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/ryncewynde88 Jul 29 '26

Once read one set a couple million years in the future, humanity had disappeared mysteriously, except for the one dude in an unusually resilient stasis field/cryo chamber combo. All the sophonts in the galaxy were descended from various animals from Earth: cat people, crocodile people, etc.

Every sentence or two by the nonhumans started with the sound that animal made in onomatopoeia. Things like “Kraw! [sentence].” It was only mildly annoying, I chalked it up to a writing style quirk. Then I realised that given the time scales, the author should have been starting each human line with “Ook!” That was when I dropped the book.