Oh, Lord. I am such an elitist when it comes to fanfiction, it's not even funny. Things that make me instantly stop reading:
:: bad grammar/spelling :: song lyrics :: OOC :: wooden dialog :: Mary Sues :: author's notes interjected in the story :: author's notes that are longer than the actual story itself
As far as specific things go, I really can't stand therapy fics, which usually goes hand-in-hand with rape and/or kidnapping and/or torture fics, so I avoid those as well. In a fandom such as this (which has a very small cast), if there's more than one non-canon couple I usually won't read it, and I definitely won't read it if it's more than one slash couple. If the author has made absolutely no effort at getting details right, or shows a blatant disregard for reality in order to facilitate their plot, I'm out. And epithets just drive me insane. Stop it. They're unnecessary, they confuse the reader, and they disturb the flow of your story.
Also--despite this having been well done in numerous works of classic fiction--when accents are written into dialog... I really can't stand it.
You have SpaG issues in your title/summary? You say that you "suck at summaries" in your summary? Yeah, not interested. Also, lack of a disclaimer. And when people attempt to say things like "I don't own CM, but MARY LOU IS MINE AND IF YOU STEAL HER YOU DIE". Let's think about this one. It's okay for you to steal someone else's characters, but no one can steal yours? I don't think so.
But more than anything else, what really gets me irritated is the people who review these awful, disgusting excuses for fanfiction with comments like "That was so beautiful!" and "OMG You're such a good writer". Who are you people? Seriously. Get some standards.
no subject
:: bad grammar/spelling
:: song lyrics
:: OOC
:: wooden dialog
:: Mary Sues
:: author's notes interjected in the story
:: author's notes that are longer than the actual story itself
As far as specific things go, I really can't stand therapy fics, which usually goes hand-in-hand with rape and/or kidnapping and/or torture fics, so I avoid those as well. In a fandom such as this (which has a very small cast), if there's more than one non-canon couple I usually won't read it, and I definitely won't read it if it's more than one slash couple. If the author has made absolutely no effort at getting details right, or shows a blatant disregard for reality in order to facilitate their plot, I'm out. And epithets just drive me insane. Stop it. They're unnecessary, they confuse the reader, and they disturb the flow of your story.
Also--despite this having been well done in numerous works of classic fiction--when accents are written into dialog... I really can't stand it.
You have SpaG issues in your title/summary? You say that you "suck at summaries" in your summary? Yeah, not interested. Also, lack of a disclaimer. And when people attempt to say things like "I don't own CM, but MARY LOU IS MINE AND IF YOU STEAL HER YOU DIE". Let's think about this one. It's okay for you to steal someone else's characters, but no one can steal yours? I don't think so.
But more than anything else, what really gets me irritated is the people who review these awful, disgusting excuses for fanfiction with comments like "That was so beautiful!" and "OMG You're such a good writer". Who are you people? Seriously. Get some standards.