Back button offenses

[emmagrant01]

What are your back button offenses in fic? Things that will make you hit the back button and stop reading, no matter how promising the premise/summary/pairing?

A really big one of mine is the use of epithets for characters. No, seriously: a single instance of "the blond Slytherin" or "the detective" (or god forbid, "the older man" - especially from said older man's POV!) and I'm out of there. I can put up with too many adverbs, overuse and abuse of dialogue tags (meaningful glance at JKR here), and even every other sentence starting with a gerund (though I mentally restructure the sentences after a while), but not character euphemisms.

In my decade of reading fanfic, my experience has been that epithet use is typically a symptom of a larger problem and is almost always accompanied by a whole host of other writing problems that will distract me from the fic to the point that I don't enjoy it. At all.

So I back button. :-P

You?

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Edit: I finally got home from work and got everyone fed and had a chance to sit down and check email, and y'all have been having a whole huge conversation on here! Carry on, then. :-P

Comments

[girlthatsaidno.livejournal.com]

Ultra feminized male characters, especially in slash pairings. Immediate back button for me.

[zeitgeistic.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

I am almost ashamed at how much I won't put up with.

Typos in your summary? I have no hope for your story. *back*

I can take a euphemism the first one or two times, I feel like it could be establishing the character in our heads. But after that, if it's really persistent and the story isn't overpowering the use? *back*

Missing punctuation, over and over. Mistakes happen, I make them, but to constantly miss a comma in a quote, or before someone's name in a quote: "Thank you Emma." drives me batshit. Get a decent beta and not your best friend who just wants you to be happy! (I finally said something to an author the other day about blond vs blonde when talking about men.)

Becoming less tolerant of crossovers, too. Vampires in my detective story? Sparkly ones at that? Nooooooooooooooooooo. It better be an original vampire character and not freaking Edward. Give me a Baskerville scenario to resolve the vampire story. Let Bella deal with Edward somewhere else!

I'm sure I have more...

[who_la_hoop]

to constantly miss a comma in a quote, or before someone's name in a quote: "Thank you Emma." drives me batshit

I am an editor, and I had an author tell me recently that she missed out those commas occasionally on purpose, because that was how the character spoke.

*crying forever*

[snidley.livejournal.com]

For me it's several things:
MPreg or when one of the main character's gender is switched (either born female or changed through a spell/potion). If I really wanted to read those I wouldn't have been searching for slash fiction. If I see either of those I immediately go back and look for something else.
Another thing that prompts use of the back button is when the story is just so poorly written that it hurts to read. The summary may sound fantastically interesting but if it's poorly written in the first chapter I can't be bothered to finish it despite my curiosity about the plot.

[connorblond.livejournal.com]

OMG. Yes. Mpreg and gender switch. So true!

[who_la_hoop]

I am with you on 'the blond Slytherin' - it's one of those mistakes you usually make only when you're new to writing. I guess people do it because 'he' can refer to either protagonist if you're writing slash - but it's not hard to recast the sentence in a way that makes it clear which is which, or to just use the characters' names. A hundred 'Draco's is far more invisible than bunging in blonds/younger men all over the place :D

I avoid my plot squicks, so there isn't usually anything that auto-triggers my back button. Boredom is usually what does it... if my eyes are glazing, back I go. Or if a character is so OOC that it might as well be someone else.

[katieupsidedown.livejournal.com]

My big things are pretty much:

1. Triggers, of course. It might be because I somehow missed the warning tag when I scanned the summary, or it could be the author didn't think it needed tagging. My one trigger is kind of general and amorphous. I don't run into it a ton, but something as simple as a character feeling out of control can, under certain circumstances, make me incredibly uncomfortable. I'm not one to raise a fuss over that unless it's egregious, so I just click away.

2. The following scenario shows up: Character A and Character B are getting hot and heavy. They are on the bed/couch/in the car/whatever. Character B produces lube from a drawer/a glovebox/a dimensional portal. Character A immediately makes a joke about B being a boy scout.

WHY? WHY DO PEOPLE STILL USE THIS JOKE? I once found a rant online about the overuse of this joke that was written in 2002 and I still see it all the time! It's become a huge pet peeve for me. Once you become aware of how much it happens, it's one of those things you can't unsee. It takes me totally out of the story and I usually just click away.

[nimielle.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I've never encountered this joke before and I feel a bit ashamed to say it made me giggle out loud. XD

[holyfant.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's my biggest peeve as well. I'm so bad, myself, at not overdoing description and trying to be economic with my language (ugh) but I still can't manage being lenient with this. There has been maybe a couple of instances in which "the doctor" for John was okay, since it actually had to do with him being a doctor, but otherwise even "the detective" makes me grimace.

I also get really annoyed with consistent comma abuse in quotes - which is a bit hypocritical since I torture commas so much, just not in quotes. It's just that "You can't do that" John said. looks so unprofessional somehow. I dunno.

Summaries that include things like "Slash! Don't like don't read!" because it just reminds me too much of my ff.net days. (There isn't a lot of that on AO3, luckily.)

And just... General OOCness. Again, bit hypocritical. I realise that I'd probably back-button out of most of my own fics. :p

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

It's just that "You can't do that" John said. looks so unprofessional somehow. I dunno.

YES. Exactly.

[splix.livejournal.com]

What you're decribing is an epithet, not a euphemism.

I backbutton at certain descriptions in sex scenes, generally if they skew like the sort of thing you'd read in a male-directed porn mag. 'Cum' and 'jizz' gross me out, just to name two. If I get surprise scat or watersports, that makes me back-button pretty frantically as well.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I knew there was a better word for it, but I couldn't remember what it was. *edits post*

LOL, surprise watersports! I feel like I've read a fic like that before, but it was done in a way that it worked for me.

[nimielle.livejournal.com]

Many small things, if the characters the story is about only appaer on the sidelines, I tend to scroll through everything I don't really care about (this happens with Avengers fic a lot lately, if it's a Tony/Steve story, it doesn't have to have over half told from other Avengers' POV without any reference to the "protagonists"). Too many characters... O.o that annoys the hell out of me, or GOD FORBID, OC children in fic... I just... NO! XD if there's a child in fic and I end up liking it, or not back-buttoning over the appearance of said child, it's either a writer I REALLY love or the writer did a really great job of my animosity towards fictional children, who always wise-crack and are nothing like real children at all.
Then there's the word "cum" if it shows up more than once, I'm out of there!
Otherwise the regular culprits like bag grammar or spelling, or if the fic just doesn't click for some reason. I sometimes do read bad-fic though, because it makes me laugh till I cry. If someone states in their notes that their fic was not beta-read, I will not even start reading, tbh.

[katieupsidedown.livejournal.com]

I don't mind people using OC children in fic, but I mind if they've gotten something developmentally wrong since I've worked with young kids for years. I know I've corrected people before for doing things like having very young babies walking or talking in sentences, or having a six year-old boy who is carried around like a baby by several characters.

Usually writers take it well if I say something, though. In those cases they wanted to write kidfic, but they don't know jack about kids. If I point out the issue politely they usually thank me and edit the fic either to change the behavior or change the age.

[germankitty]

Basic writing skills -- in other words, SPaG.

Dunno whether it's the teacher in me, or being ESL who had the rules drilled into her for 9 years of schooling (or paid the price with bad marks for ignoring them), but no matter how fantastic a story premise is, if I'm itching to get out a red marker after the first chapter, I'm outta there.

And yes, I'm anal enough to copy fics with blatant mistakes that are just below that horizon (and not overly long) into Word and correct them before saving them.

A second thing would be gross mischaracterization. I'm a canon whore at the best of times, but I can appreciate a well-written AU if the characters who lured me into a fandom are still recognizable. (Having a 15-year-old Harry run away from the Dursleys and go to live with a gay couple is quite fine with me. But if said 15-year-old Harry, who in canon is rather introverted and attention-shy, suddenly ends up as an exotic dancer in a BDSM club ... I'm sorry, but that blows any willing suspension of disbelief I might've had for the original premise right out of the water.)

[golden-snitch12.livejournal.com]

And yes, I'm anal enough to copy fics with blatant mistakes that are just below that horizon (and not overly long) into Word and correct them before saving them.

Hahaha ... It is comforting to know that I'm not the only one who does that.

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

Adult characters talking about making love versus having sex and generally having teenaged attitudes about sexuality. Adults generally have figured out that sex doesn't equal love and love doesn't equal sex -- or if they haven't that should be a plot element. I avoid high school aged fandoms (Teen Wolf, this is me looking right at you right now) like the plague because I'm just tired of reading about adolescent sexuality. If I wanted that, I really do know where to find it.

[katieupsidedown.livejournal.com]

Ugh I hate the phrase "making love". Personal pet peeve of mine. I will tolerate it in fic as long as it's not overused, but I think it's an incredibly skeevy term... from my admittedly skewed perspective.

I like the high school aged fandoms, though, because I like first time/getting together fic best, and they have lots of that.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Uh-uh, I'm afraid there are quite a lot:

Ultra feminization or rather squeezing anybody - male or female- into what is deemed to be female, i.e. acting shy, self-deprecating, not knowing what they want. In fact, that's what got me into slash in the first place because there simply didn't seem to be any het that wasn't plagued by all of the above.

Also heavy on the back button temptation:
- faulty spelling and grammar. I'm not a native speaker but when even I can spot them, come on! And why does hardly anyone distinguish between to lie and to lay? Harry's not a hen, so him laying on a bed doesn't make much sense!

- character euphemism as you said - it's disturbing to have sex scenes between about what feels like 50 characters when, in fact, it's only two...

- maybe a silly prejudice of mine, but "cum" instead of "come" just puts me off; the same goes for "prick" if used in a sex scene where it's meant to convey something positive.

- mechanical descriptions of sex that read like an operating manual

- romantic/ sexual relationships that are brought about by some independent force like "they are mates - it's in the prophecy!", truth potions, charms etc. IMO, it takes away from the interesting question of if and how those two will get together;
the same applies to plots where there is no real tension anyway, e.g. a scenario where, from the start, A finds B attractive and vice versa which is why the author tries to come up with desperately convoluted hurdles to draw the whole thing out for the next 60 pages. These are made even worse by switching POV between A and B, so as a reader you don't even have the luxury of wondering what one of them really thinks or wants.

- saccharine descriptions of children or children who rival the Dalai Lama for saintly wisdom

- Christmas cheer (heehee because I'm a Grinch!)

- plots that focus on the all important question "Will he/ she marry me???" Because I don't care.

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

I love how one person's back-button offense can be someone else's kink -- I LOVE mating/soul-bonding/prophecy fics, especially if the physical intimacy or desire for physical intimacy comes before the emotional relationship, because I groove on watching people who are stuck with one another like that work out the relationship. I'm not so interested in the if/when people will get together, so it's a trope that works for me. (Although, like you, I absolutely hate 'plots' that involve convoluted hurdles, with an extra side-dish of deep despising saved for the ones where the whole plot could be avoided with one freakin' phone call. DO NOT WANT.)

[anotherslashfan (from livejournal.com)]

Like you, I really REALLY dislike epithets, but character bashing comes in a close second, especially when it's female characters.
Next in line is getting rid of canon relationships (i.e. through breaking up or such) to make room for your relationship of choice, but not giving a good reason for it. I'd rather have an AU.

[connorblond.livejournal.com]

Absolutely agree about the euphenisms!
Also - bad grammar and spelling. I don't mind some of it, but if it gets too much - no thanks.
I also detest the use of endearments or nicknames.
AND - especially in m/m pieces when the writer doesn't seem to have a clue about anatomy. Turns me right off. :)

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

The word come spelt *cum*. I don't care how good the fic is, I'm out at the first sign.

[djin7.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

[thalia]

The only thing I absolutely can't deal with is unreadability--smooshed-together paragraphs; horrid, hard-coded fonts; things like that. Otherwise... everything I can think of to mention, I can also think of an exception where I've stuck with a story despite it. I do back-button a whole lot, and I won't even click on a story if the summary isn't competently written, but if a story sucks me in I'm willing to put up with a certain amount of annoyance.

(I do wish Merlin writers would learn how to punctuate dialogue correctly, though. If that were something that I couldn't get past, I wouldn't be reading much in that fandom. It's ridiculous.)

(Edited for homophone idiocy.)

[jessicaqueen.livejournal.com]

My favourite is when the characters get called 'the blond' or 'the Slytherin' when there are thirty other blonds or Slytherins in the room. *headdesk*

Ridiculously fluffy terms of endearment or nicknames that don't appear even once anywhere in canon ('Dray' or 'Mione' in the HP fandom, anyone?) also kill me dead.

I don't even have to backbutton out if the title or summary includes spelling mistakes - I just refuse to click the link in the first place. I can't imagine how you could care so little about your story that you can't even be bothered to run a spellcheck on the summary, at the very least.

Strangely, the one SPaG mistake I absolutely refuse to be forgiving about is when authors can't figure out whether to use 'then' or 'than'. C'mon, it's not even one of the difficult ones. One instance is a typo, but two or more is an instant backbutton. I just can't handle seeing it repeatedly for some reason.

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

And "women" for " woman", as in "This women..." Pluralizing the singular. It's becoming so prevalent in more than fic, even.

[aurora-boreali.livejournal.com]

Crap writing. Definitely. After about three sentences I usually know whether or not I'm going to continue. On the flip side, good writing has me reading some of the squickiest of topics, things I never thought I'd enjoyed (*cough* kidlock).

[coendou.livejournal.com]

The quality of writing in the Sherlock fandom has me reading so very many things I never thought I'd enjoy. It's kind of ridiculous. A vampire AU? Really? I loved it? How?

Given that my previous experience with fanfiction was almost entirely on ff.net, the jump in quality when I started reading people who post only on LJ and/or AO3 was a bit of a shock.

[fiona-fawkes.livejournal.com]

Bad science and medicine. Actually, the one that had me ready to throw crockery was when one party is gravely injured and their doctor says there's not enough blood for them so their partner just rolls up their sleeves and says "oh, take mine!"

[katieupsidedown.livejournal.com]

LOL that is amazing. This reminds me of Bones. I'm a Criminal Justice major, and one of my friends is in Anthro. I like the show a lot, so she recommended I read the books because the science is better in the books. She was right - the science is much better. The CJ, however, is fucking TERRIBLE. I stopped at the first book.

[coendou.livejournal.com]

Naming a child whose father is John (biologically or otherwise - a kid he would have had a hand in naming) Hamish. YOU CLEARLY DIDN'T GET THE JOKE.

In general, major spelling/punctuation problems get to me, but if a fic really, really pulls me in in the first few paragraphs I can sometimes overcome them. I'll probably comment on them, though.

I started one on ff.net that was pretty good, but the author referred to Sherlock as Holmes throughout. This was BBC, not ACD, and John was John. It was really, really jarring. It kept messing with my mental image, since I kept seeing a period Holmes where Sherlock should have been. I messaged the author about it, and she said that it was because single-syllable names sound better in the porn scenes. ...Except for the massive amounts of Sherlock porn that are just fine with his name?? I didn't make it past chapter 2, so I don't know if she actually had John moaning "Holmes" instead of "Sherlock" or anything absurd like that.

But probably my most common reason for abandoning a fic is characters acting OOC. Which, of course, is hard to define, but the characters are the whole reason I read fanfic so it's kind of important.

Oh! Just thought of another one - the use of any non-canon nickname. The first time Ron utters "Hermy" or John refers to his flatmate as "Sherl" I am so out of there.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

"Naming a child whose father is John (biologically or otherwise - a kid he would have had a hand in naming) Hamish. YOU CLEARLY DIDN'T GET THE JOKE."

....but Hamish is old Scottish for James, not John.

[pauraque]

I used to be more picky about technical writing issues, but I eventually came to the point where I felt like I was not doing myself a favor by my pickiness. Sometimes inexperienced writers have a great idea in their head and it still comes across on the page even though they made a lot of mistakes in the process, and I end up glad that I gave them a chance.

There is one thing, though. If they consistently misspell the characters names (i.e. not a typo, they really think it's spelled that way). Especially if it's a book fandom. I can live with calling her 'Mione if there are other things I like about the story, but "Hermoine" stops me dead.

[torino10154]

I used to be more picky about technical writing issues, but I eventually came to the point where I felt like I was not doing myself a favor by my pickiness. Sometimes inexperienced writers have a great idea in their head and it still comes across on the page even though they made a lot of mistakes in the process, and I end up glad that I gave them a chance.

Thank you for this. I think sometimes people forget we were all new once. Passion goes a long way towards selling me on an imperfect fic.

[jessicaqueen.livejournal.com]

Bisexuality portrayed as a state of confusion or denial.

If only real life had a backbutton. I would use it for this so often. Ugh.

[conuly]

Epithets that turn a romantic encounter into an orgy are up there. Otherwise, how about relationships that make no sense?

I'll be up front here. When it comes to romance in fiction, I'm happiest when they're miserable. The more dysfunctional they are, the more interested I am. So incest in fic, though squicky in real life, offers many interesting possibilities. Except for the raft of fics where two sibings can do each other all day long and nobody bats an eye. Um, ew? And while I'm as happy to see Draco get laid as the next redblooded woman, if he's going to end up with Harry shouldn't that take at least a small amount of time to develop? Why should they just suddenly start making out in every corridor in hogwarts? Unrealistic characterization is always a problem, but it's worse when it comes to relationships.

And gay characters! I refuse to believe that every student at that school is gay! What, is there something in the water? If Hermione is with Luna, and Ginny is with Parvati, and Padme is with Lavender, and all the boys are randomly matched with other boys, then I think I know why the wizarding population is so low, because there are some things copious amounts of mpreg cannot solve.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

Fuck yes angstfests. I've read a handful of Holmescest fics and they tend to be beautifully dysfunctional.

[oninomaggie.livejournal.com]

Character-bashing. Especially stories that seem to exist only to put certain characters "in their place." Gwen-haters over in Torchwoodland, I'm looking at you here!!!

Mpreg. Especially unlabeled mpreg. This will make me avoid the author in the future, as they clearly cannot be trusted.

For that matter, any story with OC kids, however they got there.

Bad grammar & punctuation.

I don't mind epithets, actually. It never occurred to me that they might grate on folks.

[angelbabe_cj]

I have a few, but I can put up with a certain amount of most of them if I'm really enjoying the story. For a while I was even reading a fic with horrible mistakes in pretty basic SPaG because the premise and the first few chapters had good plot. Then it fell apart and I back buttoned really fast. That said here are mine:

- Epithets. They drive me insane. A stray one or two I can deal with, more than that I'm out of there unless the fic has an overwhelming amount of redeeming qualities.
- Pet names. If they're out of character, happen within hours or days of a relationship starting (when they're not nicknames or endearments already used by the characters), or just too damn weird.
- Basic SPaG errors that even I can spot. My punctuation can be appalling, so if I'm spotting them they're bad. Spelling of canon words or anything which comes from a dictionary being wrong - Google is your friend.
- Glaring incorrect Briticisms in British based fics (particularly if they're things which I'm fairly sure are well known). My tolerance is pretty high, but it gets to a point when I can't deal any longer.
- Incorrect canon if it's not marked in the summary.
- Some characters I can't read if they're totally against my headcanon.

[drinkingcocoa.livejournal.com]

I'll back-button out of anything that generally challenges my happy illusion that the writing in fanfic is of higher quality than published fic. :-) If something is compelling enough, I'll put up with just about anything: bad punctuation, OOC, whatever.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

I love this sentiment!