Love and Hate—D.M.K.Ruby

I did an informal survey in my writing groups about what parts of a story appeals to a reader and what parts turn a reader off and the answers were quite varied, as I expected. I thought it would be fun to share some of the responses as follows:

Things hated:

-        Flower names e.g. characters named Chrysanthemum, or Azalea or Daisy, or Rose

-        Herb names e.g. characters named Sage, or Rosemary, or Dill

-        Overuse of foreign languages and dead languages, the comment was, “why are you trying to make me feel stupid and pull me out of the story?”

-        Speaking of things taking you out of the story, language that is too modern or not congruent with the world, or writing that is too “clunky”, described as “an article of ill-fitting clothing.”

-        Made up languages, I’m looking at you Elvish (this from a sci fi and fantasy fan!)

-        Info dumping – a classic!

-        Books with characters in their 20’s where they don’t have boundaries

-        Stories about miscommunication that could have been easily fixed with a quick conversation, or even one sentence

-        In audiobooks where the narrator changes from Book 1 to Book 2, or the accents change, or the sound of the voice goes from gruff to smooth!

-        “The writer preening”

-        Not doing enough research or having appropriate beta readers, specific example is a Fern Michaels book where she clearly had done no research on the common differences between Chinese and Japanese names, had a character with a classically Japanese name who started out Japanese and later in the book said the character was Chinese with no explanation so can only presume ignorance (and that she does not have any friends or beta readers she could have asked, “hey, I’m writing about a culture that’s not my own, does this sound ok?”).

-        Stories where the protagonist is defenseless and abused. No. Just no.

-        An ambivalent ending with no clear resolution

-        A story where the villain gets away with it – or why I stopped reading Donna Leone books (two books in a row had the villain experiencing no consequences for their dastardly actions)

Things loved:

-        Happy endings (obviously this is me)

-        A well-constructed world

-        A good, heavy story (obviously I did not say this!)

-        When books don’t give you everything up front, a slow burn with pining and angst and a melancholy tone

-        All the romance tropes, an enemies to lovers plotline, friends to lovers, second chance romance, Grumpy vs. Sunshine

-        Slow burn revenge stories where “it takes years to crumble someone’s empire”

-        Stories with violence and gore and cannibalism (I know you know, but this is not me!)

-        Morally grey characters

-        Community forged among disparate characters

-        A well written open-door romance with characters that are imperfect (not ones about the most beautiful woman in the land and the most handsome knight in the kingdom, blech!)

I am so curious to hear from you, what do YOU love in a story? Hate? Looking forward to your answers!