Name One Thing That Kills Your Interest in a Book Immediately

[Stacy-Deanne]

Hi All,

I had to vent about this book I've started reading so I decided to start a thread about it. This book is frustrating me.

What is one thing about a book that causes you to lose interest before you get even halfway? What's one thing that really frustrates you and makes you wanna give up on the book?

I have to say, and this has to do with the recent mystery novel I'm reading, TOO MUCH NEEDLESS DESCRIPTION!

I am trying to give this book a chance but this writer is too obsessed with description. He's describing things that don't matter and not describing things that do. He is not describing the main character at all, but then he describes every other secondary character. There's a scene where the MC is going to the grocery store. He starts describing a man at the store who has NOTHING to do with the story! It's just a man at the store. The man doesn't even speak to the MC. Yet we know what he has in his grocery cart, what he's wearing and what the MC thinks he might do for a living! WTF? Do I need to know this about someone who doesn't even matter? This dude is describing everything! He even had his character take a walk in his backyard and started describing the trees and bushes! Heck I know what trees and bushes look like! Get on with the story! Unless the killer lives in a tree, we don't need to have it described.

I want some idea of how the main character looks! This book is also told in first person (books I often avoid), so I am wondering if this is why he's gone over the description deep end and finds it hard to even describe the main character.

I started this book last week and I think I'm just getting to page 100. The book has about 400 pages! I don't want to quit but the description is killing me. He took THREE pages to describe a person's living room. The room didn't matter! He took TWO pages to describe the model and style of a lady's pick-up truck. It didn't matter! He had to drive across town but instead of simply shifting us to the next scene to quicken things up, he shows us in DETAIL after DETAIL, how long it takes to drive on this particular freeway, what he is listening to on the radio, what the stupid dog is doing in the backseat, when he gets off the freeway and every freakin' street he drives on UNTIL he gets to this lady's house! I swear it took five pages to get to this house! That was ridiculous! I live in Houston, but as I was reading this driving scene I felt like I'd been riding to California! That's how drawn out and long it actually felt to read it.

When I write, I describe what's necessary, what I feel my readers need to know. I don't describe everything because some things should be left to the reader's imagination. I'd rather read a book with minimum description than one that's stacked with it! I am beginning to think that this author wrote all this description to make up for a lacking plot and to get his manuscript to a certain word count. It's ridiculous! It's got me pulling at my hair going, "Get to the freakin' point!"

I am more critical of this book because this is my favorite genre and the genre I love writing the most. You can get away with a lot of description if you are writing a historical novel or literary fiction. But in mysteries, things gotta move fast or the reader will quit. I am going to give this book another chance to wow me and if it doesn't, I'm through! I am frustrated because I feel that the plot could be decent if he stops describing everything and I don't want to stop reading it. But it's going downhill the more I read. I hate that damn dog! The dog has no significance yet the MC wastes tons of time describing everytime the dog eats, drinks, pees and poops! Please!

(for those who caught my thread about my taste in modern male writers...well you see I am trying to give more a chance. But not this dude if this writing doesn't improve!) I've seen politicians that get to the point faster than he does. Sheesh!

So, what instantly ruins a book for you?

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

[Suza Kates]

This just comes to mind, because it just happened. I rarely just drop a book, because I like to give them a chance, but I got a free copy of a romance at a convention, and the hero had a really disgusting and graphic threesome, while thinking of the heroine. Yuck. Done with that.

As far as books in general, just not moving along quickly enough. You're right some description is great, but I like to get on with the story once I know where it is!

[Stormi Johnson]

You must not read Steven King novels..LOL But I get fustrated with a lot of needless description also. It slows the pace of the novel and that is what makes me want to throw it across the room and I end up skiming though it to get to the good stuff.

[Stacy-Deanne]

Hi Stormi,

I admire Stephen King big time! But to be honest, I can't get through his books. I've tried about three of them and each one, I couldn't finish. I am also a person who doesn't like very long books and King's are quite lengthy, LOL! I think he takes a little too long to get to the point on some things but I guess it's his way of adding suspense. I thought of reading Misery. I might read that one. I loved the movie. That was one of my favorite King movies by the way. I tried to read the Green Mile and I couldn't finish it. That was the last Stephen King book I picked up. You see how long ago that's been. LOL! I think I like Dean Kootnz style more. I plan to get some of Dean's novels because I like how he captures suspense.

Best Wishes!

[Jaime Huff]

I LOVE Dean Koontz' books. Crazy!

For me, with Stephen King, I have to really be in the "zone" and ready for his details to get through his books. A lot of times I skim over all the descriptions.

[PAULETTE BENJAMIN]

Everyone here has very valid comments to which I concur. Besides what's already listed, I hate when I begin reading a book and the female MC is always described with the exact same physical features as the last hundred books I've read. I love Katherine Applegate's characters because she's not so conventional. In one of her series, she had a wheel chair-bound girl to play a love interest, which I thought was really cool because I'd never seen that before.

[David P. Spears II]

After reading a bazillion pages of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, I decided I did not like the way his characters always had the same expressions. The women always seemed to have only one expression--Glaring eyes. I guess this falls under the weak female characters issue. I loved his plot lines but he would also re-describe the same places over and over. I had a friend that worshiped Robert Jordan and I was never brave enought to be critical around him and let him know I thought the books where just ok.

David Spears.
http://www.iservenovel.com/

[Scott Perkins]

Don't give us your character's resume in the first chapter and unless it's germane to the plot, I don't need a head-to-toe description either.

[Randolph]

Dear Stacey-Deanne:
Thank you for your question to all of us. My answer is simple: bad writing kills my interest in a book. One point I'd like to clarify and explore. If "needless" description is exquisite then it is by definition not needless in that it is serving a function. The description might not be driving the plot forward, but it is creating depth, a world for the reader to inhabit, and might simply be advancing our common language. Plot discursiveness is not bad writing (although I agree with you there should be a high bar before an author decides to take a long detour). But overall poor language use, cliche characterization and the scribing of a world in which the same melodramas happen over and over with minor variations is something I usually sense on the first page at which point the book is nosed far away or, if I am in a Monday mood, destroyed so that it can do no harm to others.
Sincerely,
Randolph

[Stacy-Deanne]

Hi Randolph,

I understand what you are saying but I also believe that different things fit in different kinds of books. This man is using goo-globs of unneeded description, believe me. I think you'd agree, LOL! Also, I am a reader of mysteries and suspense as well as a writer of the genre and that genre is not the kind of genre where you move slow. Mysteries are fast moving stories that need to keep readers alert and their interests high. Description should be absolutely necessary in mystery and should lend something to the story at all times. Mystery and thriller readers (most of us) are impatient that's why we love the genre. Mysteries give us a high and we want a book that's going to get on that train and keep us there the entire ride. Long, boring passages of description that doesn't add to the story doesn't work in mysteries UNLESS it heightens the suspense. But this author has a book over 400 pages that could have been cut down to 200 (I am not lying, LOL), if he'd cut a lot of the description. Some might not mind it but I do and it's hindering the story instead of helping in my personal opinion.

For instance:

Everytime he drives from Point A to Point B he describes it completely! This doesn't make sense. He's been doing this the entire book and the book is almost over and he is still doing it? No that's not moving a story. We don't need to know the names and descriptions of every street in his area of California if it has nothing to do with the story. You can get away with doing a lot of description in literary fiction but too much in genre fiction hurts the story. Why can't he just "beam" his folks to the destination and begin with the action so his story keeps moving? This description is not just lagging it down, but halting it. A writer never wants to write where a reader puts a mystery down ( a mystery?) and can't finish it. I usually read a mystery in a few days if it's good and if I am not busy. Some of them I hate to put down but this has taken me almost a month to read. I began it BEFORE Halloween. I am only continuing because I've already gotten through half and he's now trying to move fast but it's too late. But believe me I will never pick up another book by this author.

I don't want descriptions of every tree the author sees, every ounce of clothing everyone (minor or unimportant characters too), are wearing. Pages and pages of description of buildings he passes, people standing on streets, or anything else that isn't bringing to the story.

Part of being a skilled writer is to describe just enough to let the reader's imagination take over. You don't describe everything because it's "telling" and all writers know you don't "tell" your readers what to see, you show them. Don't tell me about how every corner of California looks. Drive down the street and let me "imagine" it for myself. That's what gets readers in the story, the ability to allow their imaginations to run wild. Too much description becomes telling when it has nothing to do with the plot.

Maybe someone else could read the book and see it differently, but I know I don't like it and the description has gone to ridiculous. I've read books where authors described too much before but they weren't bad as this man. He should have written a book on trees and the Geography of California on the side and not try to squeeze it into a mystery. A mystery is supposed to grab readers and not let them go! This man hasn't done that for even one page since I started the book.

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

[Alyssa Kirk@Teens Read and Write]

I read YA urban fantasy almost exclusively, but I also love Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, and Laurel K Hamilton.

I agree about the overdone description. I'll just skim and that's never a good sign. Then I end up missing something important and have to go back and that's very irritating.

I also agree with many other people's comments.

- too many characters that have nothing to do with the plot.
- too much cursing - takes me out of the story
- And I have to say that I stopped reading Laurel K Hamilton's books because the MC started having sex constantly and with every creature (and creatures) that came along. It got to the point that there was no plot, just her having her next sexual romp. The only question was what kind of creature would it be with and how many. It just wasn't sexy anymore. And she practically went from virgin to slut in one book. A friend of mine told me that she just read Skin Trade and it's back to Hamilton's old good stuff so I'm going to read it because I have really missed reading her books (well, the kind like she had in the beginning of the series.) Sex just for shock value or just to hook readers, without being relevant to the plot or consistent with the character is annoying

The goofy names put me off to. I found that silly in the Blue Bloods series along with the pages of description about fashion and room design.

I hate lose ends. If you put a question in the book, I want it tied up.

I'm sure there are more but these are the first things that come to mind.

[Stacy-Deanne]

I read a book once from a self-published author who I'd met through one of my social networks. She'd been bragging about the book and begged me to read it. Since she said folks were so interested in it (yeah right), I gave it a try. Man...The lady (the MC) had sex on almost every page!!! She started on page one having sex! The book would have been an okay book if some substance had gone along with it. She had a good back story going that should have been moved to the forefront and the sex should have in the background. I couldn't get close to the character and couldn't respect anything about her (because she was such a disgusting, sex-crazed tramp) so I didn't care about her.

Unless the MC is a prostitute, readers (especially females) don't want to read about a loose woman that's just loose for no reason. A loose MC is not going to make me like her one bit. I'll have no respect for her, and end up not caring enough to attach myself to her story. I read mysteries and thrillers so the books I read don't have a lot of sex in them, if at all. This book wasn't a mystery or thriller, I don't know what it was supposed to be, I guess Erotica. If I'd known it was just a big sex-capade I wouldn't have agreed to read it.

I can see why it was self-published because it had tons of sex and no story. A publisher wouldn't have published a book like that. Even Lady Chatterly had a story, LOL!

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

[Nikola S]

I don't like books that exist only to be read and put away. The book needs to convey a message, and not necessarily a preachy one~ it can also be social criticism, etc. When a book fails to do any of this, when it exists just to tell a story, it kills my reading experience.