When reading what will distract you from the story?

-atrocious prose
-soppy dialogue
-overly moral/can-do-no-wrong characters (Drizzt Do'Urden-The Dark Elf series used to be my favorite in middle school, but looking back on it...ugh!)

Whenever I come across an unknown word I put it in my phone's notepad and move on.

Someone who reads my stuff has a small vocabulary. She's pointed out words she doesn't understand and says I shouldn't use those words. Recently it was "russet" and "sophomoric." To me, those words are common enough I'd expect anyone to know what they mean. I won't dumb-down my prose for a reader.

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You have no idea...
The following is a message I received on myspace:

Umm hello?
Accustomed, i barely know what that means.
Accusation, exceptionally, prestigious??? Wtf???? I dont even know those words!! Serousely im only 17 if you cant speak in the english i know than stop talking! Geez. your annoying, and im bout to block u.

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I cried

............anything shiny.

C.M.C. said:

I'm troubled a bit by the comments regarding words we may or may not know. It comes too close, for my comfort, to telling authors to dumb themselves down if they happen to have an expansive vocabulary. Given the state of popular writing, as judged by the comments on this board, that's the absolute last thing we need to be encouraging.

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I hear you. But on the other hand it is irritating to have to grab a dictionary when reading a novel!

IMO the happy medium is this situation: I don't know the word, but I can figure out the meaning from the context. If I want to, I can look it up later - but I don't have to in order to undertsand the sentence/scene.

I write historical mystery, and often use nouns which are no longer in popular use (i.e., normal people wouldn't know what that kerjigger is). I try to make sure that any person reading the word would understand what it is from context.

If other authors do the same for me, I'm extremely grateful. Actually, I'm not grateful, because I don't even notice that I'm Learning While Reading

Oh, and to answer the question:

• unrealistic characters
• characters, whose author has tried so hard to make them realistic that they've sapped all the life out of them
• massive tracts of technical knowledge inserted into the narrative just because the author wants to show s/he knows it
• storylines that read like some weirdo's "wouldn't it be great if X happened to me?" fantasy. (I've posted it on AW before, but if you haven't seen it go watch Patrick Stewart's cameo on Extras - totally brilliant)

Having too many plotlines that are all waiting for a payoff. I like the book to be interesting as I go, too. If I can't figure out what is going on (or the significance, etc) until the payoff, give me something to interest/orient me as I go.

In a nutshell, books where you can't figure out what's [been] going on until the last half chapter.

XxDethmetalxX said:

You have no idea...
The following is a message I received on myspace:

I cried

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I've gotten messages like that as well. I usually respond with, "If you had told me earlier that you were an illiterate troglodyte, I would not have added you to my friends list in the first place. Fuck off and die."

Thank goodness I don't ever use MySpace. I have no appreciable presence on the web and have no desire to see proof positive of society's inexorable deterioration. If I can get my husband's kids to be literate in something, I'll consider my life successful.

steampunkette said:

I hear you. But on the other hand it is irritating to have to grab a dictionary when reading a novel!

IMO the happy medium is this situation: I don't know the word, but I can figure out the meaning from the context. If I want to, I can look it up later - but I don't have to in order to undertsand the sentence/scene.

I write historical mystery, and often use nouns which are no longer in popular use (i.e., normal people wouldn't know what that kerjigger is). I try to make sure that any person reading the word would understand what it is from context.

If other authors do the same for me, I'm extremely grateful. Actually, I'm not grateful, because I don't even notice that I'm Learning While Reading

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That's a reasonable assessment.

MGraybosch said:

I've gotten messages like that as well. I usually respond with, "If you had told me earlier that you were an illiterate troglodyte, I would not have added you to my friends list in the first place. Fuck off and die."

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I said essentially the same thing
She called me an asshole ("your an asshole"-I lol'd) and went on a (gramatically incorrect) rant about how her sister is supporting a child on a McDonalds salary and explaining that I should speak like a "normal" seventeen year old. I suppose you can't argue with stupid

IMO the happy medium is this situation: I don't know the word, but I can figure out the meaning from the context. If I want to, I can look it up later - but I don't have to in order to understand the sentence/scene.

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Exactly! If I can understand it in context I barely even notice that I don't know the word, I just kind of absorb it by osmosis.


I wouldn't dumb down, but I do try and make things clear in context to the average reader. The kind of thing I was complaining about is when even someone with a wide vocab has to look up a word every few pages because it's a) obscure / rare / specialised and b) not made clear in context.

It's a fine balance I'll grant. I don't expect never to come across a word I don't know. But it's nice if the author makes the effort to not fall off the wire

XxDethmetalxX said:

I suppose you can't argue with stupid

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Sure you can. Just use a blunt instrument. Want to borrow my tire iron? It was autographed by Tonya Harding.

IdiotsRUs said:

Exactly! If I can understand it in context I barely even notice that I don't know the word, I just kind of absorb it by osmosis.

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I agree. And I think this extends to concepts as well. I had to read Dan Simmons' Hyperion twice before I grokked what he meant by "time-debt", but I didn't blame Simmons. The information was there; I just didn't get it the first time.