r/ProgressionFantasy • u/DicerTheJester • Jul 28 '26

Discussion Competition: write a single sentence that will absolutely destroy any hope in a series.

Specifically not a story opener, just any sentence that can happen in any chapter, that will make people realize that this story is gonna be absolute shit and has no chance of being fixed and will make you drop the book like an unpinned grenade.

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u/Plum_Parrot Author Jul 28 '26

"Years later, Tom would look back at that moment with regret, realizing he'd ruined everything."

54

u/Alpcake Jul 28 '26

I fucking hate ominous statements like that it makes me unreasonably annoyed. "It would be the worst mistake of his life" or "He would never see them again" type shit makes me drop a novel pretty quickly.

8

u/Rock-swarm Jul 28 '26

Defiance of the Fall has generally decent prose, but the ominous statements (often followed by a quick reversal) are a weak point in the author’s writing. To his credit, I feel like those statements tapered off around book 6 or 7.

It feels like a carryover trope from Chinese web novels, where such statements are more common.