I don't know if this has been said before or not, if it is then i apologize for this meaningless post.

My biggest pet peeve is if Harry is portrayed out of character without any explanation whatsoever. I can accept few changes in personality if its an AU or there is some major character development different from cannon but something about randomly changing his attitude and behavior irks me a lot.

 

It really annoys me when the story is 3rd person PoV and the author overuses descriptions instead of names, titles or pronouns to refer to characters. Like "the taller of the pair said" or "the elder one responded". Where those attributes (age/height difference) aren't significant parts of the characters.

It ends up feeling like a quiz to remember all the various attributes about the characters. I spend way to much time trying figure out who is talking. On top of that there is a good chance that each time they are used they are slightly slightly different, so you can't even get used to one as being associated with a character.

The most annoying one I have encountered is when the two characters were 15 and 16 at the time. Then during a flashback scene to a year ago it was something like "the 15 year old said". Causing the reader to spend way too much effort to actual determine which character said it. First realizing it could be referring the a different character then it normally would, then reading other context clues to determine if the author was aware of that and was using the ages during the flashback.

 

You serious? Nobody wants to read canon similiar wussy Harry.

 

I do agree with him however, that its good to see some justification for changes to Harry's attitude, rather than it being completely random.

 

Did you actually read the post in question?

He never said anything about preferring canon-similar Harry, he just said he disliked unexplained OOC-ness. And I fully agree.

 

Just ignore that bit. I don't believe it's mentioned again in the story.

 

All too often, Harry, in a fic will be little more than a disembodied mop of black hair (sorry, brunette), and a pair of glasses made from precious stones (emerald oculars).

People think they're being clever by writing this sort of shit, but what they're really doing is purple prose at its worst.

I understand the impetus behind it: avoid over repititon of names. However, you defeat the purpose when all you do is say, "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said", "the brunette said"; or, "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars", "said the boy with emeral oculars".

When I see Harry called a "brunette", I know pretty quickly that the story's gonna be shit and x-out. Yes, I know that technically, brunette can refer to a person with black hair, but in my 30 years on this planet, I've only ever heard it used in reference to brown hair in everyday conversation as opposed to shit fics.

 

I love you almost as much as the FSN character you share a name with, Rin.

 

Yes, that was what I meant. I don't have any problem with bit OOC Harry if there is good explanation for him being that way. Few examples from top of my head, Joe's 'Time Traveler Harry' or Jbern's 'HJ' or even Santi's 'Twin BWL Harry'. They fundamentally changed Harry as a character but there were pretty good explanations for that and still you could see few character traits which you could relate to cannon Harry.

The stories i am talking about are where Harry becomes voice for the authors inner rant against the characters they hate (mostly Snape, Dumbledore or Ron) or He suddenly decides Dumbledore is greatest evil in the world or the worst case where he becomes Hermione's little bitch (nearly all H/Hr fics).

 

That just reads as being awkward, and usually proves that the author cannot write dialogue properly.

Also, brunette is for females - brunet is the masculine form, like blond is for blonde.

 

I know exactly what you mean. I think I've mentioned it once before in this thread, but there's this one story where Harry is literally referred to as 'the young dandy' about 100 times in 11 chapters. What's more annoying is that it's a story written by a former DLP mod (I think?). Looking back at the story, I can't believe I actually read that at one point in time.

 

In HP fanfiction, I would say I really dislike Non-magic AU stories. What is the point ? I could understand it (sort of) in crossovers where character with HP-verse magic could wtfpwn everyone without any problems, but even then, there better be a GOOD reason for it (and author´s decision to randomly cripple his character in summary of story is not one).

 

Mostly because although they like the characters and the dynamic between said characters, magic may not fit into their plot line.

Then again, most non-magic stories suck shit.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

You know, I never knew that before.


A peeve of mine is when an author will add a note at the start of a chapter warning something along the lines of 'something really bad will happen this chapter' or 'i'm introducing a plot line that some of you might not like but I don't care'. Completely ruins the experience of reading through what could have been a decent chapter.

 

Rin brings up a point with Harry's eyes.

I get it. They are green, and brighter than usual. But the only main thing about the eyes that the books have dealt with is the similarity to Lily's eyes.

That does not mean that the author can endlessly talk about how his eyes are so gorgeous that even a fucking unicorn would look ugly compared to them.

Also, I hate when they try and explain the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes. Everything doesn't need an explanation. The moment I see that the twinkle is because of Legilimency, and the Harry also gains a twinkle, I hit the X.

 

I am sick and tired of authors making excuses for the way they characterize their characters. I want to read your story not a treatise on why your characters act the way they do.

 

Isn't the whole point of fanfiction having OOC characters? If they're not OOC then aren't they just canon characters?

Edit:

@brute if the author's any good then the story should explain why the characters act the way they do.

 

Summery

/nuff said.

 

There's thousands of fics with everyone (or at least most) in character.

Fanfiction isn't about writing OOC characters. It's about writing what you want using a real authors' world and characters. That can easily involve in character characters tackling a situation of your own design as it can be for OOC characters.