31. Ill-Defined Actions

Err...I do. I would prefer actions to be described over scenery, though. I have to be able to visualize something to understand it well, so when someone says "whirled" rather than "turned 180 degrees" I can mess it up in my view of the event. This has contributed to several misunderstood words in my youth, to be honest, so yes, it is a pet peeve when a term for an action is not defined enough.

32. Word Overuse

Sometimes I feel like an author finds out about a word while writing a book and likes it so much that they insert it whenever they can. A good example is Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth. Fairly short story, but read it and tell me how many times 'furtive' pops up. R.R. Martin is another guilty party, as he comes across words and phrases and is so excited to use them that he uses them way too freaking much. It's as if he thinks each time he uses them, they'll take a pound away. Variety is the spice of life, but a lot of authors find that they really enjoy Lemon Pepper and end up saturating their work with it when in fact, the reader also enjoys parsley and rosemary with a dash of thyme.

Maybe because you warned me about it I did't really think it was used all that much. I've seen worse, especially with phrases. I suppose I take it as a point of style with Lovecraft, since he did the same thing with "aeon(suffix)" in At The Mountains of Madness.

A year and a half later...

This is people thinking they can write Rashomon, while being oblivious to the fact that Rashomon's effectiveness was entirely based on exploring the limits of each person's perspective and then FOLLOWING THROUGH WITH IT to explore how that influences how the events are interpreted.

There's a pretty good chance that the authors in question may not even be aware of Rashomon and just heard about it having been done and thought "that's a great idea, let me try!"

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BTW, adverbs are great. And Tom Swifties are just lazy, not DIAF-level. Occasional use, especially if the adverb in question actually says something relevant about the description, isn't a bad thing.

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I've seen the capital letters thing before. It's not just fanfiction; I think it hearkens back to the religious use of capitalized "His", marking a particular (usually common) word as possessing some sort of marked quality. The example of "Blue" would therefore not be saying "they're very blue" but "they are the specific quality of blue that means the person belongs to group X / is an avatar of X / etc." Kind of a proper noun, in adjective form.

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"Relatable" characters: I think most of your gripe comes from a lot of writers misunderstanding what "relatable" actually means in writing advice (and then making more writing advice based around that misunderstanding). It doesn't mean that the reader should feel an empathic connection to the character. It means that the reader should be able to form a mental model about the character that aligns with how real people think and act. Said another way, it's not that the character should think in a way that resonates with the reader emotionally; it's that the reader ought to be able to imagine being in the character's position, with the character's knowledge, with the character's personality, and from that context have the character's decisions make sense.

If you violate this rule on purpose, that makes the character seem alien and incomprehensible. If you violate this rule by accident, that makes the character seem flat or stupid or confusing.

It just happens to be the case that novice writers tend to have an easier time writing relatable characters that also have empathetic resonance.

I can understand that, but in the case above there was nothing else to hint that there was anything special or significant about that particular shade of "Blue." If there was meaning there outside emphasizing a colour, or why it was emphasized, the author didn't share.

chars who are, undoubtedly, the very [I]best[I] at something that they've never put any actual work into. there is something really lazy about the five-star 'prodigy' who is 18 years or so old, has never practiced their 'talent' seriously a day in their life and yet is unequivocally better than thousands or millions of other people who have spent decades of their lives studying/practicing/honing the same talent and nary a soul challenges this claim excepting a single middle-aged man(who is trounced terribly) and/or the villain(who is trounced much worse)

You mean like how Harry Potter got all the glory because of something that happened to him as a baby, while Hermione Granger was by far the better magic user?

Coda, how dare you try to bring tempered, evenhanded consideration to my hyperbolic rant from 325 days ago!

I find myself strangely less invested in most of the things I ranted about in this thread. Maybe it's something to do with being out of school for a year and not being constantly exposed to my classmates' terrible writing.

Harry Potter was famous but not necessarily the best.

34. Love Rival/ Love triangle
Now don't get me wrong, I think that generally, love triangle can be a good trope. It's just that too many works, even non romantic ones, have some sort of love triangle thrown in. Like you'd even expect a book series like Lord of the Rings to lay off that ish but nope; there's one there too.
And to be honest it's not that I don't like a love triangle, it's that 85% of the time, the hopeless suitor is the one I like -_-

35. Amnesia
Now in long series it can often happen. A character has an accident and has temporary/selective/whatever amnesia and doesnt remember the other characters, his story and his goal.
97% of amenisia arcs are poorly done. Very forced, tiresome, drags the story. Don't do that, please.

36. Useless ellipsis
Okay this is one that I see mostly on fanfics but stop using stupid ellipses...to make the sentence sound mysterious...
It's annoying.

>.>

<.<

So what would you like to see or be interesting in seeing in a story that deals with amnesia? Would you consider it a requirement that the person gets their memory back, that it's shown what information the character is missing, or that the reader learn why the character has amnesia in the first place?

I'm kind of tired of YA in general. I know this isn't exclusive to YA but you get the idea
-Tragic world shattering events
-One sole person who can save the world
-Romantic subplot that take away from the tragic world shattering events
-Romantic subplots within the romantic subplots
-Various pandering

For me (I dislike amnesia plots as well)...it is largely because it is done more as a trope than as an explored mental phenomenon. Give the characters extreme fear and anxiety - they've lost part of what makes them...them. It is incredibly stressful to forget a part of your self. Depression can do this, as well as trauma or stroke or dementia...and as memory is sort of your brain telling your story to itself, even if recovered there can be a sense of disconnect - of you in your memory not being you.

>.> I'll know MonBon won't like my stories, then. About half involve some form of saving a world or town or group of people. <.<

Hehe Lawtan

It's not that there can't be a world shattering event. I will eat that stuff up, what primarily bugs me about YA is that there is specifically a romantic sub-plot that detracts from it. It's like this (I am generalizing and simplifying of course):

There is a volcano raining down on the village. Everyone has only an hour to escape. But Lily and Jessica must come out to their parents and Molly loves Lily. Molly convinces Lily that Jessica doesn't love Lily so that Lily will hang out will Molly for 50 of the 60 minutes they have to escape. With 8 minutes left, Jessica publicly proclaims her love to Lily -- in front of her parents! ♥ This gives Lily the strength to give a rousing speech and lead the entire village out of the range of the volcano in the final 2 minutes (disregarding the 30% of people that died at various parts in the novel).

THAT is what I mean by "world shattering event but romantic events that somehow completely overshadow world shattering event." I actually enjoy reading about world shattering events and even romance in the proper contexts :)

I recall a story I read once online that featured that sort of deal.

There is a boy, the world is ending, and he is the only one that can save it. He promptly throws himself off a building. End of story.

That does lend itself to the idea of examining the pressure such a 'destiny' puts on someone.