I have heard "mary sue" "cliché" "overused" and "unoriginal" so many times about everything, it isn't funny. Now, I'm not going to disagree. However, just because someone's writing the same old bad-boy-falls-for-the-innocent-girl story, doesn't mean it can't be unoriginal.
Can we stop for a minute and just recognize that there are so many stories out there, every story has a bit of someone elses in there. Don't argue, you may think it's an original idea, but I bet if you looked hard enough(or maybe you don't have to try to hard at all) you would find that someone else has already done that.
I won't argue that there are a lot of sue characters. I know there are. Do we ever overlook the fact that just because a character shares a trait with out favorite character in the world, it doesn't mean that they are a copy of them? No. I promise you that every aspect a character could have, has already been explored. She's an archer? Oh she must be a rip off of Katniss.
I'm not saying you can't be creative, but that if you can be "original", you must have some imagination, being there are millions, even billions of writers before you.
I consider a story good if you can surprise me. If I can predict what happens, I'm afraid I won't be reading on.
Thing's that are overused do not bug me, or at least I can overlook them. Thing's that really miff me are detail's in stories. Such as bad grammer. Now let me explain my distaste in this. I can stand a mistake here and there, that's fine, it happens. If someone is just not trying, that's what bothers me. It doesn't make me angry like it used to. Now I grab a few of my mate's and read it out loud, dramatically for effect. Hey, it gives them and myself a good laugh. Especially when reading those pesky run ons. I'd have to be able to hold my breath like Michael Phelps when swimming to finish some of 'em.
Now yes, there are topics that annoy me, but not just because I've seen them everywhere.
Teacher/student stories. Not saying that I've never seen one well written, I just don't like them. You see however, I don't go onto a story saying "You disgust me, get off the internet". No, that would be immature, and they don't disgust me. The idea does.
Master/slave -- I'm sorry, I don't see the appeal. Though I do see these often.
Another thing that really affronts me is when someone uses the same adjective over and over. I was presented a One Direction fanfiction the other day(curse me for deciding to be a beta reader for anyone), the author seemed only know of the word sexy. For in her first paragraph, consisting of four sentences, she managed to fit in sexy five times.
And no, I don't hate One Direction. They're adorable, sure. They have a lot of fans, and I expect to see a lot of fanfiction about them. I always know that their fans range from very young ages and up. Some people just take it to far though. And excuse me if I don't enjoy reading about a baby getting raped, troll or not.
Something else that doesn't exactly bother me, but I can't continue to read would be a certain writing style. I'm not annoyed by it ultimately, it's just, what would be a good word, -- it, so to say, hurts to read on. I know I can't blame it on the author, but something's are written in such an awkward way I cringe at thing's said.
I also distaste when someone uses their story and/or character to outright bash someone else, a religion, or anything else. I can understand if you want you character to have a certain belief, well just state what they believe. Do you really need twenty sentences on why you think-- Sorry, why your character thinks God doesn't exist? There is such a thing as too much detail. You don't want to bore readers. Only use vitle information, please.
Don't get me started on capitalization.
Being realistic. If your character dies and comes back to life in a world that lacks magic, you're doing something wrong.
Switching the point of view just to describe how perfect the main character is. Heck, going on about how any character in the story is perfect is a no no. Just describe them. Perhaps like, "his dark hair was long and covered his forehead, shadowing his deep blue eyes" or something like that. I don't want to hear about how his sexy arms looked so sexy in his sexy white muscle shirt.
If you survived to the the end, congratulations. And if you didn't, you won't be reading this.
