A Few of My Bookish Pet Peeves

Greetings.


Ever since my most recent post, in which I offered several book recommendations (you should read it if you haven't already; I worked quite hard on it and am exceedingly proud of it) I've been wanting to do a sort-of follow-up in which I discussed some book-related annoyances of mine. Well, I suppose it's only a follow-up in the sense that, like the previous post, it relates to books, but several of my posts do that, so...... anyway. And of course, most of my previous book-related posts have been talking about books or authorly choices that annoy me, so I suppose this post is an extension of an already-existing list of pet peeves. But now I'm starting to ramble.


Ahem.


When I'm More Intelligent than a Book's Main Character(s)


There are few things that I, as a reader, find more irritating than those instances when I figure out the twist ending or see the red flags or guess the location of the next clue before the morons in the book, and am then forced to sit back and watch them blunder around like idiots, wondering where to go next or trying to figure out who the murderer is or, most frustratingly, revealing detailed versions of their plans to the obvious bad guy(s). Over the years, there have been an upsettingly large amount of characters who are so dense they make me feel brilliant by comparison, and more than once such a character has been the difference between me liking a book and (figuratively) throwing it across the room in disgust.


When The Only Good Thing About a Book is the Writing


Twice within the past two months, I have come across a story (one standalone book and one series) with this fault, although the two cases have been different. With the standalone book, which I started almost a month ago and haven't finished yet (it's taking me an uncommonly long amount of time to read for reasons I'll explain in a moment) the goodness of the writing is found in its beauty. Elegantly and oftentimes almost poetically descriptive, the narrative passages are probably some of the best I've ever come across. In addition, the book contains some profound, comforting, and wonderful insights into the concept of home. The book series was nothing like this, and was instead "good" because it was crafted in such a way that it was addictive (I had to finish it, I had to know what happened next, I had to know where everybody was going to end up, etc.). However, despite their drastically different writing styles, these two stories have one thing in common: they both contain insufferably annoying characters and hateful plots.


So maybe I shouldn't complain about good writing. Really, I think the writing was only an irritation in the book series, when I hated the main characters and all the likable characters died and the plot grew more complicated and preachy with each ensuing book but I couldn't bring myself to yank out my bookmark because the author had so thoroughly sucked me in. I'm actually almost enjoying the standalone book on virtue of the writing alone, because it's just that good (although I haven't picked it up in days because I'm so done with the characters).


I don't know. I'm not at my most eloquent this evening, so I'll just say one more thing before moving on: It's annoying to encounter good writing and talent which is not backed up by the creation of likable characters and situations.


When a Main Character Changes in the Last Book


I might be able to guess what you're thinking. "But, Pearl, characters are supposed to change in books. That's called character development." Yeah, I'm not actually talking about character development. Character development is totally necessary and (if done well) not even remotely annoying. I'm talking about when a character experiences a drastic and unnatural physical or mental transformation in the final book of a series, a phenomenon which I have encountered at least four times (well, five if you count Twilight, but I'm not counting Twilight for a number of reasons). Why does this seem like a good idea? I mean, seriously, I haven't been following these characters and growing fond of them and getting all invested in their fates over the course of three or four books just to have them be forcibly changed so that they're no longer properly themselves. Seriously, does anybody enjoy twists like that?


Allow me to be more specific. The four final-book transformations I can think of off the top of my head are 1) four main characters getting their memories wiped so that they completely forget the events of the entire book series, 2) a main character's memories being substantially altered so that his personality radically shifts, 3) the main character, a teenage girl, being transfigured irreversibly into a unicorn (that was a weird series), and 4) one of the main characters getting injected with genetic modification material which noticeably alters her appearance and enhances her senses.


So, now that you know the specifics, I ask again, do any of those endings sound pleasant or satisfying to you? Maybe they do to you, but I just don't see the point of them. As an aspiring author myself, I can't imagine changing the memories or the DNA of one of the characters I'd painstakingly crafted over the course of multiple books. It feels like a cheap, easy, immediate way of introducing new plot points or resolving old ones. It's silly, it's irritating, and I'm tired of encountering it.


When the First Book in a Series is not Properly Labeled


I really shouldn't have to explain why this is annoying, but I'll make an effort to anyway. This is another problem I have encountered multiple times in recent months. I read two books in a row that in no way indicated they were anything but freestanding stories. The first ended in such a devastating cliffhanger I didn't know what to do with myself for quite some time afterward (I now know that said book is the first in a planned trilogy, and that neither of the two sequels have even tentative release dates), and the second, while featuring a much less shocking and discomfiting ending, still left many unanswered questions and intriguing possibilities (I don't know how many sequels this one's going to have; I also have no idea when the next book's coming out). Luckily, I didn't love either of these books, so I'm not frantically pining for the sequels, but...... still.


What's especially upsetting about this is how incredibly easy it is to indicate that the book is the first in a planned series. You just write on the cover, "The First Book in the (Insert Series Name Here) Series". Or maybe finish the author bio with, "So-and-so is now working on the sequel to the book you're holding". There are other possibilities. There are oodles of ways to tell readers that they are not picking up a complete story besides just letting them reach a cliffhanger ending and make their own conclusions. It's not that difficult. It's not even remotely difficult. SO WHY DON'T PEOPLE DO IT??????


And lastly (for now),


When People Quote Characters but Cite Authors


In my freshman year of highschool, I was in a British Literature class. On the first day, our teacher handed out the syllabus and proceeded to read it aloud to us. The first lines of the syllabus were "Emily Bronte once said, 'I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.'"


How lovely.


Except for one little detail, and you'll have to excuse me because I'm about to yell.


EMILY BRONTE DIDN'T SAY THAT.


Catherine Earnshaw said that.


Yeah, Emily Bronte wrote that. But she didn't say it.


I wouldn't be surprised if Emily Bronte experienced mind-altering dreams in her life and expressed the feelings said dreams gave her through the lips of Catherine Earnshaw. And sure, it's probably not unreasonable to think Catherine Earnshaw might share character traits with Emily Bronte. But you can't just attribute a Catherine Earnshaw quote to Emily Bronte, because they are two different people who might very well have completely different outlooks on things.


I feel like people do this a lot, too. They quote a character but the name following the quote is the name of the author who created the character. And every time I see it I get annoyed. So maybe I'm overreacting, but I think it's ridiculous to assume authors agree with their characters all the time.


Think about it: imagine you're an author writing a book. For this book, you create a character whose viewpoint on a certain matter is the complete opposite of your own. But you're a fair, talented, and diplomatic sort of an author, and so you're able to give this character you disagree with a beautiful speech extolling the virtues of the viewpoint opposite to yours. In fact, it's so beautiful that all sorts of real people with that opposing viewpoint start quoting that speech to defend their view. And who do they cite as the original speaker?


You.


So now you're known as one of the greatest and most eloquent champions of a viewpoint you don't even begin to agree with because apparently nobody around you realizes that an author writing something is not the same thing as an author saying something.


Now I'm going to use a slightly more ridiculous example to further drive my point home.


As I've said before, I'm an aspiring writer, and for several months I've been working on a manuscript about (among other things) a war. There is, in this manuscript, a character who is a soldier and also a complete jerk. At one point, he returns from a great victory and is met by his sister, who scolds him for never writing to her and demands that he tell her what all he and his fellow men did while out campaigning. In reply, he says this:


"Fine. We beat the Llenyen soldiers back until they cried for their nasty Llenyen mamas, and then we violated their women, ate their children, and crushed their mangy grasshoppers beneath our superior feet."


(I'd like to note here that he's kidding.)


Quite frankly, I love that line. I'm proud of that line. That's a good line. But if ever this manuscript is published and for some bizarre reason I have fans who are quoting that line, they'd better attribute it to the character and not to me. I didn't say that. I would never say anything like that. I only wrote it. And I presume that a lot of other authors feel similarly about certain lines their characters say. So as a general rule, I say that even if you consider a character to be based on their creator, you should still cite the character as the speaker if they're the one who said the line.


That's all for now, folks.


~Pearl Clayton


PS. Okay, I lied, one more example to demonstrate why you should cite characters and not authors.


"Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass." - William Shakespeare


Ya see why that should say "Dogberry" instead?