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Original poster

Stupidities and irritations in novels

264 replies

UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 11:43

What are the things which annoy you most in fiction? Things characters do, assumptions authors make, etc?

I think my number one has to be the "affluence assumption", where people who are supposedly worrying about money still "have" to send Jonty and Jocasta to the lovely little prep school and violin lessons. (Mind you, there's enough of that on here.)

DW has just finished reading these, which feature such laughable idiocies as a state primary school where people talk about "first years" and "second years" and which has its own dedicated science block and music block.

There are an awful lot of thirty- and forty-something women writing novels these days who are out of touch with any reality beyond their cosy little London mums-and-coffees-and-gym circle. And - surprise, surprise - they are books about cosy little London mums-and-coffees-and-gym circles.

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Original poster
UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 14:33

How do you know what "size" you are anyway?! DW has clothes with varying size labels on depending on where she has got them from. Different shops seem to have different standards.

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UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 14:32

It's true about the beer-gut. But it's usually a plot-point - he goes to the gym and meets a mysterious beautiful woman/ is handed a package of drugs/ discovers it is a front for an international prostitution ring. That kind of thing...

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RustyBear · 30/12/2008 14:31

Well, according to the radio this morning, size 14 women are 'happier' than all the others.

I was half asleep, so missed their definition of 'happiness', but judging by experience this may just be the fact that their MIL will have stopped saying 'You've put on a bit of weight haven't you?'

mosschops30 · 30/12/2008 14:29

Ooh dont get me started on the portrayal of nurses and hospitals in general on tv or in books.
The only one that came close was Bodies but even that ended up with the nurse shagging the registrar.
dh thinks that when I go to work i spend the entire 12 hour shift snogging doctors in the linen cupboard or performing a life saving operation because a consultant has passed out drunk

lalalonglegs · 30/12/2008 14:24

Oh, and the way that accidental pregnancies never seem to end in terminations in novels but always, after much soul-searching, a deliriously happy birth experience.

lalalonglegs · 30/12/2008 14:22

There was a spate of books which featured child characters/narrators and you knew as soon as you read the first sentence that there was going to be a bit of paedophilia at some point (I'm not talking about misery-lit but The God of Small Things and the like). It isn't a given that children are going to be molested at some point and I think using it as a narrative technique is tasteless and lazy.

OhBling · 30/12/2008 14:22

Mmm... although a few do have their protagonist noticing his beer gut or thinking maybe he should go to gym more...

incidentally, my second post was in relation to the comment on where the people live, not Jill Mansell's novels.

Original poster
UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 14:20

I am baffled at this obsession with "size". No male writer even feels the need to tell you what "size" clothes their protagonist takes.

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OhBling · 30/12/2008 14:12

Oh, and when they DO live in London, it's always somewhere instantly recognisable! Not some random suburb on the mainline station 45 minutes from town! Wimbledon is about as suburban as they ever go!

OhBling · 30/12/2008 14:11

I agree, chicklit, done well and with no further expectations from me, is entertaining - like watching Greys Anatomy.

UQD: Jill Mansell. she writes lots of novels set in non-London settings with characters who are gardeners or whatever. I love her books, not least because she doesn't seem to take herself or her novels too seriously. I can kick back and enjoy them without worrying - and without the angst referenced above. Her characters are always size 10 - 14 and LOVING it. Which I love!

blueshoes · 30/12/2008 14:10

Thanks for the tip about RJ, UqD. More evidence of nepotism in journalism ... or perhaps she is an outstanding writer, I would not know.

midnightexpress · 30/12/2008 14:10

UQD, you are forgetting the swathe of gritty detective novels set in Glasgow. Or Edinburgh (who cares?).

I wonder what genres other UK cities might corner?

kickassangel · 30/12/2008 14:07

sorry, 'chic lit' not the nonsense i wrote - struggling with brekkie, dd, & mn all at once! will go away now & focus on real life.

kickassangel · 30/12/2008 14:04

i class cniclit along with james bond & neighbours type things - chewing gum for the brian. you know what it is & just take it for that.

i get more seriously annoyed by pretenses at 'literature' where someone has attempted to write a good novel, but really it's just a bad novel with lots of overblown description in it. Cecilia Ahearn struck me as this. NO I DON'T want another description of the 'muted cappucino tones' of the main character's house, thank you.

Original poster
UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 14:02

Oh, I've got another - "geography shorthand". You know, where a particular area - or even road - in London is used as an indicator of what the characters' environment is like, in lieu of actually describing it in an interesting way. Sometimes we are even expected to know what particular streets are like just from the name.

There are 50-odd decent-sized cities in the UK! If you want an urban novel why the hell does it have to be set in London??! Why not write about somewhere more people won't know about?

I suppose the problem is that a lot of novels are written by journos and meejah folk, who want their heroes to be journos and meejah too, and so they can't convincingly be anywhere other than London. There was a Mil Millington book I read recently where it was all set in Edinburgh - the main character was an actress's ghostwriter, and you could tell it was straining and creaking a bit to justify not being set in London.

A little devolution would be good, though. After all, the BBC has a big base in Cardiff now and is going to move a lot to Manchester in the next couple of years.

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UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 13:55

DCMB - you know, I'm sure someone has told me about those Portsmouth novels before. Maybe it was you!

A fellow writer of mine (published novelist) had her character shopping in the local corner Spar and was asked by the editor to change it to Waitrose so it was more "aspirational". It's beyond parody.

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tribpot · 30/12/2008 13:54

Don't forget that the resolutely childfree one of a group of friends will always have changed her mind by the end.

And the knackered mum of 2 (or 3) will always think her husband is having an affair but mostly he isn't.

Original poster
UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 13:53

Rachel Johnson is Boris's sister. Telegraph journo and "novelist". Features in articles about upper-class scruffiness.

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blueshoes · 30/12/2008 13:47

Why do chick lit novels always assume women love shopping and have a weakness for shoes? Cannot relate to something as vacuous. Apart from that, I have not been able to turn the pages of enough chick lit without throwing it down in disgust to be able to comment sensibly.

Will steer clear of Rachel Johnson, whoever she may be, if the stick figures on the cover don't already give her away.

kickassangel · 30/12/2008 13:37

yep, and without even noticing she has magically lost weight just by magic.

PersephoneSnape · 30/12/2008 13:33

slightly overweight (size 14!)female central character starts new job in magazine/gallery/television studio in a new town and meets evil, nasty, but ruggedly handsome male collegue, who is a swine with women, by page 10. married (divinely! happily!)by penultimate chapter.

gakkkkk!

DontCallMeBaby · 30/12/2008 13:32

UQD, there IS a series of Maverick Detective-ish novels set in Portsmouth, by Graham Hurley. Not been televised, so no opening sequences, but Spinnaker Tower and Gunwharf DO feature quite a lot. I quite like them though, they feature concerns about budgets for murder investigations, and reinforcements get called in from hotspots like Meon and Warsash.

MarshaBrady · 30/12/2008 13:22

Yes and the gay best friend has absolutely nothing going on in his life, well other than possibly having a simply divinely cute boyfriend somewhere, so he can dedicate his whole time round at her bijou flat listening to her boyfriend, career, mother dramas and drinking white wine.

badgermonkey · 30/12/2008 13:19

The gay best friend must, however, be either essentially sexless (a bit of "ooh he is dreamy" dialogue permitted) or happily shacked up in as near to a heterosexual relationship as possible by the end of the novel (one's a high-powered businessman, the other works in an art gallery and so on). There will be no gay sex in the novel, thank you very much.

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UnquietDad · 30/12/2008 13:16

marshabrady - don't forget the obligatory gay best friend, who would be the perfect man for her apart from the small matter of his preferring cock.

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