Discussion What makes you mad and stopped reading a novel midway

Just like the title says, sometimes when you read a seemingly good novel the author intentionally/unintentionally did something that makes you really mad and stopped reading it either way at that moment.

For me, i really hate it when the author inserting an unnecessary filler character/s into the story and ruined everything. Maybe it will be fine if the character/s has important role in plot development, but instead of making it better, there is/are plotholes came with their introduction.

What about you?

 

Plotholes.

 

HAREM

 

When the author decides to halve the MC's IQ for 2x plot advancement.

 

My three biggest are terrible grammar, unnatural dialogue/character interactions, and harems (not a guarantee, but probably a 98-99% chance of causing me to drop it).

 

Forgettable/boring plot. Sometimes a story is good but updates comes slow. My brain forgets it ever existed.

 

When it gets boring or annoying to read.

 

when there is a shift in the story that feels like a 'bait and switch'.
most common i see is when mc starts funny, reasonable and humanlike. but as soon as getting op stuff, becomes total asshole, faceslapping for life.

 

I've dropped Sovereign of Three Realms for building up a romance that I got interested in, after which the female was completely dropped from the story when the MC moved to another realm.

I dropped Hachinan, because the MC became pretty much a misogynist who treated all his romantic "interests" at best as witless trophy wives... also the MC became extremely bland, to say the least, which wasn't helped by the author talking mostly about politics.

Moon-led journey thingy, I dropped because the MC became a hypocrite with negative likeability.

 

Yeah this is really bad.. plotholes is always bad

Harem is also one of my turnoff.. but sometimes i can tolerate it if the story is not bad

Worse make it ZERO...

 

Many things actually but only a few come to mind now.

Love interests, I've got too bored of romance drama, that's why I got into CN, but then learnt the hard way they push it to the other level.

Especially the long chasing for her skirt from mortal realm to immortal realm, and then just a line of "they lived happily ever after".


saviour guy, I don't mind if he is helpful, but reading the same setup of a bunch of guys harrassing a dad and daughter, mc saves, daughter is special or mc gets a new quest that will make him offend another party for no f**king benefits.


harem, it's not the genre I'm against but just in these JP,CN,KR. It goes horribly clingy, cringe worthy, and fake. And I don't even go into ones with double digits.



every female villian turns into his fan base, instant elimination. Mc kills guys and animals for the smallest grievance, but even if the girl was responsible for families demise and his painful journey he just defeats her and goes away, then the girl regrets and realises she is in love with him. Some down play it but still I slowly lose the interest if it repeats.


mc is apathetic but only to males, shit bro what happened ?!, Somebody sodomized you?!... This I have seen happening all the time so it just goes over me.


Especially in cultivation or mage stories I drop it when mc is too emotional, or he/she gets into this save the world drama.



Yeah that reminds me of this, the whole world revolving around mc's adventure. Like if he kills some enemy in one corner, the whole continent goes "there's a storm coming, dragons and tigers are coming out".



I don't like legacies or chronicles, I only like journeys where everything is unexpected.

 

Rape disguised as an act of love.

 

I remember reading a xianxia novel that had an interesting story and decent characters (for a xianxia). I really enjoyed it for about 200-300 chapters, but I had to stop reading because the author would spend entire chapters essentially lying to the reader and wasting their time.

The author would spend an ENTIRE chapter just talking about how x would never happen for y reasons, and the entire time, I'm thinking it's bull because the story has already shown y reasons don't matter. So sure enough, x happens in the next chapter and the MC has surprised Pikachu face. Every. Time.

This would happen so frequently, I started to skip entire chapters because I felt like I was wasting my time being fed lies. Once I started skipping chapters, I was disengaged from the story, so there was no reason to keep reading.


Another thing that frustrates me is when I would find a rare Chinese novel that was good for hundreds of chapters without becoming a copy paste cycle, but then because of whatever reason, the author just decides to end the novel as fast as possible to work on their next one. This always results in huge plot holes with no closure and a terrible ending. Which leaves me feeling unsatisfied and like I just wasted weeks to months of my time reading a story the author stopped caring about and gave up on. When this happens, I blacklist the author so it doesn't happen to me again.

 

Harem , rape, drug induced sex , abusive relationship of ml n fl , fl forgiving ml in end after everything ml has done and vive versa , toxic relationship, ml n fl are adults but still involve themselves with emotional abuse , yandre .

 

getting repetitive, slow updates, or the plot doesn't progress at all

 

When the MC bench the best girl (after she resolves to confess her feeling and follow him) because it's too dangerous even if the girl on raw power was far stronger than him.

How to destroy my interest. By pure BS.

 

When the mc gets with a character I dislike.

 

Bad Translator Quality, sudden change in Genres, Not lowering amount of big Plotholes (maybe ever higher amount), Leaving out former Characters only to add new Characters and forget the Former Characters.
Or my Absolut Favorite: The CN-Type Woman loves MC and MC loves Woman, but cant get together cause Female lead needs more power and needs to cut off feelings. Mc chases get her somehow to get again to have Love for him, only to once again send away cause her Family sold her to a Young Master of a Mighty Clan/Sect.
Cause it is Logical to sell away a Talented, Beautiful Woman to a good for nothing young Master who gives them a bit Benefits, while selling out a Rising Star.

 

Yeah annoys me when the guy gives the female villain kid gloves treatment he doesn't give guys.

 

There are lots of things that can make me drop a story, but it is hard to bring up general examples because it most of the time it depends on the context for each particular story.
One thing I can say though, any story that gives the main character an ability to go back in time and change the past is a big NOPE for me, I can begrudgingly accept time travel stories if the time travel happen only once at the start of the story or if it is some form of fixed timeloop.
But having the past changed repeatedly within the story or worse letting the mc have some control over that ability is something that in my opinion nearly always ruins stories.