Interestingly, I find laziness far less forgivable than prejudice or other forms of bias in writing. I can overlook the gender or racial stereotyping that often shows up (especially in the older works or "classic fantasy" stuff). It has to get fairly blatant before I'll take offense. Which is the point (for me, at least). I don't rise up in anger against the writer who assumes that all Irish people, or all Australians (or all women, for that matter) are the same. I'm reading a story; and that implies that I am borrowing their world-view for a while. It may tell me something about the writer, but it is not an attack on my own beliefs.
But sloppy writing, or people using a cookie-cutter character rather than applying a bit of effort to round out an individual bugs me tremendously. It doesn't take a lot; you can imply a great deal of information with a one line description if you try. But to state their race or socioeconomic group and gender and imply that to be all the information required for an in-depth knowledge of their persona... No. It's trite, annoying, and lazy. I find that such short-cuts disrupt the flow of my reading, because they make me stop to cavil; which irks me even more. In terms of literature, I put it on a par with not bothering to spell-check a story before posting. This extends to situations as well as characters; the number of people who don't bother to think about the realities of another country before they try to write a story set there is daunting.
I feel the same when people try to write medical stuff, and don't bother checking the basics. It's so easy to do five minutes of research! Never watch a medical show in my company. I nit-pick.
My apologies if this is a trifle disjointed; note time of day at this writing :)
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Interestingly, I find laziness far less forgivable than prejudice or other forms of bias in writing. I can overlook the gender or racial stereotyping that often shows up (especially in the older works or "classic fantasy" stuff). It has to get fairly blatant before I'll take offense. Which is the point (for me, at least). I don't rise up in anger against the writer who assumes that all Irish people, or all Australians (or all women, for that matter) are the same. I'm reading a story; and that implies that I am borrowing their world-view for a while. It may tell me something about the writer, but it is not an attack on my own beliefs.
But sloppy writing, or people using a cookie-cutter character rather than applying a bit of effort to round out an individual bugs me tremendously. It doesn't take a lot; you can imply a great deal of information with a one line description if you try. But to state their race or socioeconomic group and gender and imply that to be all the information required for an in-depth knowledge of their persona... No. It's trite, annoying, and lazy. I find that such short-cuts disrupt the flow of my reading, because they make me stop to cavil; which irks me even more. In terms of literature, I put it on a par with not bothering to spell-check a story before posting. This extends to situations as well as characters; the number of people who don't bother to think about the realities of another country before they try to write a story set there is daunting.
I feel the same when people try to write medical stuff, and don't bother checking the basics. It's so easy to do five minutes of research! Never watch a medical show in my company. I nit-pick.
My apologies if this is a trifle disjointed; note time of day at this writing :)