World, Writing, Wealth discussion

As the saying goes: "Too many books; too little time!"

What are your top reasons for DNFing?

* Plot too slow.
* Plot is meandering.
* Too much physical description.
* It's just boring.
* MC is stupid.
* MC is aggravating.
* Too much irrelevant internal dialogue.
* World is unbelievable.
* Writing is too flowery.
* Writing is lackluster.
* Too many typos and grammatical errors. I can't stand it if I'm editing and reading at the same time!

My example, I DNF'd Warm Bodies because the plot was too slow, a zombie as one of the MCs just couldn't hold my attention, and falling for a zombie was just too unbelievable.

Insane amounts of pointless, graphic violence. If my brain is going to be assaulted by mayhem and gore there better be a good reason lol.

I can't say I have a "top" reason because I very rarely fail to finish. Any of those reasons might do it but on their own aren't guaranteed deal-breakers.

Just looked back at my one & only DNF on this site. The writing was good, the worldbuilding OK, the MC relatable, and stuff was happening. I can't say it was boring as such, but I put it down 1/5 the way through because nothing of any significance had happened that made me care one whit what came next.

Ian wrote: " I put it down 1/5 the way through because nothing of any significance had happened that made me care one whit what came next."

which one was that? ;)

Hmm, usually it's a combination. If the prose is too purple it feels slow and meandering, and usually is, which in turn makes the MC kind of uninteresting. I've also started to read and on the first page there were typos, not a good start, and a page later there was half a sentence. So did not go any farther.

Hehe, I've just worked out what DNF means! For me, I'm easily bored which is the main reason that I don't finish because I fancy reading something of a different genre. I do like to try to finish a book though, even though I may not particularly enjoy it; I tend to give it the benefit of the doubt that it will pick up further on.

#1 Bor-ring... pronounced Borrr - ringgg.

(And just because I like lists....)

#2 Portraiture - i.e. a complete lack of a narrative arc where all the characters are unchanged at the end of the story.

#3 Really bad writing where the author meanders around and substitutes flowery descriptions for their inability to describe concisely what is actually happening.

#4 Wooden, shallow characters.

#5 Rubbish grammar.

#6 Offensive topics.

I hate not to finish books..., but I'd be more willing now with all the time constraints.
Boring would be a sufficient reason or something too simplistic, like unbelievably heroic or just everything too obvious and successful

I'm pretty sure that I have something "unbelievably heroic" within me - but done as parody.

Graeme wrote: "I'm pretty sure that I have something "unbelievably heroic" within me - but done as parody."

Parody is a different animal altogether -:)

when 1+1=5
lots of typos, especially from the first paragraph
boring

TSTL characters for me is #1. Then there's unsympathetic characters...and a fine line for me is when the author tries to make the character too sympathetic...
But my biggest peeve for DNFing is a slow pace. If I'm struggling to turn the page at page 20 itself, I know it's not gonna get done.
Also 'hurts' with me because as an editor, my eye and brain have been trained to spot issues in books from 10-20 pages in already, so I tend to identify 'my' peeves in books I'm reading early on so it's then a no-go for me.
Also found I have more patience with non-fiction, which has made it hard for me to find good fiction reads to enjoy lately. When I find one that's held my attention start to finish, it definitely gets 5 stars from me then!

Not sure if I should add my two cents after being censored in another group for actually defending books others DNF.

There is a channel on a Godzilla kick this month. They're showing just about everything put out up through the 70s, including the original Japanese film from the 40s. Essentially, these movies involve a guy in a rubber costume, hamming it up on screen, while it sounds like the Japanese are being dubbed in a funny English translation, and there's something so ridiculous about them it's funny. They fall in the bad, but good category and that's why they're such classics. You almost see they played up the cheesiness as the years went by and the movies kept coming.

It seems like audiences today want perfect realism in movies, CG has to be spot on, and the acting has to be true to life. I don't think you can put out a cheesy movie these days because people are so critical, they won't accept it. That is sort of how I approach some (by all means, not all) indie ebooks. I like when a book can be bad in a way that makes it entertaining.

To be honest, only books I couldn't finish were those assigned back in the school days. I had one I stopped reading last summer because the story just couldn't make up for the editing problems, but I took it up again this summer to force myself to clear it out of my to-read list, and was glad I did so because the story picked up and the book turned out to be everything I like about these flawed works. If anyone is interested, it was called Star Raiders and the Lost Expedition. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

If anything that book was an example of why you need a strong opening to capture your reader. Strangely enough, the only book I didn't entirely like on my list was David Weber's Honor of the Queen, his second book in the Honorverse series. It wasn't the feminist message or the weak decisions Honor made early on that turned a lot of people off that bothered me, but the mechanics of the story. The opening chapter is as far from a hook as you can imagine. He breaks the "show don't tell" rule all throughout - first piece of action comes at the 33% mark, and just when it starts to heat up, he cuts away and tells us what happened next as a post-game wrap-up of sorts. It was such a drastic change from his first book, I felt like he was intentionally dulling down the book.

Usually bad writing, or a writing style that annoys me.

I DNF'd a book for too much "and then... and then... and then...." and another for language that was just too flowery without actually saying anything )or making sense, for that matter).

Another recent one was a non-fiction where the auther disqualified herself from being qualified to write about the topic by suddenly abandoning the scientific approach and inserting a whole chapter on "indigo children", which, of course, she herself also claimed to belong to. That would be fine to discuss, but not when writing about a specific medical condition.

For me, the worst is plot irrelevancies/padding, especially where the author starts to impose him/herself. The next worst is a MC who is clearly unsuited for the task ahead. I just know a series of highly improbable miracles will be presented. A subset of this is the wounded here. With a major gut wound, he carries on as if nothing had happened. Yeah, right.

Ian wrote: "For me, the worst is plot irrelevancies/padding, especially where the author starts to impose him/herself. The next worst is a MC who is clearly unsuited for the task ahead. I just know a series of..."

oh yeah, in one of my rough drafts i had one of the MCs walking around with a couple of broken ribs--an editor called me out on that one.

What is DNFing

Ƙανу Jαcкѕση Ƒυℓℓвυѕтєя ~And now I see you've got something to prove, And nothing to lose, so let me tell you the truth.~ wrote: "What is DNFing"

Did not finish.

Ian wrote: "For me, the worst is plot irrelevancies/padding, especially where the author starts to impose him/herself. The next worst is a MC who is clearly unsuited for the task ahead. I just know a series of..."
I admit I'm guilty of characters getting lucky when it comes to working through major injuries.

My title character in Dione's War loses an eye. Her friend is worried about infection, but she manages to struggle through it and avoids infection.

In the climax of my current project, the MC is running around after getting a severe blow to the head. He complains throughout about his head not being clear, and eventually passes out during the final "battle," but in the wrap-up, he says that he's able to rest through it until he and his friends get home and get medical attention.

One thing that stopped me after a few pages was the author's main character objectifying everyone. He called the short nurse "midget," the tall nurse "amazon." Out of curiosity I skimmed the book and, yep, at the end the MC was doing the same thing. She (the author) did it with everyone who disagreed with her male MC. This is a well-regarded book in some circles, but nope. Since this was a GR club read, I just stopped. If I'd kept going I would have made terribly uncharitable remarks - and since the moderator 'loved!' the book it would not have gone well! :-)

To side track a bit, that was a female author doing it for those disagreeing with a male character? Usually you see that kind of thing towards the opposite gender, whether intentional or not.

I read one book where the male author wrote about a group of military recruits going through training. To his credit, the cast was pretty evenly split, but then when the group got in trouble, it was usually the women who needed saving. My "favorite" was a sequence involving the team having to cross a deep river. While some of the men couldn't get across without help, every single woman got caught in the current and needed the men to pull them out.

I have to say, as a white male, it's always going through my mind that I have to avoid writing every character as white and male. And when I create the diversity, I'm always mindful as to what role anyone who isn't white and male plays. While there's nothing inherently wrong with having a female character who needs help from a man, it does have to be balance to where the men also need help from the women at some point and/or the women have something important to offer that the men don't.

The book sucks or it's boring, plain and simple.

As the saying goes: "Too many books; too little time!"

What are your top reasons for DNFing?

* Plot too slow.
* Plot is meandering.
* Too much physical description.
* It's just boring.
* MC is stupid.
* MC is aggravating.
* Too much irrelevant internal dialogue.
* World is unbelievable.
* Writing is too flowery.
* Writing is lackluster.
* Too many typos and grammatical errors. I can't stand it if I'm editing and reading at the same time!

My example, I DNF'd Warm Bodies because the plot was too slow, a zombie as one of the MCs just couldn't hold my attention, and falling for a zombie was just too unbelievable.

Alex wrote: A whole list of things that looks exactly like mine.

Like seriously Alex, get out of my head, there's only room in here for me.

I used to try to finish everything, now I just don't care. Too many books, too little time, indeed.

The writing style can be a killer for me. Too flowery, poor spelling or grammar, or plot holes big enough to drive a semitrailer through.

Unreadable, and lack of a discernable plot.

I've seen both issues a couple of times. By unreadable, I mean I literally want to scratch my own eyes out rather than keep reading.

I put books aside part-read more than I did - I think as one gets older, one has less time left and is less ready to waste it!

My most common reason is simply that I don't care about the characters or their eventual fate. But I can also be annoyed by a lack of concision in the writing. When it comes to grammar and spelling, though, I'm quite forgiving. As I am an editor in my day job, that should be surprising, but perhaps I just like being off duty!

Does DNF mean you don't finish it? That's what it seems like...
If so, I generally try not to DNF. I hate not finishing a book, even if it's bad.
I have done it before, but the books I haven't finished I want to go back and do so eventually. I didn't stop because they were boring, poorly written or anything like that (badly written or not I'm stubborn and just have to see something to the end even if it's awful. At least for now. Who knows what the future holds.)

Of the books I've DNF'd, three were because I was very confused and wasn't in the headspace to decipher the older language:
Dracula (which I WILL go back to, it's been a few years)

Beowulf (which I read in school and want to try rereading again)

Measure for measure (I still don't understand this one.)

There were three others I can think of I didn't read for emotional reasons. One was too hard and sad to get through at the time, one I personally didn't feel I had time to read for class, and the other, well...zombies give me anxiety. They used to haunt my nightmares.

All Quiet on the Western Front (I really want to finish this but it was so tragic, however curious and interested I am in that era, I had to stop)

Mrs. Dalloway (Also want to go back and finish this, now that I'm older and in a better place.)

World War Z (...we will see.)

I tend to finish most I buy, but a boring plot with tedious dialogue and characters that are more stereotypes put me off.

Mike wrote: "I put books aside part-read more than I did - I think as one gets older, one has less time left and is less ready to waste it!

My most common reason is simply that I don't care about the character..."

Same here, I stop reading a book far more often now than I did when I was younger. Maybe because the older you get the more patience life requires......so you have less patience for books that just don't work that well.

For me, inconsistent characters and plots full of holes are the main reason why I dnf.

If a book is boring I put it down and try again later, because the fault could have been mine and it might be a book I would enjoy under different circumstances.

With certain genres the suspension of disbelief is key to enjoying a book......fails in this area are epic and the main reason why I will quit reading speculative fiction. Misrepresentations of a book in the blurb or synopsis are another reason why I quit reading. I have also learned to ignore the glowing endorsements written by celebrity authors.

Hitting the reader over the head constantly with a moral message is another pet peeve. When a books plot focuses around endless virtue signalling and preaching I just can't force myself to read it.

I'm with you, Mike. For many years, finishing a book was a point of pride for me. Don't give up! But as I've aged, I've realized that I have limited reading time left in life. If a book doesn't engage me, for whatever reason, I will stop reading after 50 pages. Do you, as writers, think that 50 pages is reasonable?

well, if you have not hit some good storytelling after 50 pages, then you are on a slow boat to nowhere.

I also think that if something has not struck your interest within fifty pages, then that book is not for you.

Lilyn G. (Scifi and Scary) wrote: "I just don't care about the characters. That's the big one for me. I read a lot of science fiction and horror, and I love lots of action and gore. (I'm a bit bloodthirsty.) But if I don't care even..."

Grammar and spelling so poorly done I have to read the paragraph twice to figure out what it is supposed to say. Lime you, I read lots of indies in the sci-fi genre. I know nothing about publishing but every wordprocessor I have used on a computer has spelling and grammar checks and I do not understand why they are not being used as they would clear up most spelling and half the grammar.

I am 58. It is only the past year that I have indulged in DNF.

Sci-fi and mystery or legal thrillers are What I Read. Too Much Description Without Action in The First; Boring Characters And An obvious Ending In the second; and Incorrect Legal Processes And Unbelievable Behavior By lawyers or judges In The third have go on my DNF pile. Sometimes THese are books that ARE Popular WITH good reviews and I have a kindle collection TItled "Boring But Has Good Reviews'.

My Cousin Vinny Is just as real As The Client, But Having been A paralegal For 30+ years, I can't Tolerate Badly Written Characters in legal fiction. Lately, there is a certain author who has written so many Books That They Now Read LIke a formula, so I tossed aside a couple of his. I Like Book Series With the same characters (not Cliffhangers) But They Shouldn't be so much Alike That I Can't Tell Book 12 From Book 15.

I Will Read Books With Bad Grammar, Spelling, And Punctuation but I Automatically Deduct 1 Or 2 Stars And Include It As An Issue In Any Review I Write. Unless It Is An Exceptional Story That Grabs My Interest I Won't Continue Reading Books By That Author Until I see Reviews Leading Me To Believe The Author has addressed the problem.

Too much internal dialogue where the MC is Repetitive In Their Thoughts Seems To Be a problem In MANY young Adult books. A Recent Trilogy Where The 3rd Booj Was Finally Released Made Me Want To Throw My Kindle Across the Room because Of how often the MC Thought THe guy Was Hot. If It Had Been The 1st Book In The trilogy, I Would Not have Continued Reading It.

Ignore The Caps. My Tablet Keeps Giving Me Problems.

Lizzie wrote: "Lilyn G. (Scifi and Scary) wrote: "I just don't care about the characters. That's the big one for me. I read a lot of science fiction and horror, and I love lots of action and gore. (I'm a bit bloo..."

Word's spelling/grammar check is horrible. My work would come out worse if I actually took most of its suggestions. Not to mention it wants to replace every gender specific reference with a gender neutral term. Businessman to businessperson, waiter or waitress to waitperson, etc.

J.J. wrote: "Word's spelling/grammar check is horrible. My work would come out worse if I actually took most of its suggestions. ..."

Been a few years since i used one. Maybe the answer is to pull out an old version of Word frim 2005 or earlier?