01 - When the protagonist is knocked unconscious or taken away so he/she is not a witness to an important event and neither is the reader until afterward — I only read maybe three books with this but it's still annoying because there seems to be no reason for it and if there is a reason, it isn't all that great. If the protagonist doesn't witness an event - okay fine but if the reader doesn't get to witness it either - why? So maybe in a book where readers only get one point of view it makes sense he/she wouldn't witness something when they are not there but this doesn't mean they can't get another character to tell about the event in a detail manner instead of a summary.
02 - When a character delays in telling another (mainly the protagonist) something important or hide something that could have an impact on the whole of the story or clear up a huge misunderstanding — The whole I want to protect him/her is not really much of an excuse because eventually this something will get out in the worst kind of way to make the protagonist suffer more. Once in a while, having characters tell each other secrets (sooner rather than later) is not such a terrible thing. I get so annoyed when things get dragged out for too long.
03 - A small subplot (such as a petty crime) is talked of throughout a book and then is dropped/dismissed after a while with little or no explanation — If you open up a problem, however minor, talk about it throughout the book, it should have a resolution and not a one-sentence dismissal or completely forgotten.
04 - Bad guy/villain coming back from the dead for the third or fourth time — I'm not talking about fake deaths, I'm talking about a character dies and then gets resurrected in a way that they are the same. I know some villains are so good (or loved by readers) that they get resurrected but I hate that. If a bad guy is killed off, he/she should stay dead. What purpose is it to bring back dead bad guys except to prove that the good guy will only be better if he/she battles with the same bad guy or prove how incompetent the good guy is at killing bad guys?
05 - A character (maybe the bad guy/villain or even a main character) gets minor or no punishment after they admit their wrongdoing — Some of them even get forgiven which I have always found kind of wrong especially if someone tries to kill you, forgiving them seems like saying it's okay, I don't mind dying, blab, blab... There should be consequences to people's actions, some type of punishment or karma especially if they did something terrible or wrong.
What are some of your plot pet peeves?
(I got this plot pet peeves idea from Pages Unbound over here. I couldn't comment on that post because I have no wordpress or facebook.)
[More about the group over at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog here]
Good list
ReplyDeleteGreat list! Even if I have broken a few of them - I knocked a character unconscious in one of my books and the military moved on without her even though she was supposed to be their champion, but I tried to give some reasons for it, and there is a little heads up from another character. In that same trilogy, I had a secret from the main character kept from them by someone who dies (so can't tell them), but the original reason for keeping the secret had to do with both safety (from villain) and a bit of shame - however, in hindsight, I'm not sure that was clear. It's been a while since I wrote those books, so I hope I'm a bit wiser now.
ReplyDeleteI get why those are your pet peeves. I really don't like it when the bad guy keeps getting back up again, or when bad guys or their minions multiply unexpectedly (like, where were they a few minutes before this), or when... well, let's just say my husband is an engineer and he usually gets annoyed when thriller/action movies break the laws of physics, but even I was annoyed recently when it seemed like the characters avoided an obvious solution to shutting down some fans in a building (cut the electricity/turn off the breakers), and instead did the oddest thing to resolve their problem - I mean, literally bizarre. This was in a streaming series, not a book, thankfully.
My list includes:
ReplyDeletePointless chatter somewhere the meaning is lost.
Slow plot.
Too many obstacles.
Sudden ending...
There's a soap opera I watch on TV where your plot peeve #5 abounds -- they are always getting away (quite literally) with murder! No one ever goes to jail or suffers serious consequences, lol.
ReplyDeleteAnonymously Esther O'Neill, East of the Sun, still with no signal and rubbish broadband. No fb, but that was choice, years ago. Google kept sending me security texts , left no time to run up a mountain to get a signal. This week, Wordpress did a digital lockout too - I wasn't me, mysteriously, and not-me had my name, a different blog.
ReplyDeleteYou've already listed most of my pet peeves, great list, first and most annoying, always, the romcom instant hatred to wedding bells, and like any sane person, sureley, i have a problem with forgiveness -
Minor spats, maybe. Deeply and unforgivably wrong ? Why does the person damaged have to forgive, with nothing required of the offender ? On the other hand - there's Kidnapped, Ch XXIV
. ,