IWSG: Happy New Year!

 


And we're back! Happy New Year! It is the first Wednesday of January 2021! I can't believe how 2020 felt like the longest and shortest year at the same time, but I'm grateful that it's over.

We are jumping right back into the swing of things with the Insecure Writer's Support Group's first post of the year. Please visit the website and our great founder, Alex J. Cavanaugh, as well as the co-hosts for the month, which can be found on his website.

After NaNoWriMo, I took an unexpected break in December. Trying to write over a thousand words a day for 30 days is not something I like to do, or was even able to do, especially having a full time job and a lot of other responsibilities. But it was good to know I could write every day. My goal this year is just write more, and get back into reading. I certainly acquired enough e-books to get me through a few years.

Each month, there is an optional question for the group, and this month's is: Being a writer, when you're reading someone else's work, what stops you from finishing a book/throws you out of the story/frustrates you the most about other people's books?

I want to say one of the big reasons I don't finish a book is because the writing is bad, but I have 15 unfinished books on my Goodreads list, so let me look through some of my reviews on why.

-problematic tropes towards minorities (stumbled on that a few times, looks like)

-stagnant plots (I gave one book 3 stars and still didn't finish it! I'm almost sure it was moving too slowly.)

-inactive main characters (why are the supporting characters doing all the work?)

-implausibility

-forced romance

-and yes, bad writing (clichés, redundancies, info dumps, awkward/bad sentence structures)

If there is a combination of the above, as there was in at least 3 of the 15, then I definitely don't finish.


I'd love to hear some of your answers, too!

2 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Minor characters should not be the ones who move the plot.
I took most of December off as well.

Sarah Foster said...

I think I took December and November off, lol. I want to write and read more this year, as well.