing characters off. Major characters, at that. I also dislike it when, in a series, the author seems to "forget" where their plot was heading and they completely turn it around. As a few other people have stated, purple prose and lack of character depth also annoy me.

[Deranged Epidemic]

Don't get me started on Ian McEwan's Atonement. :< His work is what my pet peeves in literature are. Basically, I hate when the story is all purple prose, the chunky paragraphs, and the feelings flat without much of a plot going on. I know many people like Atonement, but I just can't stand the writing style. Because of that, the characters weren't clicking for me.
Haha I love Atonement :P The writing can be difficult to get into at first cos he changes the style a bit depending on which character the book's focusing on, but after a while I started to get much more into it, and the twist at the end, while it had been hinted at in the story, took me by surprise.I knew it was Briony writing the story from fairly early on, but the Robbie and Cecilia thing was completely unexpected. It's a bit more obvious in the film version though.

[Alaphlosiam]

I dislike it when an author randomly starts killing characters off. Major characters, at that.
'Sup, J. K. Rowling. I hate that, too.

Going back on the previous post with the Dan Brown thing (can't be bothered to go back and quote it), I have to say that, since I was ignorant to his mistakes, I couldn't personally give a damn about it. Dan Brown's books are very good, in my opinion, and I enjoy them very much. That's all that I care about.

One of my pet peeves would have to be extensively complicated wording. Great, the author had sex with a thesaurus. Now I have to consult the thesaurus to know what the words mean. Oh, this word means "cute"? Thanks for using a word four times the length for it. (I haven't actually seen this, but I just made an hyperbolic (Shit, is that the right usage of that word? Haha.) example.)

[Deranged Epidemic]

Going back on the previous post with the Dan Brown thing (can't be bothered to go back and quote it), I have to say that, since I was ignorant to his mistakes, I couldn't personally give a damn about it. Dan Brown's books are very good, in my opinion, and I enjoy them very much. That's all that I care about.
I don't mind Dan Brown, but it does irritate me that he's essentially released the same book multiple times but with different characters. All his stuff has the same fucking plot, as though that's the only story he knows how to write. Hell his last couple actually have the same main character as well as the same plot. Also his habit of passing bullshit off as fact is annoying - there's nothing wrong with making stuff up for a book, but the way he has characters talk about utter rubbish as though it was well researched fact grates a bit. The Da Vinci Code was a good example of this, enjoyable book but full of shit.

[Bay Alexison]

Haha I love Atonement :P The writing can be difficult to get into at first cos he changes the style a bit depending on which character the book's focusing on, but after a while I started to get much more into it, and the twist at the end, while it had been hinted at in the story, took me by surprise.I knew it was Briony writing the story from fairly early on, but the Robbie and Cecilia thing was completely unexpected. It's a bit more obvious in the film version though.
All right, you kind of made me want to read the book again to see if I'll enjoy it better the second time. :P Also I really need to see the movie version. D:

Also, as for your Dan Brown comment, I admit the part about the characters talking as if it's well researched when in fact it's not does annoy me a bit, but probably not as much as you. Then again, I take his "disclaimers" with a grain of salt. :P That and I would be calling myself a hypocrite since I did made a fanfic story based off that story and I too made up some stuff, but it's a-okay because it's Pokemon! :P *gets shot*

As for the same plot and characters, eh didn't bother me that much. Many, many authors do that. Heck, even the authors of classics have different stories with same plot and characters. One fun fact, though. When watching the DVD commentary of Angels and Demons, there's one part where Ron Howard I think explains how The Da Vinci Code had less action than Angels and Demons, which I actually agree with, considering there were more killings and the characters taking active action in that story. XD Hadn't read his latest book Lost Symbol yet, but for now I guess I can say one of the only big differences between his books is the action being put in. *shrugs*

[Alaphlosiam]

To be honest, and I guiltily admit this, when I try to recall the plot from one of Dan Brown's books, I find myself mixing up characters and plots between the three books.