Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lack of summary I agree with. If I have no idea what the story is about, then why would I feel any need to read it? Even listing what genre it is would be a step in the right direction.

Spelling and typos? If there's one every paragraph, then yes. That's extreme, and sometimes you have no idea what the person meant to actually say. So in that case, I may run. But if there's a few, I'll correct them about it, but I'm not that bothered.

Why does everyone hate long stories? The longer the better! I'm more bothered if I click in and the work is five whole sentences, or - more often - one whole scene. Gah, give me some meat on the bones, please! I'm starving here. And so's the story. I'm far more likely to click the back button on a post that contains one scene. I'm here for a story, not a drabble. Unless it's a post of drabbles, and I know what I'm getting into. That's okay. But one drabble? Couldn't you atleast give me two to work with?

This is a weird one, but characterizations that don't make sense. Gosh, that irritates me no matter where I'm reading it. If "Billy" come from the chippy family of Apple Pieness, why is he emo enough to drag the whole world down? And there's no explanation for it? He's just like that? Back button, my savior.

In most fantasy novels I've read where "aye" is used, it's just a lazy way for the author to say, "Oh look, this culture is different from ours! They use a different word for 'yes'! Isn't that crazy?" They then proceed to do very little else to make the "local" dialect different in any way. More often than not, it's a sign of the author being lazy.

And, as I said before, I've come to hate most instances of writers trying to use "old English" dialects and "aye" due to Christopher Paolini doing it so poorly it just kind of killed it for me forever. Except in the case of Corambis, where the author actually researched and permutated the Elizabethan dialect for her own use. That was kind of brilliant.

AHH! "Aye that be true me lovely!" (sounds kinda pirate o_0 )
XD Nah just kiddin razz But I get what you mean, theres no point in doin it if you're not gonna change the rest of the language too.

I have a pretty short attention span, so long pages of straight text is difficult unless I'm really interested. Also small font is irritating. And too-big font.

Books do a better job of keeping my attention because I have to flip the page, and it's like a break in text.

Paragraph breaks like the ones I have in this post help a lot when reading online.

That's why I like FictionPress: you can pick your font size, and you can put up chapters of whatever length you feel is appropriate. Plus you can bookmark stories and stuff.

Length and attention spans aside, I absolutely will not read a story if it is apparent that the author either cannot find the shift key or is too lazy to use it. Same for most kinds of punctuation. Misspellings of basic words put me off (the occasional letter-switch typo has ceased to irritate me too much), and I cannot abide stories that begin in a cliche or boring style.

Plot-twists are good.

And on FictionPress, if the author doesn't seem like he or she is going to update the story ever and it just ends, I'm not going to start. I abhor unresolved cliffhangers (I am mentally firing lethal projectiles in Christopher Paolini's general direction for his as-of-yet lack of closure to the very intense cliffhanger that is Brisingr).

Small font size gives me a headache. I'm also a picky reader. If I don't see a proper paragraph (IE, I only see some one lines and so on), then chances are that I won't read it. That said, I'm more of a one shot-ter. I don't like reading chapter after chapter after chapter. I'll read it if it is just one piece with some formatting that won't make my head explode.

If the summary doesn't interest me, or is cliché, then there is a very small chance that I'd read a story, or don't bother reading it at all.

Text walls? Yes, I hate them too. But if the story is good, I'll go through the torment of reading them. Misspellings? Grammatical errors? I'll let it slide; but if there's too many of them in the same chapter, paragraph, even in a sentence ( rofl just kidding), I'd rather read something else.

If the story keeps my interest up, I'm okay with long stories; but if it just drags on and on and on (like a fanfiction story I read last year that reached somewhere 50-70+ chapters, I think), I'd stop, no matter how interested I was in that story. Short stories are more preferable, though.

I prefer one-shots, because they tend to be more well-written. All the loose ends are tied up. The only way I can really describe a good one-shot is it's like a candy bar - delicious, and you can finish it in one sitting. That's not to say I can't read longer pieces; I just need to get really interested in the story.

Other than grammar and sentence structure (and, of course, giant, eye-injuring walls of text), the thing that really turns me off is plot. So many people recycle the same plots, and I can usually tell from their writing that they're either really pretentious about their writing, or they're trying way too hard. I prefer a natural writing style.

Genre also has some significance. I prefer humor, and absolutely hate romance. It's never done well, and the characters are almost always inconsistent.

I dislike it very much when I am deceived by a clever summary, proper looking formatting and lovely syntax only to be slapped in the face with a lengthy, overly-descriptive introduction that focuses on every aspect of the main character's physical and/or mental attributes.

My main desires from authors, especially for the introduction of their story, is for them to show me, not tell me. They should also have an intriguing introduction that doesn't tell me more than I need to know about the character(s). I like to get to know the characters I read about bit by bit and piece things together by observing/analyzing the words they say and the actions they take. It's like unraveling a mystery and keeps me wanting more. At least for me, no mystery means little to no desire to keep reading.