Repeated phrasing.

Often, people have favourite phrases. There's actually a thread up now discussing it. But more common than dropping a quote are the characters using phrases that the author loves. Maybe whenever something goes wrong, Harry says "no use crying over spilt milk", or whenever Neville appears, somebody tells him that he's "less useful than a chocolate cauldron". I mean, I guess it's fair enough that if the author always uses that phrase, a single character might - the author's already shown that one person is willing to overuse it.

But what I actually find worse is using it across stories.

I don't know about everyone, but when I find something that I like, I try the author's other stuff too (music, fiction, films... Not just limited to fanfiction, I guess), because it is likely better than most of the dross out there.

But if, in every story, there is a character described as "twenty pounds of ass in a ten pound sack", then it grates. Firstly, because the only similar saying I've ever heard is about shit, not ass, and is a bad thing. It actually makes me think that the character is obscenely overweight, and spilling out of their trousers.
Secondly, because it's actually quite specific in use. Whilst anyone could use it, it's not the sort of words you'd expect from quite a large cross-section of people.

Maybe I just don't notice it with sayings I use, or maybe I just don't use any real idioms, but it can be really immersion breaking.

 

I'm noticing this more and more in fics. A person killed by an "Avada Kedavra" or someone flinging an "Avada Kedavra curse". A person flings or is killed by a killing curse and the incantation is "Avada Kedavra" This always throws off my reading and it's incredibly irritating.

 

I believe the hip way to write it in conversation is like, "death eaters are throwing AKs everywhere". "He was hit by an AK".

 

That's even worse. Whomever came up with that idea first should have been shot.

 

Not really, people contracting words makes sense. It's why I'm okay with some characters saying "he got crucio'ed" or "he got AK'ed" but not people saying "he got avada kedava'ed". Contraction are lazy and so are people so they make sense in dialoge.

 

You can blame JKR for that one. It's canon. I believe it was Ron that first used it in one of the last couple of books. It's annoying as fuck, but it's there.

 

Harry, you mean.

 

To think Rowling would butcher her own characters like that. She must have been using shitty fanfiction for her muse.

 

On a bit of searching it was Moody, in the Unforgivables' introduction scene.

And I don't see what's so butchered about it. She set the standards of colloquial usage in her world, and apparently some people in this thread didn't pick up on it the first time around.

 

Yeah, but it still sounds weird.

 

I might've mentioned this before, but pranks/prank wars. They're almost never funny or creative, and are a piss poor method of padding out a fic or trying to add conflict in absence of any real plot.

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and such do have potential for comedy, but goddamn, people need to use their imaginations. Slipping Malfoy a canary cream or whatever isn't that funny. And a kid cursing Snape or someone without getting nailed to the fucking wall is an instant nope.

 

fixed that for you

 

Thank you.

 

Along those lines it's always annoying to read about bets. Fred and George running a bet on when Harry and Hermione/Ginny will get together and the professors for some reason take part. Bets on how long it will take Snape to snap. Anything bet-related is overdone and adds absolutely nothing to the story.

 

Whenever I see a/an mixed up, I want to launch a tactical nuke at the perpetrator. I don't give a shit if you're French, it's a historic event, not an historic event. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS, YOU BLOODY IGNORAMUS.

 

More specifically, it's the sound, not the actual letter.

We'll meet in an hour.

It was a historic day.

I really wonder about "historic" specifically though. It's obviously an "h" sound, and also the letter H, and I see that one specifically get said out loud a fair bit as "an historic" - not so much written, though.

Weird.

 

American sensibilities about alcohol.

I'm now pretty certain I can spot an American writer just from how the characters react to teenagers drinking alcohol. In most western nations teenagers drinking alcohol isn't a huge deal, but it seems that many American writers make a huge deal about it in stories not set in the US. For example I was reading a story set in France today and the characters who are 15 made a huge deal about how naughty it would be for them to have some alcohol.

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It's getting a bit jarring.

 

Some people don't pronounce the h, I believe the NY accent specifically does not. So it's somewhat understandable confusion.

 

I'm starting to hate the word certain, as in "sort of mysterious, but you probably know, dear reader, wink wink".

Used as: 'certain green orbed wizard', 'certain cheerful presence', 'certain bushy haired genius'.