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

[pussreboots]

Vampires... orphans living under stairs... thirty-something women who act as if they're 14...

[Nicole Trist]

The Things that Annoy Me Most
- Books that are overly descriptive. They just become an unpleasant chore.
- Books where none of the characters are likable. I appreciate that a dislikable character can stir up as much emotion as a likable character, but when the book only has dislikable characters it can be hard to give a damn what happens to them.
- Books that are written as though the Thesaurus has been brought out for every second word. Sometimes just using the word "great" is great.
Just a little rant from Nicole @ Books, Books Everywhere

[melydia]

Ooh. You said only one, but here are a few of my biggest pet peeves (aside from plain old poor writing):

* When the entire plot arises from people not telling each other things.
* Men who fall in love with prostitutes/strippers. I'm just tired of it. Pick another plot.
* Conversations that are described rather than just written out with dialogue.

[Tasha]

I definitely agree with the overly describing thing which I think occurs a lot in Young Adult fiction - maybe it bugs me more because I'm a "Young at Heart Adult and not fifteen. Writers of these books seem very keen on making sure you know what each and every character is wearing ... in great detail ... all of the time. now, I don't mind knowing what clothes a character has on, if it matters or if it's mentioned in a "he took the piece of paper from his jean pocket" way rather than a "He entered the room wearing a dark green shirt with silver buttons that complemented his eyes [blah blah blah - goes on to describe every item of clothing]"

Weird names bug me as well - okay some people have stupid names but I don't want to keep reading them over and over - especially if they're spelt wrong. Names I can't pronounce easily in my head and end up just skimming. Two characters with the same first name. I know most people probably know more than one person called Dave or whatever, but it isn't necessary in a book, it's just confusing.

[Melanie Milburne]

I totally agree with you on this, Suza. I am often asked to look at unpublished writers work and it is the one thing I keep having to tell them-get the back story out and minimize descriptions of anything that doesn't carry the story along.
I am like you in that I like to give a book a good go, but I have lately put a couple down as I can't be bothered having my time wasted with going no where scenes and pages and pages of back story. I don't think it's a guy thing however, I have read plenty of female writers with the same problem.
Mel

[Margaret Dilloway]

Too much description also kills it for me. Sounds like the book needs a good edit!

The other big thing is me not caring about the characters. If I love a character, then maybe I could get through three pages of a grocery store scene.

[Alison Strobel Morrow]

I think my number one pet peeve is when you can tell the author is trying to hard, either to prove how smart s/he is or show how much research s/he did. I couldn't get past the first chapter of 'The Corrections" because I felt like I needed a dictionary. Practically ever paragraph had another twenty-letter word that I'd never heard of--and I have an excellent vocabulary. I felt like the author was trying to prove he's a total genius. Lame.

Then there are books where the author gives you a ridiculous amount of detail on aspects of the book that were surely researched--an obscure profession for one of the characters, historical details, whatever. I think it's a really fine balance between too much and too little to write a well-researched book in such a way as to a) give the reader just enough of that interesting information so that they have a clear understanding of things, and b) NOT overwhelm the reader with so many details that they actually start thinking, "Wow, s/he must have really done a lot of research for this!" I shouldn't be thinking about the work the author did when I'm reading.

Getting emotionally jerked around is irritating, too. Jodi Picoult has fallen into this whole "a huge, gut-wrenching twist on the last page" rut--like, her last 5 books have ended that way. I anticipate it now, and honestly, it ticks me off. I almost don't want to read the last scene, because I know she's just trying to 'get me.'

[Shan]

I agree with the needless description in fiction.

One thing that is annoying me right now is in non-fiction. I read a lot of books about food and nutrition (Michael Pollan, Nina Planck, etc.) and it annoys me when a book that is supposed to be for the consumer has a lot of scientific language in it that most people wouldn't understand. I've encountered a few books that really don't take their audience into account.

[Spencer Seidel]

Yes! I just skip it. I've read books where the author insists on describing what clothing the characters are wearing, which to me is just completely silly. Unless it's related to the story somehow, who cares? Description is supposed to set a mood, not pad word length!

But, I think my biggest pet peeve is similar character names. One book I recently read referred to one character as Sam and another as Sampson. It drove me crazy and brought me out of the story every time I had to flip back and remind myself the difference between the two.

[Lale G]

Sparkly vampires! :P But in all seriousness, characters that say things that make me wince. Believe me, I'm not picky about character personalities, and I'll finish pretty much any book, but cringey dialogue is a real killer.


http://thelifeoflale.blogspot.com