Why did you stop reading a comic/story?

Not something related to the story itself, but this made me drop a few comics:

When instead of uploading new comics the author uploads fan art for months on end. Uploading fan art is cool, and I get it when you can't upload every month (happened to me just now), but when it gets to the point that most of the entries on your comic are fan art I take issue.

Hmmm I'll try and be gentle with this, considering creators reading this could be hurt.

• Reboots: I understand that sometimes a creator isn't happy with the way their story is going. But when a story gets rebooted (or several times for that matter) it gets harder for me to invest myself into it.

• If the author is a terrible person I may stop reading their story, even if it is good

It's usually one or more out of:

• The setup was amazing, but as soon as we got through the setup where the premise of the story is established, the entire thing just stalled and started treading water. Usually a sign that the creator had an amazing idea for a story but...er... never actually thought of a story, and even if they do have some idea of what an ending would be, nothing is making progress towards that; it becomes like reading a string of fluff fanfics where the characters just sort of doss around, flirt coyly, have the same misunderstandings over and over again and just generally it's not going anywhere.

• It was paced wrong for the format. I love a meaty novel or graphic novel, and I love the space they have to really sink into the atmosphere. In a graphic novel a character can linger in front of a door for a few pages, mustering up the courage to knock and then not do so.... But pull that on me in a webcomic and I'm annoyed. If you're updating a page per week and you want me to stay interested while the character stands in front of a door for three weeks then walks away, you're definitely underestimating how many other things I will happily start reading instead of your comic.

• It stopped being the thing I liked. A good example of a comic I loved and then realised after years was bringing me no joy was The Order of the Stick. It started out as a funny gag comic about 3.5 edition D&D (back when that was the new edition so the jokes were fresh) that occasionally hinted at further character depth and had just enough deeper character story while maintaining a fairly light tone. After a number of years though, the serious storylines completely took over, and I realised I just didn't really care about it any more.

• I stopped being a person who was into that. Sometimes a webcomic can go on so long that you change as a person so much it's just not your jam any more! It happens! I was a die-hard Megatokyo fan as a teenager, but I'm pretty much indifferent to it now.

• The creator did or said something really bad or even directly treated me or somebody I care about badly. Yikes.

Most of the time I stop reading something either because I'm reading too much shit and I can't keep up anymore, or it got boring lol

I have a criminally short attention span, so it's generally because the pacing was too short, or a particular arc was dragging out too long, or it started to feel repetitive. But, I also have high standards despite my short attention span, so I have also dropped things strictly because the plot twist was just too much and out of character, or it felt like the twist wasn't the result of foreshadowing, but patting some putty over some plot holes.

'insert name is not your average girl.'

I just stop reading stories when thhey start like this.

Heh, I am the opposite. I ignore the stories about the average girls a lot. Heh, at least we balance each-other out.

I think for me I unsub from a comic usually for one of two reasons:

The story doesn't go anywhere: If you are on episode 170 and your main character has done absolutely nothing but follow around her crush and only talk to him twice and feel bad for herself, with no other character interaction... yah, that's boring.

The creator deleted the toon and keeps re-booting it: this is a huge super irritating trend on webtoons right now, especially with isekai genre comics. So, a creator will make a comic for about 30 episodes, build an audience, and then delete all the episodes and start over with a similar new comic. So it makes it look like you have thousands of subscribers with only 3 episodes, but they are left over from the previous comic. I honestly don't want to keep re-reading the same comic over and over with minor changes, especially when its an attention grab.

I didn't know they do that!

Why did you [I] stop reading a comic/story?

If I have to be brutally honest, it's because I believe that I could have wrote those stories better than them. But since I'm not them, then I'd write my own stories that have each of their themes.

P.S. This doesn't apply to stories here in Tapas. Tapas is still a fresh territory to me.

This is a great topic to bring up cause its actually a good list for storytellers on how not to tell a story!

Me personally, I stop reading if

The Story is too slow paced and doesn't get to the gist quickly.- for me the story has to at least let me know what I'm in for in at least the first chapter if not the first upload or else its not worth my time.

BAD dialogue- this could be subjective, but there is such a thing as flow when it comes to this kind of stuff. Some authors just copy and past stereotypical phrases and call it dialogue when it truly doesn't feel genuine in the slightest.

Lazy Artstyle - I say lazy because art style is subjective so bad doesn't really come into play for me. But lazy art is the worst. If the author has a specific style and then just doesn't focus on it anymore or doesn't clean up than it puts me off for sure.

No Theme - I might be alone in this but I love a story that is thought provoking even if its a comedy. Without a good strong central theme (no matter what it is) I can't invest my time in that story. It feels useless.

Cliche - Anything that does not have a unique concept and simply rides off the back of already successful works (fan fiction), or simply adds more monotony to a genre of work without innovating will most likely get boring quickly for me. I don't know I guess I just like cool concepts in storytelling!

Thats it for me, but this thread for me is a good way to gauge peoples tastes and am thankful you brought this up!

Just plain boring - I get bored pretty fast and if the page is 70% text I'm not reading any of it.

The comic feels off - I dropped a comic once for sexualizing the young main character. I didn't want to know how that one would end.

I don't find the humor interesting or the comic relatable - Dropped a comic once for having boomer humor. I just don't find that interesting. There have been slice of life comics full of references that I just didn't get or just didn't find interesting.

The comic just takes a turn and changes - There was one romance comic on webtoon that had something going on between the main character and another character. For the next season everything just went poof and the MC got with someone else that was new to the story.

I'm 38. I have amassed a list of things I just don't read.

1. If you character is a poor unfortunate soul. Their situation in life is just so depressing. EX, my character Sarah is hated by her class. She is an outcaste and is bullied everyday. She's so alone and... omg stop.

2. The main character is a tween, and is literally living life as an adult. Got an apartment, no parents, for some reason NOT IN FOSTER CARE. BONUS - they have some handicap yet still not in foster care and appear to be able to pay for everything without a job while still going to school and actually not having any adult responsibilities at all.

3. References to Japanese Culture that are learned solely from ANIME. I lived in Japan for 10 years. I cannot read stories that are set in Tokyo by people that have never been there. There are culture references and pop culture references to the culture that are based solely on things fans have learned from anime and it's just strange. And when authors start half talking in sprinkled japanese, I am turned off immediately. "Wow! She's so kawaii!"

4. Overusing adverbs.

5. First person writing. I really don't want to imagine MYSELF in a relationship with Edward Cullen. If you get my drift.

1. One more - Werewolf alpha stories.

Well most of the time is because I don't get hooked or I forgot

I really don't know if it's because the plot is going too slowly or too generic, I don't read most of the time so I barely read series then drop them.

I don't think I've ever stopped reading a story for anything except pacing
Actually one of my favorite webcomics is The Rock Cocks which is partly nsfw but it's so fun and the characters are so great that I feel like it's easy to look past the porn.
There's a LOT of comics which I haven't read in years because they're just too frickin long, but I haven't dropped them. I plan to read them once they've finished

I'm really not all that picky, but if the pacing or the tone is off you probably weren't ready to post it yet.

Since many here seem to have had bad experiences with novels/comics containing long text & dialogues & slow pacing, I just wanna chime in to say that it does work for certain story types, especially works meant to be informative, fact-base and/or philosophical. Or some cases of "ridiculous comedy".

Except for reference and case studies, I don't sub series that don't click with me after the first few eps. I casually check them out sometimes though, to see if they've improved. So can't say I dropped those series cuz I didn't really pick them up.

In cases where I unbookmark or drop series, it's mostly one of these things:

• Obvious plot holes: especially in sci-fi, mystery & complex-ish fantasy.

• Character regression: usually, bad post-romance development or character nerfing is the culprit.

• Exaggerations inconsistent with world building: this disturbs me the most when sports and talent-based stories go supernatural, or the author just churns out nonsensical stats to impress readers. Like, jumping 2 meters high in a basketball match, or playing the piano at around 2000 BPM (the latter is a real example from a comic )

• Fluctuation in art quality: I strongly prefer hiatuses (unintentional or not) to the authors taking "shortcuts" every now and then. Many say the average reader's only gonna stare at each panel for like 30 sec, and everyone has bad days, but if I consistently spot missing fingers, lazy line art/coloring, wrong eye color, stiff poses etc. in an ongoing work, it's very tempting to unsub.

• Lack of planning for series: this kinda leads to one or more issues above, and is common after a series' big break as the author(s) are often under huge pressure, or long-running series.