What Makes A Story Start To Be Boring?
This Thread is NOT about which stories are boring but instead about what eventually makes a story boring. In other words, you started reading a story that appealed to you and then some where in the story it started to become dull. What caused it in your opinion?
So much can be said on the cause but I think the pace can make it boring. If you enter an action part of the story and then go through too many pages with dull details then it can be boring if no intrigue or mystery is added.
I think the story has to keep moving forward without too many obscure details added. Also has it pulled you into feeling or seeing what the character is doing. If in the first few chapters you should be given enough to make you ponder where this is going. Also choppy writing will stop a reader. If the ideas and information is not flowing it will stop a reader quickly.
Too much detail can kill my interest in a story. Some things should be left to the imagination. I have never been a fan of writing styles that take multiple pages to describe a scene. That being said, not enough detail can also cause me to be bored with a story. Finding that balance is difficult sometimes.
A boring villain would kill it for me, if there is no challenge or no hope of winning then there really is no reason for the journey.
Another angle you can look at is the fact that the reader could be a boring person and find everything they read to be that way. Take the Dragonlance novels, that's some serious reading but if you're a graphic novel kind of person you will find Dragonlance boring.
Edited: Hunter on 9th Dec, 2015 - 5:36pm
True, it does really all boil down to what you prefer to read in the first place.
So I agree it depends on the reader and the writer, both.
I do believe that too many pointless details, derails the reader's involvement.
Another point to consider is when a reader disbelieves the presented facts. When it falls so far outside of imagined reason, then the interest fades and fast. For me this is what invariably slows it all down.