What little details irks you when reading?

[DireBadger]

a lot because of Asian mistranslation because English lacks the word necessary

that, and the concept is an absolutely ridiculous trope. 'hate so sharp it can kill' is dramatic baloney, like a ton of stupid wuxia tropes. Then again, most fantasy has stupid tropes, like dragons and gold.

 

[SalineScout]

Special magical important bloodlines. "He's inherited that secret hidden amazing technique from his father, no training necessary"

Multiply that irritation by a factor of fifty if the "common" MC discovers that they actually have superior, unassailable powers because they are secretly related to royalty. An "ordinary" girl discovering that "she is actually super-duper special because her grandmother was actually the witch queen and no one knew about it till now, so now the bullies have to beg for forgiveness" makes me want to toss the book (or my phone, if reading digitally) into the nearest open flame.

Runner up is killing or maiming a more experienced, more competent, more useful MC so we can instead follow the clutzy inexperienced "real" MC that the author clearly wanted write instead.
Why taunt me with the cool, dramatic, engaging story that could have been just to swerve towards Palm-Sweat Knock-Knees over there and watch him fumble his way through character growth and then fall ass backwards into beating the big bad?

 

[Schemer]

1. Annoyingly stupid MCs, even deuteragonists and big-villains being stupid turns me off.
2. Repeated overuse of same lines.
3. Too many mysteries in short amount of time, like an info dump. ( I come here away from those research papers, I don't want to see one here)
4. Dragging on things more than they should.

 

[Bartun]

"Why is my heart beating like crazy? What is this feeling?"

This dialogue irks me coz yeah, I have yet to see a person irl say it to themselves because love and feelings are well-known to us as we grow up.

I'm guilty of this. ?

In my defense, the one thinking like this isn't human and has never had a meaningful interaction with anyone before. He soon concludes he must be under a spell.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

"Why is my heart beating like crazy? What is this feeling?"

This dialogue irks me coz yeah, I have yet to see a person irl say it to themselves because love and feelings are well-known to us as we grow up.

Well, I have one character who did not grow up (or, if he did, has no memory of it), so he really is shocked to have a reaction like that...

 

[Bartun]

Anon, people have been sizing each other up since we were cavemen. Ask anyone who's ever been in a barfight or streetfight. You can have some idea of their intent even before they attack.

There's a huge difference between trying just to hit someone and trying to outright kill someone.

You can hide your intention pretty well when you don't intend to kill someone. Heck, some people get a sneak shot before kicking someone to the curb. But you absolutely cannot hide it when you're up for blood. I mean, for real. Your demeanor changes, you get all tensed up, your breathing becomes faster, and the person on the receiving end will absolutely notice it unless you're a real sociopath who can hide it.

 

[Schemer]

Sense of numbers!!
They senselessly jump from 3-5 to 100s, and then millions and billions.
It could be no.of soldiers, or distance in kms...
.
Many of them suddenly start over-exaggerate things a bit too much...

 

[Wenlock]

In short, second hand embarrassment. Anything that gives me that god awful feeling when I am reading to get away from such crap. Stop giving me imaginary stress.

 

[DireBadger]

There's a huge difference between trying just to hit someone and trying to outright kill someone.

You can hide your intention pretty well when you don't intend to kill someone. Heck, some people get a sneak shot before kicking someone to the curb. But you absolutely cannot hide it when you're up for blood. I mean, for real. Your demeanor changes, you get all tensed up, your breathing becomes faster, and the person on the receiving end will absolutely notice it unless you're a real sociopath who can hide it.

I cannot say that I noticed that, but then again, the 'intent to kill' tends to be more like 'intent to drop the target' in the military.
I read all this stuff about how 'killing changes someone' or 'it's so hard to do', but I never noticed it. They were targets. I don't think I am a sociopath (I love my wife) but perhaps it's different when you are at range... I have beaten the pulp out of people in hand to hand (and been beaten in return) especially in high school, but maybe the range makes a difference.

Or maybe Hollywood is completely full of shit. 'every life is precious unless it's a baby or a poor person'. 'Killing changes you so only the government or corporate persons are allowed to kill people'.

Eerr...sorry.

 

[Anonjohn20]

There's a huge difference between trying just to hit someone and trying to outright kill someone.

You can hide your intention pretty well when you don't intend to kill someone. Heck, some people get a sneak shot before kicking someone to the curb. But you absolutely cannot hide it when you're up for blood. I mean, for real. Your demeanor changes, you get all tensed up, your breathing becomes faster, and the person on the receiving end will absolutely notice it unless you're a real sociopath who can hide it.

You simply have not been in enough physical confrontations to tell. Human beings are inherently social creatures, so when one is about to do something antisocial (like beat someone up), their face turns neutral/no expression right as they are about to do it; it's like they are turning off the part of the brain that feels emotion before doing it.

Furthermore, if they have training and/or experience, there'll be signs of it, like how they clench their jaw and lower their chin to prepare to be struck back or how they'll place their feet to prepare for the type of movement they know while fighting.

 

[Bartun]

I cannot say that I noticed that, but then again, the 'intent to kill' tends to be more like 'intent to drop the target' in the military.
I read all this stuff about how 'killing changes someone' or 'it's so hard to do', but I never noticed it. They were targets. I don't think I am a sociopath (I love my wife) but perhaps it's different when you are at range... I have beaten the pulp out of people in hand to hand (and been beaten in return) especially in high school, but maybe the range makes a difference.

Or maybe Hollywood is completely full of shit. 'every life is precious unless it's a baby or a poor person'. 'Killing changes you so only the government or corporate persons are allowed to kill people'.

Eerr...sorry.

Sorry? About what? That's good insight.

You simply have not been in enough physical confrontations to tell. Human beings are inherently social creatures, so when one is about to do something antisocial (like beat someone up), their face turns neutral/no expression right as they are about to do it; it's like they are turning off the part of the brain that feels emotion before doing it.

Furthermore, if they have training and/or experience, there'll be signs of it, like how they clench their jaw and lower their chin to prepare to be struck back or how they'll place their feet to prepare for the type of movement they know while fighting.

Those are signs before physical aggression, but not necessarily of 'killing intent'.