Writing/Storytelling mistakes that annoy you?
Added 2024-09-14 14:11:04 +0000 UTCWhat makes good writing can often be subjective. Some people love extra lore, some don’t. Some people love character dives, but others prefer plot more. Because it’s all subjective at the end of the day, so too can be some mistakes of writing and storytelling that annoy people more than others. However, there can be some elements that some of us can collectively agree on.
For me, I am sick to death of stories that start off immediately with the main character saying their name, likes, dislikes, and a detailed description of themselves to the reader. Something along the lines of, “My name is John Smith. I’m a handsome timber wolf that stands 6’2” with black fur and white streaks, with glowing yellow eyes, etc.”
Whether you find this in SFW stories or erotica stories (the latter is more common than you actually think), these kinds of stories let’s start off like that immediately make me lose my interest. I feel like the writer is either too lazy to integrate all this information naturally or they themselves think their readers are too ignorant to fully picture the main character in their head. Then again, I feel like I have been guilty of this when I started off writing, so maybe I shouldn’t be too harsh about it.
How about you though? What is a writing or storytelling mistake that annoys you?
