Boring, Extinguishing, or Frightening

As a companion to the challenge to list things that I found exciting, inspiring, or intriguing, I decided to flip things around and explore the things that I dislike, the things that leaving me uneasy and at worse destroy my enjoyment of a story.

Because this challenge is the opposite of the other, I picked three words that I thought were good opposites to the ones in the original challenge: boring instead of exciting, extinguishing instead of inspiring, and frightening instead of intriguing. If I wasn't trying to mirror the other challenge, I would probably have added "annoying" to the title.

Of the three, I consider 'extinguishing' to represent the worst of the concepts, the types of things that drain imagination and enjoyment instead of set them on fire.

THE LIST (under construction)

• Unreasonable people
• Illogically dense people
• Fictional character who act out of character
• Unrealized potential
• Distant relationships
• Avoidable drama
• Uncontrolled emotions
• Embarrassing/awkward social situations 
• Serial killers
• Heights/sheer drops/falling
• Physical restriction (i.e. being stuck in an underground tunnel unable to move)
• Crude/sexual humor

Note: There is a disclaimer on this list, that doesn't exist on the other list. Many of these things can be used effectively to make a good story, one that I enjoy, but it all depends on how they are used (with the exception of characters acting out of character, which I don't think is ever okay).