Most Common Writing Errors (ONGOING)

Worldbuilding Pet Peeves

Read the disclaimer before you comment; any comments being argumentative or referring to things I already covered in the disclaimer will be deleted.

This chapter includes... 3 pet peeves

These pet peeves are my opinion, so please don't be distraught if these apply to you. I'm not saying they're objectively wrong, these are just things in stories that bother me.

1.

Okay, I have a huge pet peeve when it comes to worldbuilding.

And that pet peeve is when an author blurs out the name of a place instead of just saying a place or making up a name.

I.e.,

"Meet me at xxxx restaurant."

It makes me so mad. It takes me out of the story and is so unnecessary. Literally just smash your keys to get a random word and that's a better solution than blurring it out.

Blurring it out breaks immersion. You're not going to dox anyone if you mention a restaurant in Germany, or in Korea, or in America. It's simply good worldbuilding when you give places names. It gives them more distinction and meaning, even if they're only in the story for a single scene.

It comes off as lazy when the author doesn't come up with something or Google a restaurant that is in the area the main characters are living.

Not only does it take five seconds tops, but it doesn't even need to be real. You can make up the most random, obnoxious name that has ever blessed the Earth, but it's still better than blurring out the name.

Just think of Hawkins from Stranger Things. That's not a real place, the writers made it up. Imagine if instead it was called "xxxx town in xxxx state." Do you see why that would break immersion? You're also missing out on interesting names that might become iconic. Just look at Hawkins now, it's referenced everywhere!

2.

Another pet peeve is language.

I'm sure based on my name, you can tell I am a BTS fan. My readers already know this, but those coming from other avenues may not.

I read a lot of BTS fanfics. I cannot tell you how many times authors have used Korean wrong, or used Korean in a weird way.

For example, the book will take place in South Korea, but only sometimes they're speaking Korean.

What?

And it's never explained why the characters sometimes speak Korean and sometimes speak English. Obviously this doesn't apply to all BTS fics, but there are so many that use Korean likely to make it sound better or look more aesthetic or to be "true" to the people they're writing about (BTS).

Dude, it's fiction. You don't need to make it realistic. Especially when 9 times out of 10, the Korean is wrong.

Let me give a better example.

So let's say Story A is a BTS fanfic following the boys in Seoul, South Korea. The book is written in English, so naturally, everything is in English. Except for certain words.

And no, I don't mean words like 형 (hyung), which sound the same in English. Hyung is a term for "older brother," so it is a term used specifically by younger men talking to older men.

For example, Jungkook calls every member of BTS "hyung" because he is younger than all of them.

But hyung isn't what I mean.