Deal Killers

[starshipcat]

As I'm working on multiple writing projects, I'm thinking about what things absolutely ruin a work of fiction for a significant part of the reader population. Not "badly written," so much as an element that provokes a strong negative reaction, to the point the book gets (literally or figuratively) thrown at the wall

Comments

[whswhs]

The sharpest reaction of "I'm not reading that" that I can recall hit me when I took a look at C's copy of Jane Eyre. I got into the part where Jane was in school, and developed a close friendship with an older girl. Her friend was leading a life of Christian self-sacrifice and self-denial that I just found too repugnant to read about. I put the book down and have no plan to pick it up again.

In science fiction, I'm often put off by technobabble that shows that the authors neither know the actual science nor care about producing a consistent body of imaginary science.

I'm sensitive enough to prose style that a passage that strikes an off note can make me stop reading. I can deal with ordinary errors in spelling or usage or syntax. But certain word choices just put me off.

[kalimac]

"the snowman flying and taking his human companion with him is Going Too Far."

And that is exactly the point, and the reason for it, that I gave up on any affection for or belief in the movie E.T.