Writing my next book

[ThisLifeSuxx]

Hi MumsNetters. I am still relatively new to this forum so please forgive me if I have posted this thread in the wrong category.

I am a published writer that specialises in crime and psychological thrillers. I have written two books so far that were relatively successful but for book number 3, I would like to reach for the stars.

I need to make it clear from the offset that I am NOT seeking any ideas for storylines or anything of the sort. Please do NOT post any storyline ideas as I could get in serious trouble with my publishers if so. Copyright issues and so on.

What I am in fact looking for are your opinions on what storylines in this particular category that you are fed up of seeing. Which storylines are boring or regurgitated if want for a better turn of phrase, for you?

I am very interested to hear what the people DON'T want so that I know which direction to take with this next book.

TIA!

[quote MissBattleaxe]@PleaseBeSeated did you mean to be so rude? Perhaps because that's all there is?[/quote]
Not being rude at all -- several posters have referred to tropes they find extremely irritating in successive books by an author or authors they clearly go back to repeatedly, or to lazy tropes or storylines they find repeatedly in a particular genre or subgenre they nonetheless keep reading.

I'm simply asking why they keep reading the same author/series/subgenre when it's clearly lazy and formulaic?

Ad no, it's absolutely not 'all there is'.

Regional detectives

I'm simply asking why they keep reading the same author/series/subgenre when it's clearly lazy and formulaic?

It wasn't a rude question but you did come off as a bit superior. There's a lot of crap out there these days, which isn't helped by some genres all having the same sort of plots and even book covers. I've even sometimes bought a book twice thinking it sounded good from the blurb but I read a few pages and realised I'd read it before. Once I read a book and thought I was having deja vu, but it turned out books like these go through phases where different authors all have the same idea at once (eg. several people cut off in a skiing cabin or something happens at a street bbq).

The upshot is, I like crime books/psychological thrillers and sometimes you can come come across a gem, even though it might look generic at first glance but most times, they're an ok way to pass the time and they can still have a good plot line but employ some cliches. However, if a book annoys me so much within the first chapter, I'll just stop reading. I haven't lost anything as most of them are passed on from a friend.

Not all northerners are backward or poor (enter the barking dogs on council estate stereotype)

Not all women who commit crimes were abused as children.

So tired of those particular topes both in fiction and tv writing.

Not all northerners are backward or poor (enter the barking dogs on council estate stereotype)

I also hate it when the token working class person is the only character in the book whose speech is written in the vernacular.

Mumsnetters hate it when people pad around the house

I am watching this with interest as I am an aspiring author in the same genre. My own pet hates are authors trying to be too edgy. I read one recently where the perpetrator hadn't been raised in her biological family as she had been kidnapped as toddler. She took revenge on her biological mother who had been neglectful by sleeping with her hhalf brother and sister then it turned out that she wasn't the stolen child after all and the kidnapped toddler had been murdered after all. It was a ridiculous and horrible book.

I like characters to be flawed in some way without perfect lives and not to be superficial.

I prefer books to be about real life. I don't particularly like books that focus on one weekend away etc.

And I hate it when characters do ridiculous things. Like agree to meet the bad guy in a derelict house on their own

Why do some writers have their characters speaking so formally? I’m not sure if it’s their choice or they’re made to write in the ‘proper way’?

Eg a wife talking to her husband - I would not like a glass of wine with my dinner tonight because I have a headache but thank you. I think I will forego dinner actually and go to bed to rest until the morning.

Couple talking about their child - Emily came home from school in a foul mood, by that I mean she would barely glance at me as we travelled home and then she exited the car very quickly and retired to her room. She has not made an appearance since, I must express my worry at this situation.

@PleaseBeSeated

Why are you all reading such formulaic, lazy stuff, then?

Yes you’re right, how stupid we all at. I mean they do put stickers on every crime novel saying either ‘good example of genre’ or ‘bad example of genre.’

Only a moron can’t tell if a book’s good or bad by simply looking at it.

And also you can enjoy a genre while still pointing out cliches/repetition within it. It just makes you sound like such a smug dick to be like ‘why are you reading such lazy writing? I personally only read the very best.’

I mean for one there’s no way to find out whether you’ll like something before you read it. I’ve read ‘classics’ and Pulitzer Prize winners that I’ve put down afterwards and thought ‘what a rubbish book that was.’ Or I’ve read the latest raved about thriller and thought ‘no good character development.’

Touchy or what, @Kanaloa? You're waay over-interpreting a simple question on a thread which is a litany of complaints about repetitive storylines and lazy clichés in authors, series and genres, and wondering why people appear to keep reading stuff that sounds so poor.

It may well be that there are compensations for characters padding about being clichés and some people genuinely like the repetition of the world-weary cop, the wine-quaffing PTA stalwart who is really a serial killer or whatever but it would be perfectly possible to say so, without getting all touchy because you imagine someone is criticising your reading habits.

I don’t ‘imagine someone is criticising my reading habits.’ I read widely and a lot. Because I read often I pick up repeated things and find them lazy so often then get sick of a certain author or genre.

But coming on to a thread where you clearly know what the question is to ask ‘well why do you read such lazy stuff?’ Is just stupid. If you have nothing to add it’s ok just to say nothing.

Plus I answered your ‘simple question’ with the obvious answer - you don’t know the rubbish till you read it. There are gems within the genre but like all very popular genres there’s not so great stuff. If you just said ‘oh well I’ve read some rubbish crime novels so I’m never ever reading crime again’ you’d miss out on great stuff.

@Kanaloa

I don’t ‘imagine someone is criticising my reading habits.’ I read widely and a lot. Because I read often I pick up repeated things and find them lazy so often then get sick of a certain author or genre.

But coming on to a thread where you clearly know what the question is to ask ‘well why do you read such lazy stuff?’ Is just stupid. If you have nothing to add it’s ok just to say nothing.

Plus I answered your ‘simple question’ with the obvious answer - you don’t know the rubbish till you read it. There are gems within the genre but like all very popular genres there’s not so great stuff. If you just said ‘oh well I’ve read some rubbish crime novels so I’m never ever reading crime again’ you’d miss out on great stuff.

It's not an exact science, I agree, but you can very often tell the rubbish by a quick flick through a novel -- better if you're standing in a bookshop able to look at the physical book, obviously, but you can tell with a reasonable degree of certainty from even the free preview on Amazon. Lazy writing, clichéd prose and characterisation, hammy grandstanding of the kind posters above are complaining about, like 'I knew I could never tell Brandon what really happened the year I turned eighteen....', clunky prologues etc are not going to be magically absent from the opening, even if larger plotting failures are only obvious later. And if you keep going back to Kathleen McSamey-Killer, whose characters come out of Crime Cliché 101, then you've only yourself to blame.

I read a lot, too, and I very rarely buy duds, even if they're well-reviewed, garlanded with prizes, and have excellent word of mouth.

I read a lot, too, and I very rarely buy duds, even if they're well-reviewed, garlanded with prizes, and have excellent word of mouth.

Congratulations. What a wonderful achievement.

I'm a scientist. I hate stories where the science is inaccurate and implausible - research projects conducted single-handed with no ethics or results from labs in 5 mins etc.

I hate it when a pet features heavily. Pages and pages of the dog cocking his head to one side, pacing up and down, barking at the intruder, Kate burying her face in his fur when she's upset. Yawn. Especially if he has a quirky name like "Mr Winchester".

Also, long, pointless descriptions of the protagonist's day, that are purely there to set the scene/waste time. Usually a hectic breakfast time, packing school lunches, children asking for sports kit, munching toast, swallowing coffee, running out the door. A lot of people have mornings like this, don't want to read about it.

If the husband isn't a murderer with a secret life then he's normally a cliche in other ways. Solid, dependable, doesn't say much, pours the wine, picks up the car keys, works as an architect/designer. At the end when all is well she throws her arms around him and cries "I love you, Dan". I always think - why?

Oh, I love a realistically drawn pet. As long as it doesn't get killed or injured.

Hello,

I’m a bit fed up with a teenager being murdered/disappearing and all her/his friends never revealing they know something.

Waste of time for everyone involved, as they always end up confessing in the end.

Please no more child abductions.