Stories that left you disappointed for a reason

[Serpent]

Controversial maybe but i think she should stop trying to write anything that isnt smut one shots. cant stand her characters for longer than one or two chapters. imo shes not good at romance, but shes good at p*rn, and clearly enjoys writing it. p*rn is always a bit cringe so its fine, but a whole novel being cringe is unbearable

Not even sure why she's going for the "slice of life" at this point. It's obvious that she means slice of ****, and I think everyone knows this

 

[Serpent]

I think maybe you have this perspective because youre closer to the slavic culture and notice the mistakes. i assure you, being south american makes 75% of the latino characters in IFs sooo embarrasing to read. the spanish is always really bad, how hard is it to get a beta tester? im sure thats the case with africans as well. the common theme is most of these writers are from the US and do zero research

Why get a beta tester when you can get a Google translate But yeah, I agree with you, though trust me when I say that there is also a a bunch of writers who aren't from US, and still add the stereotypes. I mean, I'm somewhat cool with it, because I'm mostly used to it by now, but that just makes their work sloppy. If they put half as much effort in researching actual things like that, instead of researching xe/xins or whatever the **** it is when it comes to pronouns and "touchy subjects", I think they would all benefit from it

 

[seneya]

And it’s always the same excuse, like they’ll work on it whenever they get stuck on the main IF or when they need a “break” from it.

I've noticed this as well.
However, a simple fact of writing is that inspiration won't carry you forever and whenever. It's important to be able to sit your a$$ down and write even when it feels like pulling teeth - there always will be moments that just won't inspire themselves, you have to slog through it. But if the logic is it's a hobby -> it should always be fun -> if it's not fun it's not worth doing, chances are you'll never actually finish anything.
It's like getting a new toy, and only playing with it until you get bored.
There's plenty of popular IFs I dislike, but still respect their authors for sticking to their work and providing updates.

 

[stardust9604]

This is the curse of C.C Hill. She throws out absolute banger story ideas with 2-3 chapters and actual plot points, and then proceeds to dump them after a few months and post the world’s most linear and cringe smut instead.

Or that one author of Simping Jade Beauties who has like seven hundred different prologues and keeps posting more.

I honestly don't know why some authors do this. If you can't commit to one idea and see it through to the end why bother overextending yourself by pumping out other works only to have them stuck and inevitably dropped. Another one that absolutely grinds my gears is an author posting Tumblr updates on stuff about lore and answering some borderline questionable RO asks and abandoning the story after, like that one formula one inspired if that the author had to rewrite for no reason when it was getting good,trashing everything and starting over, answering a ton of asks on Tumblr and adding lore information then promptly deleting both his Tumblr and and the entire if and vanishing into thin air. I was so annoyed because it's an idea that's rarely ever explored with all the fantasy and slice of life stuff running around. The only notable sports IF is College Origin tennis story.

 

[Serpent]

I honestly don't know why some authors do this. If you can't commit to one idea and see it through to the end why bother overextending yourself by pumping out other works only to have them stuck and inevitably dropped. Another one that absolutely grinds my gears is an author posting Tumblr updates on stuff about lore and answering some borderline questionable RO asks and abandoning the story after, like that one formula one inspired if that the author had to rewrite for no reason when it was getting good,trashing everything and starting over, answering a ton of asks on Tumblr and adding lore information then promptly deleting both his Tumblr and and the entire if and vanishing into thin air. I was so annoyed because it's an idea that's rarely ever explored with all the fantasy and slice of life stuff running around. The only notable sports IF is College Origin tennis story.

Simple answer?

 

[Serpent]

I've noticed this as well.
However, a simple fact of writing is that inspiration won't carry you forever and whenever. It's important to be able to sit your a$$ down and write even when it feels like pulling teeth - there always will be moments that just won't inspire themselves, you have to slog through it. But if the logic is it's a hobby -> it should always be fun -> if it's not fun it's not worth doing, chances are you'll never actually finish anything.
It's like getting a new toy, and only playing with it until you get bored.
There's plenty of popular IFs I dislike, but still respect their authors for sticking to their work and providing updates.

That's my thinking too, but even if you view it as a hobby right, you publish it, so now, it is public. It's not just you and your four walls, but now, you have people who are waiting for the story to continue, and who are following you along just for the sake of the story that you started. Don't they feel any type of obligation towards them? Why make it public in the first place then? Why not just create it in silence, play it for yourself, and be done with it? Don't go out promoting it, and then saying "oh, it's just a hobby, I can do it whenever I want and however I want", no, you can't. When you involve others, you simply can't. Blue balling people like that isn't cool.
As far as I remember, that's actually a reason L made that post, for the future writers. Like, if you are not completely sure about it, then do it privately first, see if you like it or not, and if you start going public with it, be transparent. If you want to ditch the project because of this reason or that, say so. Don't just disappear, because people are reasonable, they'll understand. And the ones who are not, I mean, ****, you can't please them all.

 

[bosslady]

Hm, I was always under the opinion that an author should write for their story until it is like 3 chapters long and THEN post it, maybe 2 chapters and see the reception. If it is good, then yeah, work on the rest. To me, it seems most have a cool idea, get excited and then realize that the plot doesn't spawn along with the idea and now it's too hard to write.

 

[yourstalkeroutside]

"Let's get through the basics first, then we'll get to the good stuff," Edwards says, retrieving a pen from his inner jacket pocket. "What pronouns would you prefer to use?"

I swear to Hastur that IF writers have never spoken to another person. Who says this? This isn't natural dialogue.

"Let's get through the basics first, then we'll get to the good stuff," Edwards says, retrieving a pen from his inner jacket pocket. "So-" (Insert choice here)

or even

"Let's get through the basics first, then we'll get to the good stuff," Edwards says, retrieving a pen from his inner jacket pocket. "What should I call you?"

makes more sense. Or just have the character customization before hand.

 

[game_hunt3r]

I swear to Hastur that IF writers have never spoken to another person. Who says this? This isn't natural dialogue.

or even

makes more sense. Or just have the character customization before hand.

This has been a gripe of mine for years.

Or when people introduce themselves and say something like, "I'm Connor Jones. My pronouns are he/him." First of all, who asked? It's far more natural for the author to just add the pronoun of the character with internal narration, and if they want to make it obvious that the masculine/feminine looking character isn't actually a man or a woman, but non-binary or the opposite gender, that can be brought up in dialogue with the MC accidentally calling them "him or her", and the character in question can either roll their eyes (tired of constantly correcting people) or just find it amusing, non-problematic or offensive. That way we get even more character building from them that is actually interesting, with the bonus of everyone not standing in a semi-circle and announcing their pronouns like we're at a Twitter meet-up, and not in the middle of some medieval war story lmao