Writing Meta: Pet Peeves

Honestly, the only thing that bugs me is a sense of realism. So many characters and users fail to add any flaws in their work. People aren't open to the idea of seeing their character emotionally or physically mangled and/or killed. I sit and consider all of these things. A character who has serious issues and a backstory with a great deal of regret that adds to the complexity of a character is something I personally enjoy. No one is perfect, and people who try to portray a character as such should rethink that. Furthermore, happy endings. All these stories want to end where everyone is holding hands and racing into the sunset. Not me. Even saving the day has consequences.

~M
 
@Daze E. Chain. There was already a pet peeves thread a few posts down from yours, so I just merged yours into the original thread since they were the same topic.
 
Vixen said:
Would Harry Potter think of Hermione as 'the bushy-haired brunette'?
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I can respect the amount of thought put into this, but I must respectfully disagree. "What's in a name?" becomes irrelevant when names are arbitrary. I often find myself referring to other characters by visible traits and well expressed emotional or verbal tendencies. Or, consider the existentialist mentality of being what you do. A huntress might be named Daphne, but that was a name assigned for no real reason, where "huntress" is a description of who she is at her core.

"The huntress with emeralds in place of her eyes" is a visceral reaction of a very real assessment of the person they are dealing with. I like having my character see others for what they are and what they do, not for what they're told to see.

I forgot to add, since this is a pet peeve thread:

Telling me what my character is meant to feel or deduce Feed me empirical hints, but telling me my character is supposed to view yours as deeply attractive, and therefore is attracted to your character is a huge turn off. The most beautiful woman to one man could be a total annoyance to another.
 
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My pet-peeve mainly occurs in group roleplays. I may simply have bad luck with this, but I've seen quite often someone create a big bad boss, and instead of the entire party working together to win the day, the person who created said boss is the only one who can defeat the boss. Anyone else who tries to tackle the big bad just gets brushed aside, and only the true hero has the power to truly win the day.

I do get that there may be a single hero among the party that steps up to the plate, but when the same person who created the encounter is also the hero of the encounter, especially after a lengthy monologue making them seem more badass, it just sucks. Most of the time the rest of us just sit around not even posting since anything we do is in vain. That or get killed.

Auto-hitting is also something that irks me. That and invincibility. This was already discussed.

I also, really really hate when someone is sent to assassinate some character for an arbitrary reason, or just randomly cause mischief for no apparent reason. I get that "some people just want to see the world burn", but it's still annoying to me. Especially if they are untouchable by the law.

A lot of other people have covered things that I don't like, such as Character X Character pairings, but for me, it's more of being too restrictive. Accelerated relationships was also mentioned. This is why I don't like romance RPs.
 
My pet-peeves huh? here you go.

-The whole suicidal or character that cut themselves: no matter if it's an OC or canon,
this trend is so far the most annoying, sometimes, i met players who use-it to guilt-trip other people characters 'because they don't do what they want', wich is ridiculous, a RP is meant to be fun.. plus, some can uses that OOC (that happened to me, i blocked them since).

-Forced romance, while i'm ok with this genre, i can't stand players who force my characters to be the lovers of their, or trying to guilt-trip them if they don't fall in love,
like throwing a tantrum about 'how horrible and insensitive they are'..

-Being rejected based on the country i came from, yeah i'm french, no, i don't care
about the whole "b-but your ancestors", it's 2017.. also when people accept to RP with you but then, they are like "no, i refuse to RP with a french", more stupid, i don't see..

i may have a lot of pet-peevees, i list them later..
 
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Uh its not really a pet peeve more so i am aware of it but tends be smacked in my face over and over again. I hate when you have Learnining disablity, you explain the probelms that go along with it, they said'' its ok, i think we can see how it goes.'' I invest in my time write paragphrs and make sure i spell correctly, really trying to make it semi perfect then you stop the rp entirely, saying '' Uh yeah this won't work, yeah bye.'' I hate that man, makes me not want return to rping again.
Eh sorry sounds like i am ranting but just a major pet peeve of mine
 
FrostedMonster said:
Uh its not really a pet peeve more so i am aware of it but tends be smacked in my face over and over again. I hate when you have Learnining disablity, you explain the probelms that go along with it, they said'' its ok, i think we can see how it goes.'' I invest in my time write paragphrs and make sure i spell correctly, really trying to make it semi perfect then you stop the rp entirely, saying '' Uh yeah this won't work, yeah bye.'' I hate that man, makes me not want return to rping again.
Eh sorry sounds like i am ranting but just a major pet peeve of mine
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Heh, not that different
that explaining that english is not your first language, so i share the facepalm.
 
Here's a new list of em'.
  • "I'm going to post tomorrow." Doesn't post for the next week. Plays video games on Steam where I can blatantly see him/her/it doing it. 30+ Hours on steam. How do?
  • "How does [object/person/place/thing] work?" When that very object/person/place/thing is located in the first post of the role play. Usually in the plot, that they did not read.
  • "I'm gonna post my fantasy character in your Dystopian Sci-Fi Politics RP!" ... But why, tho?
  • "My character sheet is 40+ fields long and includes fields for theme songs!" ... Why?
  • "How do I spell X?" Just install a spellcheck on your browser, as an extension. Please. Chrome and Firefox come with them by default, why do you ignore them?!
  • "My character's parents just died in a car crash/fire/whatever." That's nice, go line up with the millions of other totally original characters that did this long before you were even a twinkle in your father's eye.
  • "I'm going to write a three paragraph post, where all three paragraphs are internalized monologing that nobody can know without metagaming, and then be confused when nobody interacts with me and the RP dies." ... You do you, summer child.
 
Nilum said:
Oi'. I've got a few.

Length and language conflated for quality: The manner by which a statement can be crafted is indeed numerous in the significant number of editable linguistic paradigms by which unique dialect and slang can be composed and wielded for such purposes as to create an aesthetically motivating but ultimately benign and superfluous expression of the artistic talent that one possesses through the utilitarian utilization of a thesaurus to demonstrate the irrevocable truth of how incredibly perplexingly elongated this particular journalistic entry is thus perpetrating my own superiority through a vitriolic vomit-inducing verbiage spree.

Translation: Wanting to look smart by taking a simple statement and inflating it is like eating ten times as much because you think the extra nutrients will help you. They don't, they just make you fat and unappealing. Like your paragraphs.

Spellcheck: Use it. dis dun mak gud werds guvna.

Antisocial Whatevers: With a few exceptions, antisocial characters tend to disinterest me at best--irritate me at worst. Unless the entire narrative is built around the antisocial character, their presence rarely adds anything, and often just distracts from other, more important things. No, I don't care that Korusaki Ichikawa is brooding in a corner; Godzilla is blowing up the city right now. That's more pertinent.

Confusing plot and premise: Happens all the time. All the time!
  • A premise is the basic idea of a work. "The knight saves the princess from the dragon with his sword."
  • A plot is the series of events within that work. "The knight starts out in a little hamlet and learns of the princess's fate, thus he springs into action by travelling to the King, who then talks to him about..."
[Blank]x[Blank]: Like I'm supposed to know what to do with this, sweet summer child. It's alright to not really know what kind of premise you want to do, but don't just drop a list of 50-something pairings and expect me to know what to do with it.

YOU HAVE TO BE SEMI-LITERATE!: What the actual fuck ferret does this actually mean? Literacy is not something you can measure, reading and writing comprehension is. Literacy is literally the ability to read and write. So is someone who is semi-literate only able to read every third word, or something? I mean if you want to go there, shouldn't you be using grade school level reading and writing comprehension levels to give someone a more accurate idea of what you're looking for?

Four paragraphs per post required: Read this.

The Invincible Man: Yes, it sucks to lose. Boy does it ever... But, it's a character's greatest source of growth potential, period. Characters sometimes need to lose--lose the girl, lose the house, lose a valued possession, lose a battle, lose an argument, et cetera--so they can learn their faults and grow from them. Besides, joy and victory are hollow without having known the bitter taste of loss and sorrow too. So whenever I see the character that just never loses, I tend to be turned away pretty quickly by these.

I mean, the same is true for perpetual losers though. Characters that exist purely to be pitied don't entertain me for long either.
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Pertaining to your post, I believe in elongated, thought out, descriptive paragraphs. But no more than one or two. I don't like being forced to write a book every time I ppst, but I do like to set a scene, or delve into my characters history and thoughts.
But, this goes for being the reader as well. I hate having to read a Book for a post, because it detracts from the actual scene, or even the main idea of the post, and almost forces you to pick and choose what you find important, and sometimes most of what you choose is not.
 
Oh i forgot to add: antisocial players,
i had dealed with that recently.. so basically, i request them nicely if they want to RP,
and you know what i can have as answer? exemple: "no, fck off! you *insert randomn insult*"

gee, what the hell if their problem? and don't get me started with the "life", i don't have an easy one, but i don't think i will insult anyone for no reasons..

some of the antisocial appeared to be elitists.. "write multipara or novella, or *insert randomn insult"..

White-knight: when i got into an argue, i hate when someone else, whom i know nothing about, defend the antisocial "because it's their best friend ever!!", there's nothing defendable, by the way..
 
Moshanimitsu said:
Pertaining to your post, I believe in elongated, thought out, descriptive paragraphs. But no more than one or two. I don't like being forced to write a book every time I ppst, but I do like to set a scene, or delve into my characters history and thoughts.
But, this goes for being the reader as well. I hate having to read a Book for a post, because it detracts from the actual scene, or even the main idea of the post, and almost forces you to pick and choose what you find important, and sometimes most of what you choose is not.
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General rule of thumb for decent pacing? Unless it's expository dialogue purposed for building a relationship between characters, or constructing a complex scene, you normally want to aim to have at least one action per paragraph. At least. Sometimes more, depending on the scene. Action scenes generally demand more actions, whereas post-battle scenes or individual character building scenes generally demand less actions. Ordinarily, you want to sync this up with the general tone of a scene--if it's a rising action scene filled with intensity, more actions, less exposition. If it's a falling action scene, you want less actions, more exposition.

Regardless, you always want to tie your character firmly to what is going on, and to their next objective, and to the characters around them. You can make a ten paragraph post interesting and on target, but ordinarily, most of your posts are going to be far shorter than that. Idealistically, in an action sequence, you probably don't even want more than 1-2 paragraphs--because, keep in mind, you are not the only writer. Your 1-2 paragraphs are going to be added into a pile of other posts of varying length. Combining just six players together who all insist on writing 6-8 paragraphs can easily and grotesquely balloon a simple scene into a 48 paragraph schizophrenic fucking nightmare that nobody wants to read.

Ergo, why the first thing on my mind was "writing books for posts." Unless you have a massive scene to set up or it's a collaborative effort between multiple players to present an entire scene from beginning to end? I normally don't want it. Because I have a lot of other things to do with my time than spending four hours reading "and they finally decided to attack the dragon." :p
 
Nilum said:
General rule of thumb for decent pacing? Unless it's expository dialogue purposed for building a relationship between characters, or constructing a complex scene, you normally want to aim to have at least one action per paragraph. At least. Sometimes more, depending on the scene. Action scenes generally demand more actions, whereas post-battle scenes or individual character building scenes generally demand less actions. Ordinarily, you want to sync this up with the general tone of a scene--if it's a rising action scene filled with intensity, more actions, less exposition. If it's a falling action scene, you want less actions, more exposition.

Regardless, you always want to tie your character firmly to what is going on, and to their next objective, and to the characters around them. You can make a ten paragraph post interesting and on target, but ordinarily, most of your posts are going to be far shorter than that. Idealistically, in an action sequence, you probably don't even want more than 1-2 paragraphs--because, keep in mind, you are not the only writer. Your 1-2 paragraphs are going to be added into a pile of other posts of varying length. Combining just six players together who all insist on writing 6-8 paragraphs can easily and grotesquely balloon a simple scene into a 48 paragraph schizophrenic fucking nightmare that nobody wants to read.

Ergo, why the first thing on my mind was "writing books for posts." Unless you have a massive scene to set up or it's a collaborative effort between multiple players to present an entire scene from beginning to end? I normally don't want it. Because I have a lot of other things to do with my time than spending four hours reading "and they finally decided to attack the dragon." :p
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Absolutely, I agree wholeheartedly. Besides, as someone who has to do real life things in between posts, I don't always have the time to read EVERYTHING for a large post, and as you said, when multiple people are trying to create their novella posts, it can definitely detract from the situation, and my urge to reply in a timely manner.
 
Using "orbs", "optics", or "gaze" instead of "eyes".

Orbs were once a term used to describe breasts. "Her soft, pale orbs glistened in the moonlight." Context.
Optics is not and will never be a word for eyes. It is the study of how light behaves.
Gaze is a verb.

Why do people always have to describe eyes anyway? I understand that they're 'windows to the soul' but I get a more effective impact when I get a description of a character's movements. Emotion is much more apparent if the character actually reacts to what they're feeling, not just staring at things.

"His optics flashed with anger" isn't as powerful as:

"She pursed her lips and crossed her arms."
"He turned to leave, his fists still clenched."
"She buried her head in her hands, her teeth bared as angry sobs wracked her body."

Another thing, why are character's eyes always blue or green? Or change color with their mood? Or heterochromic?
Why are brown eyes avoided like the plague?

 
Cailin said:
Why do people always have to describe eyes anyway?
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Because a lot of human body language goes into the eyes. Like, a lot. Like, an absolutely comical amount. For just about every piece of body language you can read in the face, the arms, the shoulders, the way they stand, and so on, you can also read from a person's eyes. How they look at you, the size of their pupils, the position of their look, the position of their eyelids, and so on.

There's a reason why, in acting for film and TV, one of the most bog standard but effective shots to convey an actor's emotions toward the scene around them, is to do a face shot. Because you get to see their lips, their cheek muscles, their eyebrows, and so on--but you also get to see their eyes. The mark between a good actor and a poor actor can be seen in how they react to situations with their eyes--if they seem glazed over and bored, or if they're wide open and trying too hard, or if they really do seem to be suspending their own disbelief to sink into the gravity the scene they're in.

It's also why horror creatures often prominently feature bizarre, intense looking eyes (often more than two of them), or have no eyes at all and make you feel uncomfortable by their mere presence--like the Alien from the Aliens franchise. Or, why a stormtrooper in World War 2 wearing a gas mask and burning men alive is an inhumane, unsettling, terrifying feeling, whereas the hero--whose face you can see, who is using a rifle and trying desperately to save his friends--is humanized, and you can relate to them without even really knowing much about them. A lot of human empathy is expressed through eye contact. As are feelings of passion--whether of love, or hate.

I agree that it's generally overused by novice writers who don't have a true mastery over expressing character emotions, but, I can see why it is overused. It is one of the most powerful conveyors of emotion, which is why you should generally try to avoid abusing it, but, I digress. I figured you might want an explanation on that, since you asked.
 
Of course, you can't describe the emotion in eyes in text as well as you can when looking at a real person's face, thus my irritation with people trying to do so.
I don't doubt the feelings that can be expressed in eyes--just the ability for people to replicate that in text.
 
This may just be me being picky, but I get extremely irritated when people don't have developed characters.
Don't get me wrong, I very much understand having characters that are new and that the user don't know very well. I at least think they should have an understanding of who they want them to be, though. At least an outline of a backstory, some weaknesses, the way they speak, something! I find it difficult to roleplay with people who have basic or bland characters. I guess this goes hand in hand with cliches. But when all we get to know is that Becky has ombre hair, loves to drink Starbucks, wear leggings and watch Netflix all day, I can't help but cringe and sprint to my hidey hole.
It may be that I take a stupid amount of time to give my characters a backstory and a vivid personality, but I don't see why a fellow writer wouldn't do the same. It make the character more real and therefore more believable and fun to interact with.
C'mon people. Give your characters some dark and twisty secrets. Bring them to life.
Adding to my mini-rant, when characters don't have last names it kind of makes me uncomfortable.
 
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