6 Things that will Get Readers to stop Reading

While this is a very basic list dealing mostly with fantasy and its sub-genres, the information can be useful to others.

Most speculative fiction readers are very forgiving, especially in the beginning. They want to find authors they will like, stories that will take them away, but in the short story market (as well as longer works) it is easy to lose the very audience your trying to entertain. How do you engage your readers? It begins on the first page....


1. Rough Road Ahead - paved with PROSE.
This is probably the hardest to self-diagnose, but if you have access to writing groups, beta readers or even just someone to give you honest feedback - make use of them. You can read your work aloud to help yourself listen for cues. Seek out honest, constructive criticism - not just praise. Submitting to markets is, ultimately, the real test. Most will tell you if your prose is too rough to be read by their readers.


2. Cheap Thrills.
Violence, sex, etc. for its own sake. Excessive/gratuitous anything in the opening. Most editors will reject any story that begins by making them cringe. It hurts your odds when you use excess rather than substance to engage readers.


3. Telegraphed Twists.
An MC who is obviously a vampire. A dream sequence or "Matrix" type twist ending or any of the many cliche'd tropes and tricks that have been so overly-used that it makes it easy for an editor to trash your story on they way to the bathroom to throw up the bile those types of twists have wretched to the surface. Save your reader from the gastric reflux that comes from yet another "Game Over Player One" or "...then she woke up and said, "You were there and you..."" or "...only then did she see that he was a ____" Remember that any surprise that your readers sees coming is no longer surprising (whether or not you wrote the clues).


4. Derivative Settings.
Other than Earth, any setting that feels too much like Hell or Hoth, Avalon or Pern, Castle Roogna or Camelot, or the office of an elf, witch, or wizard Private eye, will more often than not, find its way into the trash. Rule of thumb is to remember that if your reader remembers being in the place you created you most likely allowed your favorite movie to creep into your creative process.


5. Characters who don't have to try.
Wielding vengeance without sweating, swatting away squads of enemy soldiers with little more effort than a yawn and a stretch, or characters fighting, riding, f--king without fatigue, magic without consequence, all steal dramatic tension from your story. There is little any author can do to build suspense or create conflict if the characters can do anything.


6. Absolute powers/abilities corrupt absolutely. Gods or god-like powers corrupt plots god-awefully.
Beware of Deus ex Machina or any plot device that comes off as nothing more than lazy writing. We have all read bad stories that felt like the writer couldn't come up with anything so they simply brought in a god or god-like ability to save their protagonist. See #5 above.