If we didn’t wreck the reader experience enough last time, here are five more fatal story pitfalls. These are heinous enough to break the reader’s immersion, sound a klaxon and flash the red lights. So why do we see these so often in published fiction?
Inconsistent Characters
A character suffers a sudden onset of indecision, abandoning cherished beliefs or moral codes. Sunshine turns grumpy or grumpy turns sunshine. The feminist turns trad-wife and the alpha-male turns stay-at-home-dad. Like the author suddenly forgot who they were writing.
Obvious and Predictable twists
The butler/janitor/manipulative, psychopathic, gas-lighting husband/boyfriend/therapist did it. The mild-mannered expert was the serial killer. It was all a dream. The stolen object was hidden in plain sight. They had amnesia/a split personality/an evil twin. They were on earth all along. That one is especially egregious when the marketing team puts the Statue of Liberty on the movie poster. You know the one.
Unrealistic Dialogue
When nothing sounds like an actual conversation between two people ever. The worst example I can give is Neo and the Architect in Matrix Revolutions. Endless pages of cod-philosophy and convoluted grammar. It’s meant to be the turning point of the whole plot, the clash of the titans, the root of the conflict. It’s just nonsense. Neo stands there mumbling mono-syllables while the architect blathers very importantly.
Also in this category, we have artificial conversations delivering exposition. Think of the Maid-and-Butler dialog that begins ‘as you know…’ Or AI-scripted podcasts.
Bad Endings
Bad means so many things here; rushed, contrived, illogical and underwhelming. Deus-Ex-Machina interventions, obvious and predictable twists (see above), or unresolved cliff-hangers when it’s not even part of a series. Inconclusive and unresolved endings meet implausible, miraculous and frankly uninspired crawls to the finish line.
The protagonist did it. Aliens did it. The unreliable narrator did it. The author did it.
Promises Never Paid Off
Every novel makes promises at the beginning, from the cover to the blurb, the genre, tone, set-up and introduction of characters, and the world. Does the story deliver? Or does it veer off, change genre, tone, or content? Does it abandon promises for something entirely different?
Do we get the back-story, motivation or insight into the characters? Does the apprentice become the master? The worm become the lion? Is justice somehow served even if the hot-shot lawyer loses the case? Does the ambitious intern get the promotion or turn their back on the merciless corporate culture? If it’s a cautionary tale, what becomes of them? If we don’t find out, then that story failed.
It doesn’t have to be a perfect resolution. The criminal might get away, as long as the detective solves the crime and deals with their issues. The players don’t have to win the title as long as they become the team. Maybe the young warrior wins through guile and determination rather than pure skill at arms. But they each achieve some kind of victory.
You can see from this and the previous list how many elements can sabotage a story. Often these are so subjective, what works for one reader fails another. What’s an author to do?