Do not want...but why not?

Most of mine have been covered - spelling, punctuation, plot coherency/consistency, doing your research (hey, NCIS, I'm looking at you and your non-map-reading skills!) -- but I also have an issue with heroines riding only the extremes of the "when it comes to men" spectrum. Either they're so wrapped up in not needing a man that they seemingly have no other personality, or they're so incapable of living their own lives that they need a "protector." It's one thing if a heroine who was tough and capable becomes so weak that she hides behind everyone else; that's something I might be persuaded into believing, if there's a viable reason for it (magic? battle scars?). There are women out there in Reality who can fall into either category, and I'm fully aware of that. Heck, as minor characters or heroines who come into their own, they can be readable. But there are a lot more women who hover around the middle ground, who can fight for themselves but won't say "no" to help (unless there's a reason for it, and hey, that drives plot!) and books with heroines like that are my preference.

I also take issue when the author flips between British and American spellings. Please pick one, for heaven's sake; you don't get to pick and choose so that they fight for honour in their armor.

Some authors also treat their readers as if they don't possess a bare minimum of intelligence; cut out the condescending description of what we already know to be a horse, and get on with the plot, please.

Oh, and overuse of an adjective, adverb, or slang-term. Not everyone can be dainty, not everyone should scoff menacingly, and for heaven's sake, if you're set on using foreign slang, use it in context and with purpose. Not just for S&Gs.

AngelVixen :-)
(edited for additional clarification)

I also take issue when the author flips between British and American spellings. Please pick one, for heaven's sake; you don't get to pick and choose so that they fight for honour in their armor.

You're not going to like my 22nd century Utopian SF novel where those two strands of English have reunited and the blending is intentionally uneven, then. (On the off-chance I ever get it published and a publisher ever lets me get away with it.)

Though if I read something like that and it was not visibly systematic, I would be inclined to credit it to lousy proofing.

where those two strands of English have reunited and the blending is intentionally uneven, then

It's more an annoyance with people who do it because it "sounds better spelled that way" or "it's more sophisticated." However, your story, it makes me blink, but in interest. May one ask what brought about their reunion?

AngelVixen :-)

In brief; massive reduction in human population, followed by success in organising in the face of said catastrophe in a participate-or-die context, followed by several generations of essentially neutral selection (um, in the molecular evolution sense of neutral selection, is that adequately clear here ?) where the population was small enough any given element of one or the other usage that happened to become fashionable or just randomly popular could become established as the default relatively easily.

Umm, that's called "Canadian English"

Up here, we use American for half the stuff, and British for the other half.

American stuff is like Analyze vs the brit Analyse
British stuff is giving proper honour to the U that colours our words.

Some of it is covered here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_English

Solution: Publish in Canada.

I am Irish by birth and upbringing and a Montrealer by choice, so I am familiar with more than one strand of English that's neither entirely USAn nore entirely British.