Badfic blues

[emmagrant01]

Have you ever read the summary of a newly-posted fic, and thought it sounded like something you would like, only to be disappointed almost immediately? Like, in the first line?

This just happened to me ten seconds ago. I feel terrible about it, but ya know, if the fic contains a blatant grammatical error or misspelling in the very first line, it just shuts me down. I can't read on. Yeah, I know it's my loss, and that the fic might be great if I just overlooked that one error, but it says something to me about what I might find in the fic in general. My fandom time is limited, and it's my choice how to spend it. Why should I force myself to read fic that annoys me?


Other things that turn me off:
• Four paragraphs of backstory before there's any hint as to what the story is about.
• Excessive use of terms like "the blond" or "the Gryffindor".
• Unnecessary description in general. I don't need to know the details of what each character is wearing unless it's important for the story. Really.
• Song lyrics incorporated into the text of the story. Just... no.
• First-time sex followed by an immediate declaration of eternal love. *vomits*
• First-time sex that is perfect, complete with simultaneous orgasms. (Or maybe the author knows something I don't?)

So what does it for you? What will make you stop reading a fic and hit the back button as fast as you can?

ETA: Y'all really needed to get this shit out of your systems, didn't you? *grins*

Comments

[jamoche]

I gave up on one entry from an otherwise good rec list because every single time the author meant "your" it was "you're". Every. Single. Time.

The story idea was pretty good, and I tried forcing my way through it, but I just couldn't.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Oh, how horrible. You'd think a beta would've picked up on that one, you know?

[jamoche]

It was almost as if the author was victim of a drive-by search-and-replace; other than that, the grammar was fine - if there'd been any other problems, I wouldn't have tried it as long as I did.

[doro-chan.livejournal.com]

yes, that's a problem many writers seem to have. It always freaks me out because English is my second language and our teachers always forced us to learn the basics over and over again.

It is kind of sad when you see that so many people do't get that right. They also mix up "they're" and "their" and once I read a fic whose author always wrote "now" when she meant "know"...