let's discuss!

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

this if for those of you who read fanfic, which is hopefully most of you.

what are your fanfic pet peeves? is there a pairing or genre you won't read? do you hate mistakes in canon?

for me it's more about grammar. i get irritated with bad spelling (use spellcheck!), poor use of punctuation (besides commas because there are about 40 rules. you should know the basics), and capitalization. in posts i don't bother with caps. but when i publish i try to make it as correct as possible.

other things are the use of certain words. there/their/they're, we're/ were/where, bare/bear, lie/lay/laid etc., i/me, overuse of italics and bold. to me italics are good for emphasizing certain words that should be stressed, either in dialog or narration, sounds coming off the television/phone or written words read by the narrator or out loud in dialog, musical lyrics. it just makes it easier to understand that it isn't normal sounds. i only use bold in my author's note, disclaimer, and warnings.

also, i won't even read a fic that has all the text bunched up because someone didn't press enter. or something with only about 200 words.

also, when you address someone it should be like,   Person, blah blah. with the comma there. that just bugs me.

for specifically CM i won't read Morgan with anyone but Garcia. i don't know, i just think they belong together and i love that Garcia is one of very few average sized women on television. in spite of what hollywood wants us to think, most women are more Garcia's size than JJ's.

Comments

[iamtheliquorr.livejournal.com]

I'm not even going to lie. I freaking love bad fanfiction. It's just so incredibly entertaining and lulzy. I hope this fandom never stops bringing the badfic.

I wouldn't call these pet peeves b/c they are more like badfic staples that make me laugh, but here goes:

-Use of the word "lapping" in sex scenes. Yes, I know, this is more of a personal thing, YMMV, etc. But for me, it conjures up images of a cat lapping up a saucer of cream, and that's just not sexy, yo.
-Excessive use of "the blonde" or "the brunette" in reference to JJ and Emily. It's fine if used occasionally to switch things up, but when it's used more often than their names... oy. Besides, what happens to people who write about characters with the same hair color? I write Hotch/Elle and if I referred to either by hair color, I'd be shit out of luck.
-TEETH. Oh God, teeth. I do not want teeth down there. This is probably another YMMV thing (not to mention TMI) but... yeah. Then it leads to me invariably thinking of that movie and then I start cracking up and I doubt that was the intention.
-This is another YMMV thing but use of the word "member." I cannot not laugh when I see sentences about "members." Same goes for "junk." I'm waiting to read about Emily double-clicking JJ's mouse or Hotch taking One-eye to Reid's optometrist.
-Garcia the matchmaker
-The remaining team members (especially Hotch Potch) being totally A-OK with [insert two team members] doing the nasty. I just find it hard to believe that no one would be concerned at all. Look at how Garcia reacted to Rossi finding out about Kevin. Granted it worked out in the end, but the fact that she was so worried indicates that she had reason to. And Kevin isn't even an actual BAU member.

That said, I also greatly appreciate good fic, although it is much harder to find. For me, a good story has the basics down (grammar and spelling, clearly researched and/or fact-checked) and is plausible within the show's universe. When it comes to shipping, I'm pretty good about separating fanon from canon (IK there is no chance in Hades of my OTPs ever approaching canon), I do like fic to be close enough that I can suspend my disbelief. In canon, I see the team members are too professional to hook up with one another, but in fiction, I can roll with it if the characters are reasonably IC and the author builds a believable scenario.

ETA: O hai page 2

[benitle.livejournal.com]

Member makes me cringe. Same does penis. I mean, I know that's the correct term for it, but it sounds so scientific and not sexy at all.

[ladyhatshepsut.livejournal.com]

I've read several of the answers before me and agree with most. When asked that question there are two items that jump immediately in my mind. The first is misspelling words that are basic to the fandom you are writing in. One example is spelling the X-Files character's name as Krychek. I still remember several years ago I was reading a fairly good Buffy story until Angel attacked Spike with a steak. That's S-T-E-A-K! Sure, steak is a word, but stake is basic to vampire lore. I immediately unbookmarked that site and never read anything by that author again. Makes me crazy.

Another thing is one I noticed quite recently. I don't mind minor spelling differences between the American and the British. Words like parlor/parlour and labor/labour I don't mind, I just drop the 'u'. I've always spelled grey with the British 'e'. What gets to me is British TERMS in the mouths of American or Canadian characters. Harry Potter, Giles, and Bodie and Doyle may park the lorry and run inside to the lift but Hotch, Mulder, John Winchester, and Buffy park the truck and run inside to the elevator. One story I was reading/tweaking to print and save recently had me 'de-Britting' words every other paragraph. I finally gave up and deleted the file. (And I feel the same for Americans writing British characters, but being American it doesn't bother me as much.)

[benitle.livejournal.com]

I still remember several years ago I was reading a fairly good Buffy story until Angel attacked Spike with a steak. That's S-T-E-A-K!
Hah, I once read a fic in Supernatural fandom where one of the characters cooked a stake for another character. Maybe they should've swapped with Angel and Spike?

[scarimor.livejournal.com]

I still remember several years ago I was reading a fairly good Buffy story until Angel attacked Spike with a steak.

*giggles helplessly* That one really tickled me :D

Re. Britishisms in the mouths of Americans and vice-versa - that's something Ive relied heavily on criticism to correct over the years. I'm always grateful when a reader pms me politely and let's me know a rogue term got through. If my fic is set in a foreign TV show I try to write in that country's vernacular, even if it's not in dialogue: torches/flashlights, etc. I stick to my own country's spellings, though, as is proper :)

[antoinettemason.livejournal.com]

i'm willing to forgive a few grammatical or spelling errors if the fic is good, although i'm another one who gets irritated with authors who proudly proclaim their fic is unbeta'd and unedited. if you don't have enough respect for your readers to make an effort to ensure your work is polished, you're not someone whose fic i want to read. i also want to see proper formating when it comes to paragraph breaks and dialogue.

another thing that drives me crazy is when people change their font color. the majority of people who do that usually use colors that can cause eye bleeding, but even when they don't, it can still make their font unreadable on my layout. this one is specific to journaling sites, where people need to keep in mind that what looks great on their layout might be a disaster on someone else's, but i rarely read fanfic anywhere but lj anyway.

real person fic. squicky. do not want!

the thing i'm probably most unforgiving about is writing the characters completely ooc. i also hate the excuse, "but it's fanfic, so i can write them how i want!" yeah, i guess you can write them how you want, but if most reasonable fans can't recognize anything about the character but the name, you're doing it wrong. and in that vein, i've mentioned before on other posts that helpless-damsel!reid makes me want to stab kittens. no, the man's not an alpha male, but that doesn't mean he's weak or helpless. and actually, if weak, helpless characters are someone's thing, criminal minds probably isn't the fandom for them, anyway. even the victims aren't always portrayed as weak and helpless, which i believe is one of the reasons the show is so successful.

i'm sort of an anti-romantic, so i'm not really a fan of shippy fic in the first place, unless the setting is a genre geared towards romantic relationships, like a soap. and with cm, i find the family/friendship dynamic of the team more compelling than romance anyway, and imho hooking any two of the characters up would destroy that dynamic. because of that, i rarely read any shippy fic unless the premise really catches my eye (and, because i must secretly be a masochist, there have been few ship fics i've read in order to confirm to myself that they actually are as awful as i think they are). when i do read pairings, i prefer het or femslash. male slash doesn't hold much interest for me.

and yeah, like some people have mentioned already, some crossovers just don't work for me if the worlds they're set in are too dissimilar. like, i could see cm/x-files crossover working, but cm/twilight? ahahaha, no. (though to be fair, i'm not a fan of twatlight in the first place, so pretty much anything related to it would be "ahahaha, no." in my book.)

[antoinettemason.livejournal.com]

just to clarify regarding the paragraph on shipping, i have read some ship fics in the cm fandom that i've liked. i just realized that parenthetical remark about confirming a fic is as bad as i think it is might be interpreted as my opinion about all ship fics, which definitely isn't the case. but omg, have i read some bad cm ship fics!

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

i only read gen, when i read fanfic at all.

fanfic pet peeves

[navycrockett.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree with previous posters that poor grammar and spelling will dissuade me from reading even the most interesting plot. It's not that hard to find a beta-reader; most fan communities have members who will cheerfully help new writers improve their skills. One specific grammar error that makes me crazy is inappropriate and excessive ellipsis abuse. The ellipsis is not an appropriate transition between sentences or clauses. There are periods and commas for that sort of thing.

I find that helpless summaries instantly discourage me from reading fanfic (e.g. "I can't write summaries."). If a writer cannot summarize her/his fic in one concise sentence, it's likely the fic itself is neither better organized nor comprehensible. (subcategory: "summery sucks". Perhaps the writer prefers springlike, autumnal or wintry stories? :>)

I cannot read text walls or fics that contain capslock, italic or boldface abuse. Such embellishments are seldom necessary, as we intuitively place emphasis on those facets of dialogue that require emphasis. I also dislike reading fics in which the characters' accents are written into the text. As fen, we know these characters and our brains will provide the correct "voice" or accent for that character as we read.

I too intensely dislike songfics. I rarely know the songs, and even more rarely see the connection between the song and the fic. If a writer is inspired by a song, terrific. But please, writers, don't feel obligated to reproduce the entire song within the fic (especially when you interrupt your fic for what often seem to be irrelevant lyric segments). Music tastes are very individualized, and what one person finds deeply moving and inspirational may well be viewed by another person as puerile and annoying.

Mary Sues (or Marty Sues): [shudder] Nothing will send me fleeing a fic faster than a blatant projection of the writer into his or her story. OCs should be low-key, only used when necessary and should not be central to the story. I read fanfic so I can enjoy more adventures with my favorite characters, not with some random OC.

Other peeves include the previously-mentioned OOC-ness. Unfortunately for me that often includes pairings of many sorts. If the characters aren't attached in canon, I don't want to read about it in fanfic. UST is fine, as that is frequently present in canon; fic aimed specifically at pairing up two characters (or their happily-ever-afters, their inevitable pregnancies, offspring, and AU futurefics) is strongly avoided. Again, I want the characters that I know and love from canon. My apologies to those who adore ship fics and the like.

Genre faves? I'm a whumper from way back, usually alpha males. I enjoy reading h/c stories in which the team leader has to deal with injury or infirmity and his team must step in and take care of him. I tend to avoid the major angst-fests, introspectives or despair fics, though. I love good casefic, wherein our heroes are doing what they do in episodes. Unfortunately that is one of the rarest beasts in CM fanfic; any takers to create more?

Enough rambling. Kudos to this post for allowing some venting and some virtual nodding and vehement agreement. Now if I could only channel some of this energy into writing something besides random Hotch injury scenes I would be much happier.

Re: fanfic pet peeves

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

you crack me up with the summery thing. that's hilarious.

i'm glad people like my entries. i love to discuss, but often there is no one around and i get lonely living in this crappy little town. all my friends are elsewhere. i've been on the threads on ffn, but they are often dead and there are too many of them for some fandoms anyway.

long live LJ!

[woodchoc-magnum.livejournal.com]

I'll only read a fic if it has Hotch as one of the main characters - he's my favourite. ♥

Certain pairings squick me out (Rossi/anyone - except maybe Hotch, Gideon/ANYONE EVER, definitely no Strauss unless she is written as the evil bitch monster she is).

I hate spelling errors/grammar errors as well, but when I'm writing I sometimes miss them as well so I try not let it bother me.

And I hate angst, torture or anything like that with a passion, so I steer clear of it. I also hate bad characterisation - if it doesn't read like it could happen in the show, I'll stop reading it. *blush*

I'm a really fussy fanfic reader! LOL

[emmakitty.livejournal.com]

The grammar thing gets me, too, but the worst grammar mistake EVER is when people mix up "then" and "than." Like "JJ had a must prettier blouse then Emily." No. JJ's blouse was prettier than Emily's. It's so irritating to me.

Also the OOC thing, although I think fanfic is always OOC to a certain extent; there are acceptable bounds for a character's OOC-ness and I think good authors recognize that and can stay true to the core of a character while re-inventing that character as a part of the author's own literary universe. My super CM pet peeve, though, if fanfic where Garcia is super insecure about her body. I haven't watched every episode of the show yet, but she seems to be a pretty hip, happening, and confident lady. She doesn't seem like the type to be paralyzed by the fear that a man will see her in a bathing suit. Of course she's not perfect and of course everyone has baggage, but to me body-image baggage is just too far out of Penelope's character for me to read fic like that.

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

yes, thank you. there is nothing wrong with Garcia's body. we don't know, maybe she goes for long walks in her spare time, which she probably doesn't have much of. some people are just larger than others. i love Garcia. she's the kind of girl i'd like to be.

the only reason i'd rather see her with Derek instead of computer geek guy is that computer geek guy is pretty boring. they should give him more time. and it's sort of a cop out to just stick two "imperfect" characters together.

i also agree to the ooc to an extent. none of us can write something that is exactly like what the original is.

[wingstar102.livejournal.com]

All of the above, yeah, they bug me. The super number one though is the Mary-Sue. Gag!! I mean it's one thing if you got an Original that's there to help the story along, but no one else... especally if you writing them to represent you. That's just creepy weird. LOL.

Love and cherries,
Wingstar

Late to the party --

[darkhawkhealer.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize for not having a beta. I mean, have a beta, definitely, but if you can't find anyone or if you're just impatient, can you not advertise that? I am ten times more likely to hit the 'back' button if I see you say it's unbeta'ed. (I'm guilty, too, I just don't announce it to all and sundry.)

Massive OOC. Now, I am just as guilty of this as the next person (vampire!Hotch, anyone?), BUT. Either label it as an Alternate Universe or create an OC. If you turn Hotch into an emoting crybaby, I will want to smack you. If you tell me Reid's a closet video-game rock star, cool. Just give me a good reason or tell me flat-out so I can brace myself. Consequently, Reid could totally be an arcade junkie -- the eidetic memory would help him know when the bad guys are coming and what moves to make.

Sell it, sell it, sell it. Ed Bernero has STATED that he does not intend to ship in canon - ever. So if JJ and Morgan have decided to have a clandestine affair, that's all well and good, just give me a good reason why.

On that note, most het squicks me right out. I have no idea why, I just know I cannot read het without making faces and gagging noises. And then it's not so much 'reading' as it is 'skimming'.

Hey, speaking of het! Hotch was married at one point. Rossi was married at three points! Can those of us in the slasher section of the stands please not forget that? It really is okay to have bisexuality in fanfic (just, please for my sake? Not so much in the same fic).

REID! My BOY! What is UP with this habit people have of making him a virgin?? That boy was in college for, like, his entire puberty, and he was most likely unsupervised for it. Do you REALLY think he managed to escape without at least ONE sexual encounter? Consider the kissin of that one girl in the pool. Did that look like the kiss of someone inexperienced? No, it did not. I'm just sayin.

Also, his mom? Kinda sick and mostly incapacitated when it came to things like making her kid dinner and checking his homework and making sure there were no monsters in his closet. In fact, he took care of her more than she took care of him. Can we NOT FORGET THAT?!?

Holy crap, it's like we need a damsel in distress, and hey! Reid's got long hair and he's pretty, so let's stick HIM in the dress. Don't do that.

That boy is an intelligent, capable agent and I'd really like to see him written that way more often. He DID have to go through the same FBI Academy that everyone else had to go through and if he hadn't passed (theoretically), he wouldn't be where he is now. Doesn't he also have a psych PhD? Doesn't that mean he's made it a point to study people and their actions and motivations? Wouldn't that make him LESS CLUELESS THAN YOU THINK HE IS?!?

Also, I have a delicate constitution and a vivid imagination, and I don't believe in violence for the sake of violence. I kind of avoid h/c fics for this reason. Why do they have to be hurty boys (and girls)? Stop whumping on them, it's not very nice!

...I should probably be done, I can go on for days otherwise...*sheepish*

Re: Late to the party --

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

if Reid went to my college i'd certainly have tried to hit that, provided he wasn't jailbait anymore. he's so adorkable.

but yeah, there are lots of chicks like me who'd gladly take the virginity of such a cute boy. i'd be surprised to find out the boy really was a virgin in canon.

don't like het in most fandoms either. can't explain. i can totally go for slash, but throw a vagina in there and i'm all grossed out.

Re: Late to the party --

[cloudzrshibby.livejournal.com]

Did that look like the kiss of someone inexperienced?

Well...My first kiss went something like that. :o
Lol. I'm not saying Reid's a virgin. I actually agree with your logic (I'd never thought of that before~). No to mention, before the show had even started we're made to believe they had been working together as a team for 3 years prior. Something tells me there's no way for a guy friend of Morgan's to remain a virgin for that long. Just sayin.

Anyways. But yeah. A first kiss/inexperienced can go like that. ^^;

[paksenarrion2.livejournal.com]

Along with the things others have mentioned-bad grammar, spelling, lack of capitalization, walls of text, MarySue characters, etc there are two things that bug the crap out of me.

When someone uses the word wonder instead of wander. Emily wondered around Hotch's apartment, picking up a photo of Jack and Haley taken at a happier time.. I want to reach through the internet and smack the writer about the head for that one. It is almost as bad as when they have one character rap their arm around another character's waist (or waste in some cases.).

Excessive Britishisms. They jerk me right out of the story. I can overlook the spelling differences-color/colour but when I start seeing flat instead of apartment, lift instead of elevator, it really takes me right out of the story, even if it is well written. It is the same thing with Doctor Who fanfic (in the opposite sense-if I see excessive Americanism, it jerks me right out of that story).

I do like a well written AU universe. There are several authors on fanfic.net that have written some different AU fics that are fantastic and well written. Slightly skewed to wildly skewed from canon but still manage to stay within character.

As for pairings? I don't really read slash pairings in CM fanfic. They just don't work for me. (OTOH, slash pairing are all I read in Numbers fanfic). I tend to read Hotch/Prentiss, Rossi/Prentiss or Morgan/Garcia although I have read some really good Reid/Prentiss fics lately. I tend not to like JJ fics much. I like JJ as a character on the show, not so much in fanfic. Do NOT want Gideon or Elle fic AT ALL. And no RPF whatsoever (not that I have seen it in CM fandom-pretty much only in the SN fandom *shudder*-that and Wincest? *double shudder*)

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

Biggest peeve? Anyone and everyone who thinks they don't need a beta. They are invariably wrong.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nextboldmove_/]

I don't think I don't need a beta, I know I do, but I don't have one because I only have internet access a couple times a week for maybe an hour a two and to work with a beta would be pretty damned hard.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nextboldmove_/]

Reading these comments make me think that I'm a terrible writer ;)

I don't have a beta, that's partially because I only have internet access a couple times a week for maybe an hour a two and to work with a beta would be pretty damned hard. I try with my grammar, and I know I make mistakes. I did competitive speech in high school and undergrad so I write like I talk.

Spelling errors piss me off.

People who say 'this is my first...' piss me off. It's like you are fishing for comments on how great you are.

People who read and don't at least comment to say they read it piss me off.

While I love the love...I love to get concrit too. That being said, I suck at giving concrit. I was a member of a comm. once where I gave concrit and essentially got burned at the stake for it! It was a different fandom and all, not CM fans.

I hate song lyrics posted in stories. I base titles off song lyrics and I do tend to use song lyrics as the text in the link to the story, but that is the extent of my use of songs in the stories.

I don't read cross-overs with shows I don't watch.

I don't mind alt/un as long as the writer supports it and does a good job at creating the story. For example, in my current series Hotch isn't married and JJ was never with Will/had Henry but I started that out in the very beginning and have supported it through the series. In fact, some of my favorite stories have been alt/un, such as the one where the team is teenagers at a camp and Reid is an elective mute? Who wrote that again?

I love the 'porn' stories when they are just porn. Either write the sex into the plot and have it work or just write the sex.

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

don't feel bad. i don't have a beta either. i'd never publish anything if someone read it first because i'm too self-conscious about my writing. and i make some of the errors that have been discussed her.

it all depends.

all but one of my fics is Twilight. i don't write canon stuff because i don't like it and the characters from Meyer are so underdeveloped that it's easy. plus, AU/AH are really popular. that's most of what i read.

i use some accent spelling for the characters who i want read in a southern accent. they might say swimmin', runnin', gonna, hafta, and so on.

most of my fics are from 1st person pov, but i almost always switch pov's. it depends on the particular fic, but i do have a couple that are 3rd person. if the narrator in the 1st person pov doesn't care about who they are referring to i might use epithets. they might say the bitch said, or that blond girl. it's part of their character traits.

my stuff is always ooc. the one CM fic i wrote was ooc, though i tried to keep the two characters in character as much as possible.

everyone likes or dislikes different things. the point is to keep writing so that you get better.

and what was that teen camp CM fic? where was it? if you can't remember the title/author, do you at least know where you found it? i'd love to read it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nextboldmove_/]

I think this post has turned me into a paranoid writer (like everyone hates me because I've been guilty of things mentioned in these comments) and also kinda made some people on here downright mean. Then again, us writers tend to be too defensive.



...is walking away now...

[ladyhatshepsut.livejournal.com]

First, I have a couple of add-ons to previous comments, my own and others. I just ran into another example of the British/American phrase war in a story where Reid gets hit by a car. He's thrown up on the car's bonnet and I have a vision of a big pink polka dot...thing, edged with lace, draped over the hood of the car. I has to stop reading, I was giggling so hard.

Someone else wrote about being able to tell the writer isn't too familiar with the fandom, like calling Spencer's mother Diane. I'm in the middle of re-reading the BtVS/SPN series where Dawn is the magickal child of Buffy and John Winchester. Throughout the whole series Glory is never referred to by her full name. It's like the author has never heard the word Glorificus. (Don't mistake me. I LOVE the story, I just think the writer should have done a bit more research.)

I noticed another thing from that series, comparing it to the CM series where Spencer is Rossi's son. Buffy: when Mary's father received a notice in the mail of Sam's acceptance into the medical program at the hospital where he works, one of the young (and that's how she's described: young, meaning she wasn't around when Mary died) interns recognizes the Winchester name. Mary's been dead 23 years; how would she know this. I doubt the doc has told all the staff for the last 2 decades everything about his missing grandsons and son-in-law.

In contrast to this author having her characters spewing all there life stories when they don't need to there's the CM story where Reid's teammates figure out or are told, one by one, that he's Rossi's son. It's all driven by circumstance, one person wants to know why they're each others emergency contact, another wants know why they seem so close, Elle runs into Reid at Rossi's book signing. Everything is on a need to know or a 'yes, it's right in front of you so I'm admitting it but don't tell anyone else' basis. I love both series, but this writer seems much more adult, or maybe I should say advanced in her writing. That's something that comes with time and experience if they keep writing, I guess. (And a damn good reason I stopped. I love to read the fic, but my own writing sucked.)

[dragonladyk.livejournal.com]

something with only about 200 words.

But what about the drabble? It is practically a staple of the Internet.

DragonLady

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

i'm going to admit my ignorance right now and say i just looked up drabble.

i've read some, but it's not my thing.