8 Ways To Annoy Your Readers & What You Can Do To Avoid It
Most writers think a great plot and cool characters are enough to please readers. They’re not. You must actively avoid 8 ways to annoy your readers!
8 Ways To Annoy Your Readers & What You Can Do To Avoid It
Let’s be clear about this. When we talk about annoying your readers, we don’t mean giving the story a twist that the reader dislikes. I don’t mean making Cinderella kiss the wrong prince. No, this has nothing to do with the story. It has a lot to do with the readers. And with your craft.
Why Is Annoying Readers So Bad?
The short answer: annoyed readers stop reading. They drop out. They put your book down. If things go bad, they’ll never buy another book of yours ever again!
Annoying your reader is a real danger. And it can be measured. Some news platforms for online journalism employ software that can track reading habits. Where readers slow down, where they speed up, where they stop reading altogether. It sounds a bit scary, but ultimately this does help journalists to write better articles. It can also help writers to write better books.
How Writers Annoy Their Readers
1. Make Empty Promises
The biggest promise a writer makes to his readers is the title. The title says a lot about the genre, the setting, and the basic storyline. It evokes images. It’s also the premise on which the readers buy this book.
Now if the story doesn’t connect with any of this information, then the readers feel cheated. Why did they pay the money for a book that isn’t about the title?
Top Tip: Be sure that your book keeps the promise made by the title.Â
2. Make Your Readers Do Maths
Numbers in texts are tricky things. Every journalist knows this. Why is it tricky? Because human intelligence most often falls into two categories: linguistic or mathematical. Readers of fiction tend to prefer things to do with language. If writers make these readers juggle numbers, then they appeal to their brains on a level they just won’t find relaxing. This doesn’t mean writers can’t use numbers like dates or temperatures in their texts. It’s the dosage that makes the poison.
Doing maths also includes juggling dates, and years. This can make your timeline appear twisted. Please read on to find out more about timelines.
Top Tip: Always include comparisons and examples to help readers place numbers in context. It’s the context that matters, not the number.
3. Tricky Names
A character’s name should always be spelled the same way. But even when it is, the names can still make a story lose readers. You just have to give characters similar names, or names that all start with the same letter. Who’s able to tell Dora, Donna, and Doreen apart? It gets even worse if the personalities of some characters are alike.
Also, don’t confuse readers by using names that are impossible to pronounce. What happens is that the first time an unreadable name comes up, the reader can only try to remember the way this word looks. This strategy will fail gloriously if there are many unreadable names for characters or places. For example, the reader won’t be able to tell ‘Blinxky’ apart from ‘Blinkxy’ (please, stop thinking about this! I made them up).
Top Tip: Actively search where spelling might confuse the reader. Defuse possible tricky spots by changing the names.
4. Confusing Timelines
Timelines are also a popular source of confusion. Go back and forth in time often enough, resist making it clear in which time you are placing the reader, and then garnish it all with an almost impossible sequence of events – and you’ve lost every reader you once had.
Readers are benevolent creatures. They always try to make sense of it all, but their energy is not limitless. Once they stop reading to ask themselves if that timeline is even possible, their thoughts are no longer with the story. They’re not likely to come back.
Top Tip: Be straightforward about important things. Make your timeline and your plotline clear. Timelines can help you plot.
5. Plot Holes
Plot holes act like potholes in the street. They give you a good shaking. In your car, you’ll take a moment to recover, check if nothing is broken and then you continue your journey. Plot holes in your story, however, have a stronger effect. Readers tend to get completely disoriented. They will try to make sense of it but since they won’t find any, they will ultimately drop out of the story.
On top, plot holes are bad because they make authors look like they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s part of the writer’s job to create a fictional world that is unrealistic in that everything must make sense. Everything must be there for a reason. If there is no reason, then your book is no different than reality. Then there’s no reason to read.
Top Tip: Edit carefully to find plot holes. Even the slightest thing in your story needs to have a reason for its existence.Â
6. Breaks In Register
Most people know breaks in register from text analysis. For example, when you have a very Latinate style throughout your text and suddenly, you switch to slang. This can be perfectly ok if this happens when two characters talk. Then the two different registers simply belong to the characters’ individual social status or academic background.
If this happens within the speech of one character, even the narrator, then this takes the reader’s attention away from the story. Again, not good.
A similar effect happens when people watch a movie and the pictures on the screen don’t match the audio. The movie can no longer hold the viewers’ attention because this clash compels them to search for a reason.
Top Tip: Readers require an immediate reason for breaks or even clashes of registers. If writers can’t supply one, then they must avoid this clash.
7. Genre
Every genre has its requirements. A Sherlock Holmes story, for example, needs a smart detective who stays aloof from the action, and a sidekick who does the legwork. If your detective suddenly falls in love and becomes all mushy, then your story is no longer true to its genre. Why is that important? Because genre creates expectation. Readers buy specific books because of their expectations. Writers can toy with this but it’s dangerous to frustrate the readers too much.Â
Top Tip: Know your genre. Learn about the requirements. Fulfill those that are at the core of the genre. Find out which are negotiable and offer some creative license.Â
8. Head-Hopping
Head-hopping happens when an author is unclear about who his viewpoint or POV character is. Then, the author gives readers more information than they should receive. The author’s confusion creates confusion in the minds of the readers.
To make matters worse, head-hopping reminds readers that there is a person who wrote this. That it’s ‘just’ a story. But readers want the opposite. They want to get lost in the story. They want an alternative reality.
Top Tip: Know your POV. Know your viewpoint character. Stick to it. If you need to brush up on POV, please read this article.
The Last Word
Happy readers are readers who will come back for more. So, annoying readers is the last thing writers want to do – but it does happen. Know the pitfalls so you can avoid them. I hope you find this article helpful.
By Susanne Bennett. Susanne is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.
More Posts From Susanne
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- What Is A Utopia? How Do I Write One?
- How To Steal Like A Writer (And Get Away With It) Part 2
- How To Steal Like A Writer (And Get Away With It) Part 1
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1 thought on “8 Ways To Annoy Your Readers & What You Can Do To Avoid It”
A confusing timeline is one of my pet peeves. Readers shouldn’t be forced to wonder whether they are reading about the present or the past. It makes them feel like they are spinning in a circle and too dizzy to make sense out of the story.
I take exception about genre. Yes, each one has its rules, but some readers possess the requisite skills to straddle genre successfully and entertain at the same time. Those who lack that skill demonstrate that they simply do not have a clear direction for their story.
Believe it or not, I have read books by well-known and successful writers who head-hop shamelessly. Now THAT’S annoying!
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