Pet Peeves in Fanfiction

[ScootNFroody]

Fanfiction pet peeves, eh?
I could go on forever, but I'll try and narrow it down.

OCs in fanfiction bother me. Just go and roleplay with someone instead of writing it as a fanfiction.
Improper grammar and spelling just makes me hit the X button and quit reading.

When it comes to smut fic, I really hate reading the words "d**k" and "p***y" over and over and over.
There are many synonyms for p***s and v****a; get a thesaurus ffs.

[Zias]

Koressa

As an author:

My biggest pet peeve, one of which I could rant about for a good thirty minutes, is by far receiving no reviews on a story. It's very disheartening to me and really kills the motivation to continue the story. I don't post up stories for my own amusement, nor do I do it just for shits and giggles. All of my stories are for the readers and I want to know what the general fanfiction community thinks. So unless I get reviews I won't go past two chapters. The story will be forever held at ransom if it so suits me. Call me petty, but I want to know if the fiction is worth continuing. The only way to know this is through reviews.

That's a real shame though, that you wont go past two chapters. With many fanfictions i don't start getting reviews until chapter six or nine and a lot of people won't read a fanfiction until its completed so your really limiting your audience by demanding review from the first two chapters.

It might be different per fandom though.

[Renkon Root]

Here's a new pet-peeve that I've only just recently started to develop:
Authors specifying [character's] POV at the start of every chapter or at scene transitions.

I'm sorry folks, but it should be apparent by the narration who's point of view it is. Even if you're writing in first person, you should write in a way that their views, feelings and opinions tell the reader who's narrating without the narrator flat out saying "I am Luna Lovegood." or Luna's POV.

[mintiswirl]

i hate it when peoplew rite song-fics an don't mark them saying that their fanfic has annoying song lyrics in it. Song-fics are stupid, most times it's 3 sentences with lyrics sperating them, then another 3 sentences. I've even read a fanfic where someone just put all romaji lyrics, does that make any sense to you? I've only read 2 song-fics that were good, I stay away from all the rest

[Sodium Laureth Sulfate]

1. Song fics. It just doesn't work for me. I guess it's because you really have to listen to and like the song enough to be able to feel it while reading said fic. Sometimes I still don't like it when I've listened to the song, because authors tends to write something related to the lyrics and it's just, meh.

2. Absence of new paragraphs when a new character speaks up. Like, all jumbled up in one sentence, example: "Hey, how are you doing?" asked Jane, and Michael simply shrugged. "I don't know. He won't talk to me," said Michael. Jane sighed and sat down next to her best friend. "Just don't push him, he'll come around," she said, placing a hand on Michael's shoulder. I mean, would it hurt so much to start a new paragraph for a new dialogue? gonk

3. Dialogues, dialogues, dialogues, and nothing else. It gets irritating after a while.

[SantaniasGirl]

My pet peeves are:

- Terrible grammar and spelling. One or two words that are misspelled are fine, but when you have this: "U r rong," sad Ash, you obviously need to go back to grade school.

- Writing in script. I cannot stand when someone writes a fan fiction in script format! Argh! Drives me up the wall!

- Too many "mary-sues." I like original characters, and I sometimes use them. I think they're fine so long as you do not go overboard. It is understandable when you use one, but sixteen? And the story is not flexible for sixteen "chosen ones"?! Please...

- Horrible, HORRIBLE cross-overs. When I say horrible, I mean SkyrimxPokemon. Yeah, things that absolutely do not go together being put into a story. Those I hate.

[Aha]

I just scoured all seven pages of this thread and haven't seen this one listed yet. Rape. Rape is probably my biggest pet peeve in fanfiction, for no other reason then it is over used and done badly. I have yet to find a story that uses it in a believable way and not just to inflict epic amounts of angst onto the characters involved. There are other way to cause drama, not every bad guy is a raging horndog and there are more effective torture methods.

I find that I especially hate rape when used in Dragon Ball Z fanfiction. Even more so if what follows the rape is mpreg, which in turn is followed by cliche angst and contradictorily good parenting. My hatred is then compounded when the character being raped and impregnated is Piccolo. There are way too many of these for a character with such a limited fan base. It makes me die a little more inside every time I see a summary for this. This example is the product of me venturing into the DBZ section on FF.N and seeing at least two stories using one or both of those plots on the first page.

Feel free to replace series and character as needed. The amount of rape fics, both with and without mpreg, is one of the reasons I lose interest in fanfiction for any series. Don't get me wrong, I understand that both of those plot devices can be used well, in fact everything listed here that isn't a technical issue can be done well, it's just that they so rarely are that I've only ever seen one good mpreg(FFVII) and no well written rape stories for any gender.

On the consensual side of things, I don't understand the need of so many fanfic authors to take a beautiful, platonic friendship and turn it into something sexual. This goes to all pairings, whether het, yaoi/slash or yuri/femslash.

[SantaniasGirl]

Aha

I just scoured all seven pages of this thread and haven't seen this one listed yet. Rape. Rape is probably my biggest pet peeve in fanfiction, for no other reason then it is over used and done badly. I have yet to find a story that uses it in a believable way and not just to inflict epic amounts of angst onto the characters involved. There are other way to cause drama, not every bad guy is a raging horndog and there are more effective torture methods.

I find that I especially hate rape when used in Dragon Ball Z fanfiction. Even more so if what follows the rape is mpreg, which in turn is followed by cliche angst and contradictorily good parenting. My hatred is then compounded when the character being raped and impregnated is Piccolo. There are way too many of these for a character with such a limited fan base. It makes me die a little more inside every time I see a summary for this. This example is the product of me venturing into the DBZ section on FF.N and seeing at least two stories using one or both of those plots on the first page.

Feel free to replace series and character as needed. The amount of rape fics, both with and without mpreg, is one of the reasons I lose interest in fanfiction for any series. Don't get me wrong, I understand that both of those plot devices can be used well, in fact everything listed here that isn't a technical issue can be done well, it's just that they so rarely are that I've only ever seen one good mpreg(FFVII) and no well written rape stories for any gender.

On the consensual side of things, I don't understand the need of so many fanfic authors to take a beautiful, platonic friendship and turn it into something sexual. This goes to all pairings, whether het, yaoi/slash or yuri/femslash.

I wholeheartedly agree. I also hate when people have a character rape another character, usually being a mary-sue, and then they fall in love. Really? Is a rape victim going to seriously fall in love with their rapist? Please...

[Princess7777]

Hiei the Epic

- Pairings that make no sense canonically

I agree with all your list, but this in one in particular I agree with the most. It bothers me to see characters paired up that would never happen in a million years in the actual series.

[Nyctic]

This! And bad grammar/punctuation. And Mary-Sues. But most of all this.

The Drunken Jester

The Jester says...

I cannot stand it when I've written something that I really want people to comment on and all I get is something along the lines of:
"Please Write More!"
"Nice Fic!"
"This is great!"

I mean... it's a little bit of an ego boost. I'm so glad you liked it enough to at least say something when other people don't....
But I really wanna know MORE.
Do you feel the characters are a little off?
Do you like where the story is going?
Anything?
Seriously, as a writer of fanfiction this is my biggest pet peeve.

...you are highly entertained

[Paper Gears]

I have a lot of them but I'll stick to things that aren't as obvious as "Mary sues"

Dull stories which is basically everything in the story happens and it just railroads into various story arcs that are already there. Yeah sometimes it's hard when your trying to stick with the main story but I just find it dull when it's just someone slightly different reacting to the same things differently. It's not like I think people who do this are all bad. I just get tired of the same main story sometimes. Usually in crossovers.

Whenever I can see what kind of person the author is by reading the story- Sometimes I read something and can picture what kind of person the author is, it's not bad writing or anything I just hate that feeling. Weird thing to get annoyed by I know.

Song Fics- It's like singing a Amv. Does anyone even like these? I know the song fits but I guess it's can't be helped that people would make these then. It's not like everyone has the ability to make a Amv I guess.

Whenever an author says something like "I'll add a new chappy if 10 people review"
I think"You earn your reviews, don't do this to your readers. It makes it into a chore. Do you want people who review you to do so when they don't really want to? There are better ways to get them to talk to you then doing this. Ask for their option about a topic in the story or what they would think should happen or something! I kinda hate you now"
I get so irrationally angry over this. There no reason for me to be, I bet the author is a lovely person who doesn't deserve my hate. It just really bugs me way too much.
Sometimes I review because the author asked the reader how they think something would go down and I had some ideas. Sometimes I don't review in the first few chapters because I want to see how the story is going before commenting. Sometimes there's nothing to say for your story, maybe because it was just an okay story that I don't feel like commenting on because it's an okay story but just want to read.
That said I really should review more. I don't think I'm justified in hating this so much.

Uhh sorry for dumping this over everything...

[Kuhle]

- Mary Sues/self-inserts/poorly written OCs. I don't mind OCs if they're well-written and have a good reason to be there, but if you're creating a character just for the sake of creating one, don't.

- Not making it clear which pairings are in the story and/or stories with every pairing the author can fit in there. I have no problems with people writing whatever pairings they want because I can just skip the ones I don't like. It's kind of hard to do that when the author doesn't state beforehand which pairings are in the story. It's especially annoying when they state one pairing, but then throw in a million other ones on the side.

- Lack of warnings. If your story has rape/smut/m-preg/excessive violence/etc. in it that some people might not want to read, the least you can do is warn them.

- OOCness. I see this all the time for the sake of romance, and it's absolutely annoying. If a character went the entire series without showing any hint of being in love, it's not just suddenly going to happen. Likewise, people don't just suddenly notice that they're madly in love with someone they've known for years for no reason, and then start madly blushing whenever they're near that person.

- Writing fanfiction while not actually having any knowledge of the series. I've seen people write fanfiction when they're only exposure to the series is a friend talking talking about it or reading other fanfiction.

- Out-of-place names. If the story is about a bunch of Japanese high schoolers, they shouldn't have teachers named Mrs. Arnolds, Mr. Jones, Ms. Smith, etc. unless it's only one teacher for a specific reason (like a foreign English teacher or something).

- Poorly-written smut. I don't want to read smut written by a 13-year-old with no idea of how sex works. I don't want to read smut filled with horribly cliche and overused phrases either.

- Over-complication. I haven't run into this a lot, but when I do it makes me cringe. There was one story in particular that was filled with so many long, unnecessarily complex words that it made it difficult to read. There were a few scientific terms that didn't fit in with the rest of the story as well, and it was very obvious this person was trying too hard. Writing isn't about grabbing a thesaurus and picking out the most sophisticated words you can find. Sometimes it's better to keep things simple.

- Song-fics, unless the amount of song is very minimal.


I think that's enough for now.

[justadarling]

Kuhle

self-inserts

THESE PISS ME OFF TO NO END!!!! scream

Eh, sorry about that >.< Self inserts is just one of my top 5 pet peeves in fanfiction

[The Drunken Jester]

lppurplegirl11

Kuhle

self-inserts

THESE PISS ME OFF TO NO END!!!! scream

Eh, sorry about that >.< Self inserts is just one of my top 5 pet peeves in fanfiction

Self inserts are one of those things that I think every single fanfiction author should write.... but never show anyone.
They help to remove the wish fulfillment aspect from your regular fanfiction and stuff. Guilty pleasure type stuff. xD

I write them for almost every fandom I write for, but I don't think I'd ever post them. In fact I write them on notebook paper to remove the temptation.