When reading what will distract you from the story?

That'd do it for me.

I'll only stop reading if something is very badly written, but I'm frequently distracted and pulled out of a story. The usual suspects are:

* Unpronounceable names.
* Words I don't understand.
* Badly composed sentences.
* Spelling mistakes.
* Pointless description/explanations.
* Repetition.
* Authorial intrusion (unless it's done as part of the story like King's Dark Tower series)
* Coincidence (a little is okay, too much is maddening)

The list goes on...

Adzmodeus said:

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* Words I don't understand.

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Does this mean you're not interested in expanding your vocabulary, or do you mean you don't like seeing made-up words, such as Aes Sedai?

The only thing that catches me out is when I'm reading a British book using American spellings.

If I'm reading an American book, then I'm reading with an American accent and I don't notice it, but trying to read British with all those Z's and missing U's... Very difficult.

Bartholomew said:

Does this mean you're not interested in expanding your vocabulary, or do you mean you don't like seeing made-up words, such as Aes Sedai?

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Of course I'm interested in expanding my vocabulary (isn't every writer?), but I have to put the book down to pick up the dictionary, which pulls me out of the story.

Made up words are fine, as long as it's clear what they mean.

When a character gets a five page background tell all right in the middle of the story, that pisses me off. When a character who is like the deli guy gets a five page background and you're never going to ever see again beyond the one line "Here's your sandwich" is a throwable offense. If they are doing said info background dumps then yeah, book is going in the garbage.

Poorly written books as in awkward sentences and such just never make it home. Books with horribly unsatisfying endings go on my crap list. Anything that really annoys me or pulls me out of the story and does it more than once, that book is gone.

Gratuitous apostrophes will result in a book-flinging. You listening, James Clemens?

I will drop a book for just one of those.

unrealistic names, gratuitous use of exclamation marks, rambling descriptions

vampires that sparkle

swhibs123 said:

vampires that sparkle

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THIS.

Or characters I find to be unbelievable.

Adzmodeus said:

Of course I'm interested in expanding my vocabulary (isn't every writer?), but I have to put the book down to pick up the dictionary, which pulls me out of the story.

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When do you expand your vocabulary then, if not while reading?

My editors kill unfamiliar three-syllable words in my writing a lot, and it drives me batty. Heaven forbid people use reading as an opportunity to learn.

I'll drop a book if I don't like (or can't possibly relate) to any of the characters. I stopped reading Palahniuk's Lullaby because I loathed all of the characters. I wished Leatherface would take his chainsaw to them. Ironically, I found the book beautifully written, but I just hated those people.

What most everybody above said, and books that are too depressing.

I threw The Lovely Bones at the wall.

It left a dent.

I'm pretty picky. It doesn't take much for me to give up on a book. Right now I'm pretty tired of leather-clad kick-ass heroines, were-anything, and vampires. Sparkly, or not.

I get annoyed when the character just thinks and thinks. And thinks some more. There is no dialogue for page after page, and not much movement forward. Enough already.

Difficult names annoy me. It stops me at their name every time trying to pronounce it right, till I either give up, or start calling them by their initial in my head so I can pass by it quickly.

Gratitous anything that comes out of left field at me. Sex, violence, or inanity. It's like smash cut, throw in something usless, smash cut back to story.

Paragraphs that start as dialogue, then after the speaker finishes thinking or sitting or whatever, there is another bit of dialogue, more thinking, and yet another bit of dialogue.

I get involved in wondering why the author is trying to hide the dialogue and forget to continue reading.

Ditto on the depressing books, there is enough in RL to take care of that need.

Factual errors in matters easily researched. Kills my trust in the diligence of the writer.

caw

Everything Philip Roth ever wrote, as well as anything that reads as if he wrote it.

“Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.” ---PR

Anything horribly written or too predictable( or where the character just thinks, and thinks, and thinks and thinks and then thinks so more.)


But, every time I put down a horrible book I feel a little bit more hopeful that one day I will get published.

Anything that reads as untrue to the character will irritate me. Once a writer establishes a character's ... um ... character, then let them have reactions and do things that sync with their established character.

If the characters do completely stupid things that no rational person would do, I get really irritated. I mean, really: There's an insane axe murderer escapee from the asylum half a mile away and the tstl heroine is home alone and hears glass breaking in her basement during a thunderstorm after the power goes out. She doesn't have a flashlight or a cell phone and all of her house phones are cordless and don't work when the power's out. But she decides to go down into the basement in skimpy pajamas and bare feet, unarmed, to see what that noise was.

All I can think is, "I hope she gets killed. She's an idiot."

I'm also distracted by:

Poor attempts at accents and 'folksy' speech patterns attributed to people from the South.

Those damned phonetically spelled words that are supposed to make us 'read' in that accent drive me crazy. I've never heard anyone ever in my entire life say, "Ah shore do thank yur a purtty li'l honey-child."

Flaws in adhering to the logic and established mythology of the writer's 'world'.

I read a book once that referred to events that were NEVER IN THE BOOK. And these weren't events that supposedly happened prior to the story's start. Something like, "She passed the door to the porch, shuddering at the memory of the butler's lifeless body hanging from the chandelier." The butler had never been mentioned since he opened the door at the beginning of the book, and certainly nothing was told about him being hung from the chandelier.

Also, illogical time warps. In that same book, it was established at the beginning, everyone in her family died on their 26th birthday and her 26th birthday was only a couple of weeks away. The book drags on and months pass, but her 26th birthday is still a couple of weeks away by the end of the book.

Ultra-fiesty heroines and inordinately wise kids as well as bratty kids will also ruin the story for me.

Errors in medical procedures, settings and such. I was a nurse for over 20 years. I know when they've screwed up.

Things we're supposed to accept because the author said so, no matter how illogical.

Main characters who do nothing. They don't move, they don't grow. All they do is exist.

Set-ups that don't pay off.

Things the author talks about like it's common knowledge that we're supposed to understand but have no clue.

Bartholomew said:

When do you expand your vocabulary then, if not while reading?

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Like I said, I put the book I'm reading down, and pick up the dictionary.