Before I was a published writer and an acquisitions editor, I
was a reader. I began reading romances when I was in high school. My friend
Brenda and I traded books and read every Harlequin we could get hour hands on.
I’m not going to tell you how long ago that was.
Over the years, I’ve collected some reading pet peeves. The
editor in me can spot them in someone else’s work with ease. Unfortunately, I can
get so close to my stories that sometimes I don’t see these flaws in my own writing...until
a reader points them out to me, and then I want to bang my head against a wall
because I know better.
So here they are...the top ten things that make me cringe as a
reader and a writer.
10. When paragraphs are
too long to fit on my eReader page – Even though I still LOVE the feel and
smell of a real paperback in my hands, I’ve gone digital. When the paragraph
fills the page without giving me a breather, I start skimming.
9. When the author goes
on a tangent in the middle of an intense scene – When the story gets to the
point where something important is about to happen, I don’t want the author to tell
me the backstory or what the characters are wearing, set the scene, or discuss
the weather.
8. When the author
treats you like you’re stupid by over explaining – When an author tries to
impress me how smart she is, I tune her out. If I think the writer is
condescending to me as a reader, I’ll stop reading.
7. When the author
dwells too much on an insignificant character – If the author tells me what
the character looks like, what she thinks, where she came from, and what her
cat’s name is, I expect that character to have an impact on the plot.
6. Missing scene
transitions – It slows the story and lessens my enjoyment when I have to
figure out how long it’s been since the last scene ended. I don’t want to
struggle to understand what’s going on and when it’s happening. It makes a
difference whether two hours, two days, or two years have passed.
5. Frequent typos and
obvious grammatical errors – When errors are too frequent, I stop and try
to refocus every time I come across an error. Too many stops and I’m going to
close my eReader and watch something on Netflix.
4. Switching points of
view too frequently – I can’t connect with the character when I’ve just
gotten used to being inside her head and the point of view switches to another
character. I can only handle being inside one person’s head at a time.
3. When characters
obviously act out of character – Characters should change and grow over the
course of a story, but even then, they should act and sound like the
personality that’s been created for them. A forty-year-old man should not act
or sound like a twenty-something woman unless it’s obvious he’s trying to be
funny.
2. When the ending feels
rushed – It leaves me unsatisfied when I’ve gotten used to the pace of a
book and it ends too soon, as if the writer just wants to get the story over
with. Maybe I want the plot to unravel at the pace I’ve gotten used to.
My number one pet peeve as a reader?
1. Unrealistic dialogue –
I cringe when the writer tries to give me an information dump in dialogue.
When one character tells another character what she is wearing or how someone
is related to her, I nearly fall on the floor.
When I see these things in a book, it makes me want to turn on
tracking changes and do some editing, but I can’t edit a Kindle download. Too
bad. Or...maybe that’s a good thing.
