[Discussion] What draws you away from a story?

[Palamon]

Both from a writing it and reading perspective.

When writing a story, what usually draws you away from continuing it if you drop it?

As for reading, what draws you reading a fic/story? For me, if just dialogue, I'm definitely uninterested, sorry.

 

[Vragon2.0]

When the author conveys information like I'm a toddler. I can figure things out without things either needing to be spoonfed or themes being shoved in the most blatant forms. The biggest issues of these are when intro chapters just try to define way too many things and it is also a reason I'm not the biggest fan of one-shots, even if I do think some do a good job in saying a lot without being hammer heavy about it.

Another thing that draws me out is fluff. While I enjoy characters having the chance to interact and simply be themselves, if there isn't something they're aiming for or some plot happening at some point, I'm gonna lose interest. I'm here not just for characters, but for the world, plot, ideas, etc. as well.

One more thing is when a work acts like it's being smarter or darker than it actually is. Stuff that either logically wouldn't make sense or make their characters seem far stupider for the sake of "theming" or "mature" stuff gets an eye roll. I like when ideas, worlds, conflicts, characters, dynamics, etc. feel like they've been well thought out and viewed in more ways than one so just doing something for the sake of it or just to tell me the "moral of the story" with billboard sign levels of subtly takes away from my agency as a reader and my interest the story.

 

[gimmepie]

As a reader, bland characters are the sure fire quickest way you can get me to lose interest in a story. It doesn't matter how good your plot is if I can't get invested in the people that are affected by its events. Second to that would probably be just poor writing in general.

As a writer, I find it hard to continue working on a project if I start getting bored at any point in the process. If I'm not enjoying it, how can I expect my audience to?

 

[Bay]

As a reader if a story goes way too long and there's no end in sight. I think this is why I haven't read multi-chaptered fics in a long time because I'm not great with keeping up work in progress stories and got burnt out when I was following several.

As a writer, sometimes if while in the writing process I get stuck on something and I have no one to brainstorm ideas with. Sometimes it's an idea that doesn't have enough content and not sure what to add. Sometimes it's just me not interested anymore.

Also while this hasn't happened yet with Foul Play, several times I thought about stopping because I haven't been getting comments the more the story goes further. I know some people want to wait until a fic is finished, but I'm one of those people that is like "I want validation now!!" and if I don't get comments I feel my writing just isn't interesting even though I know my idea is niche and not the usual thing people go for.

 

[Palamon]

I'm going to elaborate a bit more on what draws me away from a story when reading. As a reader, if your story is just dialogue, it won't always draw me away, I've read a few fics that are mostly just talking, and have liked them. But, I suppose if it's just dialogue and no description, I'm going to click off.

Also, if you don't space your paragraphs, line break, etcetera, I'm likely to click off. I cannot stare at walls of text without double spacing every once in awhile.

Apart from those two things, I will immediately click off if there's explicit sexual content that's unlabeled. I suppose, thank goodness that kind of stuff isn't really allowed here. I always make sure to read tags, though.

For me when writing, what usually draws me away is simply just the lack of interest in continuing. If I feel an idea isn't fleshed out enough, or I just don't have any idea where I'm going, I drop the story. I regret doing this for some because they were fun to write, but I just fell out of interest while writing some of the stuff I have in the past.