Fiction cliches you hate

I love bounders and cads.
Georgette Heyer does them wonderfully, and so many writers tried to copy her and failed miserably.
I agree Tanith, Lisbeth is one of my favourite characters in recent fiction.

I thought the whole point about Lisbeth Salander was that she didn't have a mental illness: the dominant men in her life were making out that she did because of her actions.

People in crime fiction and time-trotting historical dramas never throw incriminating things in the bin. They always burn them or bury them in the garden, or else handily hoard the evidence somewhere in their house. No-one does this.

People with mental illness are either murderous avenging angels like Lisbeth Salander, or fragile waify creatures who never go out, like all those Victorian attic-dwellers. No-one ever muddles along, takes pills and remains under the care of the community nurse.

The buffoons commit unprincipled blunders, though, don't they.

Absent bounder + blundering buffoon + impudent whippersnapper = Nick Hornby millions?

bounders!!

Unprincipled blunders are in the same place as cads, buffoons and impudent young whippersnappers.

I think nowadays unprincipled bounders are just absent fathers who don't pay their child support.

an unprincipled bounder - Oh, stubborn, whatever happened to unprincipled bounders? They should be brought back immediately, along with cheeky rogues!

The pale light cast deep shadows into his craggy face, emphasising the glint of his hard brown eyes beneath a dark, jutting brow. The lines etched around his sardonic lips tightened. "Let's go," he growled, tensing strong hands on the wheel.

This character is a high-flying lawyer whose urbane charm is a complete mystery, given that he appears to be a cross between a Cro-Magnon and a broken pavement.

Unmarried Victorian women who get seduced by an unprincipled bounder, and then die. Of what?? Frequently, there is also an "innocent babe" involved, who also dies and gets buried in the cold hard earth etc.etc.

If they don't die, they seem to have to spend the rest of their lives lying on the carpet, clasping peoples' knees and begging for forgiveness for being so unspeakably wicked as to have had sex.

Fictional people wake after a Night of Luurve and immediately start shagging again. Real people have bursting bladders and bed breath.

Grendel - Interlinked fox troll chicken shed crime GENIUS!

I have shuddered with desire. Ooh, that was long ago. I must admit I thought it was a cliché until it happened.

Ahhhh, thanks garlic. That genuinely is one I've not read. I thought it sounded vaguely like Watermelon, which I read and loved for its piss-taking of all the daft chick-lit cliches.

*by a useless third party

Oh!
And the baddie catching the hero/ine and explaining their whole plan to them before leaving them to be killed in an empty room or a useless third party.

Really long "misunderstandings" between characters which normally take up the majority of the book and usually result in them sleeping with another person who is portrayed as "bad" without really any good call. Then the enviable discovery of the truth, usually through a friend or relative, and this kiss and make up with absolutely no consequences regarding the behaviour during the "misunderstanding".

Ie. the plot of most chic-lit

LRD and complexnumber -
As soon as I read blackberry's post I thought, "I've read that Marian Keyes book", as well! It is This Charming Man, which I actually thought was a satire until I realised it isn't.

And laughter does not " bubble up" .

If it did that you'd either be salivating or vomiting whilst laughing

YY to Jilly repeating. There's often a scene where the dark, rugged DP/DH comes with a face like thunder so everyone knows its the worst news, then he breaks into a wicked smile and says 'It's ok my darlings etc etc.'

yy LadyBeagle and "fat" means 11st or more, even if she is 5'9"

Jilly Cooper repeats everything in her books.
Everybody always "screams with laughter", she's the one with the fat woman getting slim through a broken heart, (in every book) and her descriptions of characters are all the same.
I loved her first few books but they never change.

I have never read Rowling. I shan't bother now, it sounds like I would find it annoying (thanks for the tip) I usually let 1 instance of saying things simply pass but more than one and the author is on my naughty list.

I did actually read an author with pretty much no annoying habits. She is called Mari Strachan but unfortunately she has only written 2 books.

Tbh I think 'said + adverb' should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Especially when they're cliches like 'simply' or just redundant. I see some that are bordering on Swifties and they always make me giggle.

bessie - Rowling does a lot of that 's/he said, simply' bollocks, doesn't he? I've noticed if a character is good and pure of heart, they're allowed to speak 'simply'. It takes real evil to be a bit complicated.

SGB - lots of it is Plutarch. We had to do it for Antony and Cleopatra for A level.

I agree there's redoing an old plot, which lots of people do, and there's cliche. I reckon cliche is different because it makes you groan when you see it, whereas some people get away with an old plot because you're interested to see how it happens, even if you know what happens.

I find the 'action heroine in a corset/heels' thing annoying. I can run in heels but it's not something anyone chooses to do, and there is a limit to how althetic anyone can be in a corset! (This is why I like the bit in Brave where it actually shows she can't pull her arm back to draw her bow wearing her restrictive dress).