Revived: What Do You Hate Seeing In Fics?

psyanic said:

Doubting yourself? […] You can have confidence and still acknowledge your story isn't perfect.

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Well, that's what I meant with doubting. Doubting the things we know/have drives humanity further. Will it rain if I shoot an arrow? Is there more behind gravity than Newton's formular? Is SOPA a bad thing and should we resist against it? Can I improve my story in a way, not only I but a lot of people think it's awesome?
This doubting. I just wanted to say doubting yourself can be something good, if you make something out of it and try (new) things out instead of always seesawing forth and back. If I expressed myself wrong in the past post, I apologize.
EDIT: And oh yes, there are few guys who are as confident as me when it comes to writing. I'm in fact over-convident (a.k.a. arrogant) and thus I need critic, so I'm aware WHY that what I wrote could be seen as dumb.

psyanic said:

Funny you should mention that since I haven't seen you post a story here before, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I could have just blind-eyed it, or you posted it somewhere else. Either way, I have yet to read anything of yours, as I can remember anyway.

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Well, that's just me writing in German, my native language. If you want to have some fun with the Google Translator, you can check it here. I've also created a (German) wiki about it, because it's a lot and I don't want to forget anything forever. Meanwhile I've purchased some webspace and a bilingual wiki is built here, replacing the old one. A board has been created too, but it will stay empty for a while.
Since I don't want you to cry yourself into sleep or caught up blood, I will not provide a loosy translation (something I would hate seeing in fics (now it's not offtopic anymore)), especially since my German spelling and grammar are almost perfect. I have two betas for my English, but they have a lot to do themselves (and they are no native speakers). Also they don't correct my posts :J
But there's one story I wrote in English; it was for the holiday competition. But the second part isn't betaed yet, so I won't post it for now.

I like the "can't wait for more" reviews cause it at least tells me someone is reading it, but I love the true reviews. A true critical review is more meaningful cause it shows that someone took the time to write a well thought out, critical review.

Gothitelle. said:

Characters being treated poorly due to a ship or just hatred of them.

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Or worse, having them get killed.

Gothitelle. said:

I also hate when people mindlessly praise someone's work.

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At least people are getting mindlessly praised. I'd rather have people totally take my work, dissect it and then smear it all over my face saying what needs to be different. So far, 7 chapters posted on here and no input yet at all. Kind of demotivating.

Psycho Bugler said:

At least people are getting mindlessly praised. I'd rather have people totally take my work, dissect it and then smear it all over my face saying what needs to be different. So far, 7 chapters posted on here and no input yet at all. Kind of demotivating.

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This section isn't always that active, sadly, but them's the breaks. That and it's typical in many fanfic forum sections for newer members to take a while to get noticed, so to speak. Best way to counteract that would be to be active in the forum by posting in such topics and reviewing other people's stories, which I see you're doing recently, so that's good! Have patience and sooner or later you'll get some feedback. (I will also note to avoid posting chapters too often/too quickly as that can deter some people).

FourCartridge said:

4) An overall "rushed" pace. Far too many otherwise interesting fanfics I've read had it ruined by the fic reading like it's going a mile a minute and skipping important things while doing so.

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This is probably the one single thing that I see in almost every trainer fic I've read (or even written) that ruins them. It's not the Mary Sue characters, it's not the unrealistic Pokémon, it's not even the lack of consistency with canon; it's always just the fact that the writer doesn't seem to know how to make the plot flow well.

Perhaps it's because they want to model a story on a framework or avoid unnecessary details. But the framework does not make the story. And unnecessary details are what make a story interesting, so long as they're placed correctly.

Typos and grammar mistakes. They drive me insane. The only time they don't is when the story is amazing. Not often, in other words.

Well, good mechanics just make the story more readable, but the story itself is what your main focus really should be directed at. Of course, if the grammar is piss-poor, it'll be hard to read, which makes me not want to read them at all. Unfortunately, most fanfiction is written with bad grammar and usually a plethora of typos. But there are exceptions, such as a few writers that don't speak English as their first language, so them making grammatical mistakes is pretty understandable.

Please don't bump threads over a month old, please.

Closing as this thread is already a remake to boot with that.