Leet speak in the summary...i don't even want to know what's haunting this retard of an author.

Agreed...K+ stories are a waste of my time.

Long chapters...i like. I like reading them, and i like writing them...it shows some amount of dedication form the author, which is a plus even if the story sucks.

Authors actively review whoring in their summaries...waste of time. If the story is good, i might review, but if they're being idiots and overemphasizing their desparate need for reviews...i won't.

If the word 'Hiatus' or 'Abandoned' is present, then i don't bother reading it. Why spend the time when there are gonna be no updates?

Once again, i'll state my ardent wish for a slash-filter...it would make life so much easier.

LR: You can delete reviews that your story gets? Didn't know that.

 

Author's that trident other authors.

 

Only anonymous ones./

But yeah, a slash filter would rule.

I won't read abandoned fics, but I will hiatus ones, as it will be continued, and I may just read it, jusge it, and either put it on story alerts or ignore it.

That reminds me, all my stories go on hiatus June 13 -> Early September.

 

AAAH!!! NO!

Don't do it, man, don't! I'll...err, i'll buy you somehting nice! Flowers! Toys! Strippers?

Keep writing, please...i actually look forward to your updates. There's only a handful of authors whose stories i actually care to read, and you're pretty prominent on taht list, boy.

You will write. I ahve decided. Buy a laptop, and at opportune times, tell people to fuck off and leave you in peace to write.

And with hiatus fics...hint, hint, wink wink, nudge...SHOVE!

They usually stay on hiatus for a few months, and then the updates don't come. THey get abandoned...if you can't think of somehting to write in a few months, then you give up...simple as that.

So, err, don't do whatever it is that you have to do.

 

I usually avoid fics when the Genre is just Angst, Angst/General or Angst/Drama etc. I dont mind Angst/Action/Adventure though.

That just leads to a Emo fest usually.

I also avoid fics when they say "xover or crossover with XXXXX"

If you cant spell the summery, I aint going near it.

The story needs to be atleast 50,000 words for me to read, unless posted here.

Chapters need to be atleast 5,000 words long unless story was posted here.

and just about everything else you guys posted, Except what MS says, I love very long stories.

 

I H8 l337 spk!!!!1! I fucking hate anyone who puts that sort of shit in their summary.
If it has slash, I don't read it (unless under threat of violence from my friend)
Pet peeve is where an author says they suck at summaries but the story is good. They normally spell it SUMARYS as well (caps lock included). Bastards

I apologise for the language but its nearly 1am and I'm tired and drunk so its not gonna change. Mmm delicious Carlsberg Export...

 

What about long author notes? Aren\'t those annoying?

 

Only when the notes are longer than the chapter itself.

 

No I mean when the author answers his reviewers in his notes so half the chapter is a big clusterfuck of authornotes.

 

I hate post-OotP where Harry cries himself to sleep everynight thinking of Sirius. Who cares if he died? He knew him for about 2 days...cool...

 

So do I. I hate manipulative Dumbledore. Now I never read those fics. Its over done and an instant kicker. Don\'t get me wrong, I love a good Dumbles bashing once in a while but nowadays...

 

Yeah, I hate evil!Manipualtive!Dumbledore because its done bad.

The only person who has ever really got it right is Yargh!.

If I can write, I will. I'll be in a third world country...pray for me. I hope Iran doesn't deem me some sort of spy. Computers aren't uncommon, most houses have them, it's just that the place I will be staying doesn't and people there don't take kindly to leaving their computers in the hand of people for 7-8 hours. Plus, internet is almost completely firewalled and i'm not sure if ff.net is allowed.

My greatest fear is not updating, just that my state of mind will change once I get back and my fics will go in a misguided direction. Plus, since I'll be speaking farsi constantly for near 3 months, my writing style might change for the worst.

In that case, I'll have to go a month through 11 grade to get my mojo back.

I'll need to bring some good books to keep my phrases, word choice, and general thought process in line...

 

• "So i know lots of other ppl have done this before, but, well, just read it"
  
  What? Its bad enough that you are stating that your fic isn't original in the slightest, but you also don't even tell us what unoriginal idea you are using.
  
  
• Anything that sounds like a bad intro to a movie:
  
  'A past he never realized existed, a family he hever knew he had...'
  or
  'Torn through time, he rediscovers the love that he had missed.'
  
  Really, without the flashy fading between scenes that trailers have, the words alone start to sound really lame. Not to mention you haven't really said what the story is about.
  
  
• Drabble.
  
  Ok, I know alot of people here might like these, but really, who wants to finish a story they just started reading 10 seconds earlier?
  
  
• A/OC, B/OC, C/OC, D/OC
  
  Not only does this mean that the author wants a really romantic based story, but that they can't pair ANYONE up with ANYONE else already written so they have to create hords of new characters. One new OC is ok, even a few, but when we need 4 new characters and they all pair off, you know they story isn't going to be worth it.
  
  
• Ernie's Girl5, Draco'sHot59
  
  Ok, so maybe it isn't fair to base the writing ability off of the author's name, but if 1)There are 58 other people with the same name or 2) your name shows you to be that obssessed, its likely your stories suck.
  
  
• PostHBP
  
  Ok, that's alittle mean, and really not true all the time, but I do tend to shy away from anything linked with that horrid book as much as I can unless given good reason.
  

 

Amerision: You do me great honor. I try. I rather liked IP82's Dumbledore though...straight up twisted.

Farsi for 3 months? Wow...you sure you'll remember English?

And btw, i'm pretty sure Dark Lord Rostam is from Iran, and he doesn't seem to have a problem getting access to FFNet. Maybe he's related to someone important, if the situation is that dire...

Check out Internet Cafes...it'd probably cost you the equivalent of 3 bucks to rent a computer for a few hours.

 

It's not an instant-kicker for me, but I'm with MS on this one. The longer a fic is, once you hit the 100K word mark, the less likely I am to read it.

It has more to do with having read a *lot* of Harry Potter fanfic. And so much of it is just twists or changes on the same general ideas. I don't want to spend a couple hours reading an epically long chapter with rehashes of plotlines I've seen countless times before. There's a number of authors that are exceptions to this rule for me, as they consistently make the long chapters highly entertaining. But for the most part, I'd much rather read a finished 60-80K word fic than a finished 250K word fic. Just for the time invested in reading the 250K one, I could've read 3 or 4 shorter ones.

The difference for me is in a good WIP though. If I'm reading it while it's being written, and it's sucking me in, I don't mind length. Think someone like Bobmin or Abraxan. It'd take a lot more glowing recommendations on those to interest me and read 400K words or whatever. But if I have read it all, then a weekly update of 10K words or whatever can be much more enjoyable.

There's just a point where you've read so much that you expect to not enjoy reading it, and longer fics look like a longer waste of time. (So says the hypocrite in the midst of his longest fic yet).

Back on topic. Usually, unless it's something obvious in the summary like listing out every dern pairing in the world, slash, abuse, cutting, severitus, Draco, etc... I'll give the first chapter a skim through. If it looks like a whiny angst fest, shows Harry abused by the Dursleys (not that it can't be done, just that you can't interest me in it), pining for love, or focusing on just about anythying other than Harry (this includes your super original Vampires named Vlad the Lestat Count Dracul Impaler or whatever your little goth guide to suck tells you, this also includes any super original elves with spiffy names that pretty much announce the author is a friendless loser, and you'll need a translator for all the elvish phrases they must use).

These are all sort of instant-kickers for a new fic from a new author. Most of them have other fics, or a good listing of favorites that I'll base an opinion on. And once you write something that interests me, you get lots of leeway.

 

I tend to shy away from Post-HBP as well. I just dont think it can ever be done right because HBP = pussy!Harry.

A pet peeve of mine is flamers. Mainly because most people who flame stories havent ever written their own so they are hypocritical.

An instant kicker for me would be the genres. I only read Action/Adventure and humor. Horror stories arent that great. (They give me nightmares) Angst sucks, Romance sucks, (although sometimes it is bearable), and this has been mentioned but slash = quit reading story.

I used to like reading long fics, but now I want a short read with lots of dialogue and action. A 100 length fic would be bearable if it had dialogue and humor injected in it. Rosarchs blot and nonjon do this really well.

 

Instant Kicker?

Misspells and Grammer.

If you can't bother to check your work, then I deem you a bad writer.

 

Actually, I'm from So Cal, I'm just Iranian. Anyways, if you are in need of access there try going to some of their main libraries, they usually grant access.

 

grammar mistakes happen to even the best of authors so unless there are a lot of it I dont mind it. Spelling mistakes on the other hand...

With all the cliches going on in ff.net I think that the most redeeming quality of a fic is its uniqueness. If it isnt different from the rest of the fics out there it isnt worth reading.