More Reasons for Not Reading

1. The first paragraphs of your novel describe your main character preparing for their day. This is especially bad if these rituals tell us nothing about the character--that they hate how they look, that that don't care how they look, that they are irresponsible, whatever.

2. In your story's synopsis, you describe your work as being in between the style of fabulously famous authors: Stephen King, Dean Koontz, J. K. Rowling, Pullman, C. S. Lewis, Stephenie Meyer, Dan Brown (you can take it from here.)

3. You think you are writing something no one else has ever written before. Poor thing.

4. You've posted 25 different stories to your Fiction Press account, and all of them have only one chapter. Even if I like your work, I won't read it, because you probably won't get too far with it.

5. Your characters' names mean things. For instance, you have a character named Ivy who controls plants, and you have character named Felicia who has a thing for cats. (Thank you comic books.)

6. Your characters' names consist of alliteration such as Mickey the Mouse. Come on. Even your kids are getting sick of that.

7. You think you're too good for grammar.

8. You have a narrator that pops in and tells us annoy things like, "Little did Jimmy know he'd regret that decision." "You and I know Johnny shouldn't have done that, because we all know that moths and butterflies are the same thing."

9. You just used 'enthused.' *shiver* I love you Stephenie Meyer, but you did this (well, you used unenthused) in your last book, The Host. I know it's become popular to use this "word," but it just feels so wrong. I believe you also used the word aggravate in place of irritate in your Twilight series.

10. You don't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb.