Fiction cliches you hate

TV rather than novels, but I hate the fact that in detective stories, if someone looks the cop in the eyes and says "I swear I didn't do it! I know I look incredibly guilty and I hated the victim but I'm innocent I promise!" they are always innocent. No matter how fiendishly cunning the murderer, they are never able to tell a flat out lie.

and whats with the sliding of skirts over peoples hips. I have never slid a clothe in my life.

As soon as I read blackberry's post I thought, "I've read that Marian Keyes book", which added cliche number two of the stupid misunderstanding with sexy man when female character thinks he already has a girlfriend because sexy man is a transvestite. I think it's This Charming Man.

Much as I love the Ruth Galloway books she frets about her weight but she has an affair with a man who likes her curviness more than his wife's gym-toned body, so bingo for another cliche.

Having just chucked a book yesterday I am weary of plucky colonial types and cold upper class Brits in the 1920s.

add to that amazing emerald or, more improbably, huge violet eyes.

I hate it when central femalE character loses weight without trying due to all that's been going on in the plot and as a result ends up being much happier/ finally nabs the bloke etc...!They never pile it on due to emotional eating their way through entire boxes of Thorntons do they?

I won't have it! The Three Detectives story where Jupiter Jones has a double is ace! 'The mystery of the deadly double' IIRC.

I can't be doing with "impossibly blue eyes".

Clearly if the character has them they can't be impossible can they?

Or people drowning in other people's eyes. Grinds my gears that does.

I don't mind the name dropping too much. I like it when Jilly Cooper references Jackie Collins's novels, it makes me smile. Like when they used to mention Neighbours on Home and Away.

Blueraincoat: Dennis Wheatley actually namedropped himself in at least one of his novels!

Oh, yes. And where sisters and brothers resemble each other so much they're mistaken for each other, even as adults.

Bran and SGB: with the exception of one of Ngaio Marsh's detective stories where two distant cousins have a freakish resemblance but it doesn't come across as at all contrived, more as 'isn't genetics funny'.

Bran: or, even more irritating, identical cousins...

Glad to be of use (erm, I think ... given the lack of zits) bertrude.

I forgot the good one.

When a woman splits up with her partner/is widowed and, miraculously, loses 20 pounds and becomes A Fox as a result of her sadness making her forget to eat.

It makes me really want to write fiction where women married to sad bastards get the divorce, pile on 10 pounds over plenty of wine and pizza with their mates, look in the mirror and think 'fuck it, I still look much better without 140 pounds of useless twat husband'.

When they describe a cattle station in the bush as a 'ranch.' No, it's a station. Also, a station is not within 2 hours of a major city, try two days of solid driving.
When writing about a certain era in history (say, urgency) and then BAM we have a bustle and wasp-waist corset. Do your Damn research!

I hate it when someone with no shoes on "Pads" about. "She padded to the kitchen." No. She walked to the kitchen. WALKED!

Not exactly a cliché but when authors describe a car/gun/object in such a way it feels like you are just reading the manuscripts for adverts over and over again. Or when they name drop real-life celebrities to try and ground the book in reality, don't know why just sets my teeth on edge.

I'm another that hates the "only a dream" device.
The Box of Delights being the absolute worst offender. All that imagination, excitement, terror, magic... And then he woke up?!!!! I nearly threw the book across the room (I was 9 ;) )

I also hate "her sensitive lips quivered" and "her eyes filled".

Bertrude - Maybe it would be one of those novels where two separate crimes turned out to be mysteriously interlinked and the fox was trolling in order to steal chickens by getting MNers so het up that they didn't go leave their keyboards to shut the chickens up.

It would be solved through a spreadsheet combining time of sunset in various parts of the UK with times of troll posts, showed that trolling only happened 30 minutes before dusk every day.

grendel I have visions of the geek being a bit of an all round geek who would solve murders, which fox stole the chicken from the shed today in no way affiliated to my current reading material and of course Internet crimes such as interweb trollery based on the MN spreadsheet

LRD thanks! That book is now delivered to my kindle and will be started soon after 50 sheds

Have never heard of that series so will try to get past the lack of zits and spreadsheets and will give it a go

I love the idea of a short-arse geek solving crimes by way of a spreadsheet.

What crimes would she solve?

I like crime and thriller books but get so sick of the gun descriptions (usually in American novels).

Just say 'he fired the gun', instead of 'he cradled the .32 1989 beretta, loaded with blahblah, and considered using his semi-automatic blah blah blah'. It's boring and means NOTHING to me, just makes me feel a bit uncomfortable about the author's possible gun-fetish.

An there's often a detailed description of a dainty, silver gun belonging to one of the female characters (that they usually can't fire properly).

'The phrase "He said thickly". How do you say anything thickly? Unless you are stupid of course.'

Through a mouthful of peanut butter? At least that's how I always picture it. And yes,I am weird.