What throws you off INSTANTLY about a book?

Well, first and foremost, Happy New Years! 2012 has been a busy year already.

Look out for some great interviews coming up, and contests and tips!

So what throws you off about a book? Clearly not everyone judges books too much by covers, right? Well here is a list of some very common thing that we all should avoid so that your reader won't immediately shut your book and throw it at the wall. These things are quite personal, but hey, we all need a list to avoid.

Typos

This one is pretty self explanatory. I found typos in published novel and so have everyone I know living on planet earth. It happens, but to keep your book off the wall I suggest to try to remove as many as you (and your beta) can spot after like a million read overs.

Unlikable Characters

This was actually mentioned often. But it is a toughie. You can't make everyone like your character, can you? Is it really possible? probably not. But some characters which aren't described in a great sense and are very average tend to be disliked by the majority. Especially the perfect kinds.

Boring Set Up

Can differ from one to one. I don't suggest you start every single book with the twin towers being blown but hey, we do want some sort of suspense or an interest pull. Apparently a book always has to have conflict (cough)...

Repetition

It's good here and there. Sometimes. Sometimes. Here and there. Repetition is good. But too much repetition sometimes can make my head reel.

Infodumps

We all know this classic. I didn't at first. I was infodumping badly. No explanation necessary. Won't dump too much info.

So I hope this is a cool list to start off. Do you guys have any suggestions to add? I'm sure we all have more personal ideas. Some more personal annoyances for me tend to be characters that are super super tough and unlikable, characters which are emotionless, too emotional characters, slow starts and prose, and lets just say (I'm being honest) too much prose.

I actually have a couple agents interested in my novel now, and I'm revising so lots of stuff going on but how's it going? Ha, that was terrible. Basically, look out for my next post hopefully tomorrow about too many projects.



The Pains of a rewrite...

I am finished! Finally! YES!!!! No, not really. That’s when the sadness comes, or the excitement for some people like me. It's either time for edit like crazy or better yet just rewrite. You might be reading this and being like, rewrite, you kidding? but no I am not, not really i mean. I edited and edited away like crazy until I went crazy but a rewrite was still in order. Why? Because when I started to rewrite I managed correcting so much plot holes, so many fragments and so many errors that I would not have noticed as I edited. Yes I know it might be painful to need to completely start over and rewrite your story, but believe me it is well worth it. Since my first novel I rewrote it to a completely different novel that I am so proud of. The first draft had so many holes, errors and unwanted characters that I simply took away. Yes, be gone you Mary-sue characters. I even decided that making my old antagonist my new protagonist would bring extreme internal conflict to the story. So basically speaking for me, I just rewrote everything practically turning my old project into a completely new novel. I kept a few aspects like one character, but everything else changed. Tell me what you guys think of the pains of a rewrite and whether you choose to do them or not?