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

[cedara]

I agree on grammar and homonyms - definitely a pet peeve. Typos can happen anytime, but that's what a good beta is for. Same goes for characterization - if you wanna be OOC, give me a damn good reason for it.

Also, if someone doesn't do empty lines between dialogue and/or story text (the BR html tag) - it's fine in books but it makes a text almost unreadable on the screen.

As for pairings. I can easily see Garcia/Morgan, Morgan/Reid, maybe even Hotch/Rossi, though my fave is Hotch/Reid.

[djan31.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh, I am a grammar nazi, too. Drives me absolutely nuts. And, also, about the short fics. I think there's really like, a minimum limit where you can actually get in a story.

I haaaate when a story progresses unbelievably fast. Does that make sense? Or when the entire story is told in dialogue, and there's no narration. So bad.

As for pairings, I cannot read any CM femslash. It has nothing to do with sexual preference, it just does not work to me. I never really see that much of relationship built between the girls on the show, but maybe that's all me, cause I know I have not seen every episode.

I also hate fics where they make little mistakes where you can tell they don't really watch the show all that much. Like I read one the other day where they kept calling Reid's mom "Diane" instead of "Diana." I don't know why, but that made it almost unbearable for me to read, haha.

-takes a breath-

[djan31.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that I just now figured out what OOC meant?
-face palm-

[banee-noel.livejournal.com]

Grammar or improper uses of words, that bothers me. I can normally continue to read regardless but if it seems to be a problem throughout I stop reading, a few errors here and there happen. I should know, I write fics myself and goodness knows I had trouble before I found a beta.

I like narrative, not just all dialogue, it makes it harder to keep up with what is happening if all there is is the characters talking to each other. Plots that jump about too much are annoying, or they just seem poorly developed.

As to pairings, I haven't read much in the CM fandom lately, but I don't particualarly go for that much. I don't know why, maybe I need to read more of it lol. I prefer male/female personally, nothing wrong with slash it just isn't my cup of tea. I tend to like stuff that is revolving around a case I guess.

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

yes, no one will catch every error, even with great betas. i've even found typos in published books, one in LOTR. i won't even look at a fic without some spaces.

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

you know, i can only read slash pairings in most fandoms. i will only seek out het in a few and mostly just in Twilight. i don't know why. the books are aweful, but the fanfic is pretty good. never femslash for me.

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

i had to look up a bunch of things. don't feel bad.

[sarramaks.livejournal.com]

I'm not very keen on slash, although I did write some non M rated Danny/Flack stuff many moons ago. I hate cliched description, and a pet peeve at the moment is when someone uses 'the blonde said' as a variant on 'JJ said', or brunette for Emily.
I also echo the above about grammar and punctuation. Yes, some bits will always be missed, but I get irritated when it's apparent that the writer hasn't even read back though what they've written.
And I am a grumpy old woman today :)

[djan31.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about the referring to a person as their hair color thing. That is so aggravating.

[djan31.livejournal.com]

I'm actually pretty much the same, I usually only read slash. I don't know why.

[cloudzrshibby.livejournal.com]

Bad grammar bothers me.

Text walls bother me.

Mary-sues REALLY bother me.

Characters written completely different from their actual character bother me. Slight OOC is ok, but another more than "slight" annoys me to no end. Hotch isn't lovey-dovey, Reid isn't some helpless pansey, neither Prentiss nor JJ are badass b-words/damsels in distress, etc.

Most slash bothers me, not gonna lie. To be honest, the only slash I ever got into was Gundam Wing. If its not within canon, then I'm just kinda like ":|" the whole time (though, the GW slash was ever really canon it was really hilarious). Not that there's anything wrong with slash. If that's your thing, go for it. Its just not mine.

Which brings me to: anything out of canon bothers me. Point blank. Period. Enough said.

I'm one of those people who likes well-written OCs. I have a couple of my own, but I've never written them into an fanfiction before. I can't say I've ever seen a story involving an OC for Crimianl Minds before. Mary-sue, yes. OC, no.

That said, I can't say I've read a whole lot of fanficion for CM. As far as I'm concerned, very few canons have actualy been established within the show. I can't read about pairings that I don't see within the show.

I'm also not as big into fanfiction as I was when I was younger. Its like I was waiting for something to completely blow me away and I'm not finding that, so I'm just not very into it anymore. My standards for writing are probably too high, but whatevs~

[npkedit.livejournal.com]

I'll join you in decrying poor grammar and spelling (I'm an editor in RL), and on the formatting issue.

That said, my biggest pet peeve is unfinished stories. If you start posting, you're doing it to attract readers and (hopefully) get feedback. One of the biggest joys of fanfic (and a reason even some pro writers do it) is the joy of immediate feedback and constructive criticism. It's blatantly unfair for writers to hook people and then leave them hanging forever. If you know you're the type who won't finish a story, don't post it for public reading. Otherwise you end up as the fanfic equivalent of "the boy who cried 'wolf.'"

[rambleinblue.livejournal.com]

All of the things mentioned above I agree with - I have decided, people need not only a beta but an "editor" - sometimes I think the betas focus on giving feedback on the fic plot and characterizations [which is great] but end up missing simple spelling and grammar issues.

I volunteer my editor services to anyone that wants that last read-over before publishing.

In addition, my current BIG GIANT ENORMOUS pet-peeve - mainly in my british fandoms - is the use of the word "draw" instead of "drawer".

I read "He reached in to the draw to get a condom." or "He slid the draw open to get the supplies he needed."

It drives me absolutely bonkers. And I think the reason it does is that I am not always sure it is a typo on the part of the writer - I almost think they don't know the word or how to spell it.

I'm gritting my teeth just thinking about it.

[cloudzrshibby.livejournal.com]

I hate plot-jumping too.

I'd agree about the "more narrative, less dialogue" bit, but I'd be a huge hypocrit because everything I write tends to get really dialogue-y. :(

[took-skye.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, poor grammar and spelling tends to bother me...I can put up with some (we all make mistakes after all) but if the fic is riddled I just can't go on and enjoy. And I need spacing between paragraphs otherwise it hurts my eyes on the screen and, well, just looks like the story's just one big paragraph, haha!

For pairings...um, well, I'm willing to give any ship a try provided it's written well and convincingly...it's a touch annoying to read any two characters suddenly getting it on for no reason other than simple horniness, haha! (PWP, aka Porn Without Plot, is fine every now and again provided it's marked as such and not passed off as the great love story that started with the shag in the FBI's broom closet, ugh, haha!)

[djan31.livejournal.com]

I really hate OOC stuff. And I especially do hate when they make Reid such a helpless little...person. He's obviously a strong character, or else he wouldn't have made it through the things he has.

[djan31.livejournal.com]

That is exactly why I stopped writing. I could never finish, and I realized how annoying that must be.

[cedara]

Heh.

It's ok. We all learn as we go along.

[cedara]

True.

If he were helpless, he wouldn't have been able to provide clues for Hotch in "Revelations".

[cedara]

I did that when I started writing. Nowadays, I only use aides when I really get into the pronoun problem, but then I'd go for the names (either first name or family name), using descriptions is too vague and might throw you out of the story.

[benitle.livejournal.com]

I guess most readers take proper grammar, punctuation and spelling as something that should be a given. My biggest grammar pet peeve is tense switches. I have no preference over past or present tense in fanfiction, but whichever you choose, stick to it!

Stylistically, epithets drive me insane. The older profiler, the young genius, the shorter woman, etc. etc. It can make fic extremely hard to follow, interrupts the flow and in the end, there is nothing wrong with using a character's name or a pronoun.

I know there are several narrative modes, but personally, I don't enjoy POV switching a lot, esp. if it's done every other sentence (rather than, let's say every other section or chapter of a fic). It can be confusing and most of the time, I think it's a sign of a fic not being beta'd properly rather than of the author intentionally switching POV and selecting a multiple person POV.

Ode to the Hotel Mini Bar

[kuriadalmatia.livejournal.com]

Grammar, spelling, paragraph spacing and characterizations. Check. Granted, I'm guilty of posting without having a beta/editor review my work. Pairings? I'm willing to give any pairing a try if the characters are in character and, well, it kind of makes sense for them to be together. However, I really don't read femslash since it doesn't really hold my interest.

But... One of my biggest peeves is the mini-bar in the hotel room.

Now, I travel 30-45% for my job (US and Europe) and stay at a variety of hotels, from full service (Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Kimpton, Hyatt) to the basics (Courtyard, Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden). Before people shout, "But they showed Elle getting into the mini-bar, drinking gin with Reid!", here's the thing.

There are very few hotels that still have mini-bars in the US. They've phased them out because of the costs involved. Now, sure you may get snack items for purchase--bottled water, M&Ms, Pringles, peanuts--but the actual "mini-bar stocked with booze" isn't really prevalent anymore.

When the mini-bars are stocked, you usually get one bottle of each type of liquor. Maybe two max. Vodka, bourbon, scotch, gin, cognac (maybe), brandy (maybe), red wine, white wine, and mixers. So the "raiding the mini-bar for four bottles of scotch" just doesn't, well, cut it. Unless, of course, you've told the hotel how you want your mini-bar stocked. I have only been to one hotel with an actual ice-maker in the room. That was in the US Virgin Islands at a resort.

I know, I know. It's a plot convenience thing because, really, is Hotch or Rossi going to run down to the corner liquor store to buy a fifth else carry some in his go bag? But it really does drive me nuts.

Of course, now saying this, I know I probably have a mini-bar lurking in one of my own stories...

[runriggers.livejournal.com]

For me it's a lot like you - bad grammar, punctuation, and spelling, with no effort to have a beta. I understand were some rules can be bent or ignored at times, but they should be known and followed. I've stopped reading stories because of too many spelling mistakes, etc.

People definitely should have a working knowledge of canon, but unless it's a glaring error, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Pairings - I'm flexible ... my favourite pair for Criminal Minds would be Hotch/Morgan or Morgan/Prentiss, but I'm not adverse to reading others - that would depend on the story.

Just reading some of the other comments, which made me realize another peeve: inflicting weaknesses on characters - having the males become the damsels in distress (like Reid, or Blair Sandburg in The Sentinel) - everyone has a breaking point and good fiction will work with that to 'heal' the character (ie Hotch with Foyet now)... but making the character seem overall weak as person, no. Ever character in CM is strong, and don't need to seen as a baby in need of babysitting and saving.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I like good stories, however they are written. I seek out writers whose work I enjoy. James Joyce never used punctuation and he was, imo, a genius. William Faulkner's English skills were unparalleled and I'd rather have gum surgery than read anything of his again.

The fact of the matter is, there is no good or bad ... no real rules. If you're a reader, you'll find the writer whose stories you like. Trust the writer to use their skills to create the story -- don't assume that 'good stories' always have certain elements because they don't. You'll find awful stories that follow all the rules and great stories that don't. Anything beyond that is just a statement of personal biases.

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

yeah, as soon as you through a woman into a sex scene i'm a bit uncomfortable. don't like regular porn either.