Fiction cliches you hate

[SPBInDisguise]

I read mostly crime and thriller.
Can't bear books that take the first hundred pages to describe the landscape. Thick frost, frozen lake, snowy trees, onto the action please.
Detectives that drink lots of coffee and work all night but somehow seem to actually work very little

[StairsInTheNight]

people forgetting to eat, they are so busy and/or in love. People who have not slept for 2 days and are able to function and not be a weepy mess.

[Trills]

when the love interest or heroine is going out with a really one-dimensionally horrible person

I'll take that as "love interest OF the heroine" and give you The Paolo.

[ImperialBlether]

A widow's peak is a little pointy thing on your hairline, Primadonnagirl. Like this.

[Salmotrutta]

I'm here all week Naice

[Trills]

Where heroines are inexplicably irresistible to all the male characters - yes Sookie Stackhouse I'm looking at you..

It's not inexplicable, it's her super special specialness

[Trills]

This is my favourite thread for such a long time.

[ImperialBlether]

Mine too, Trills. I'm too tired to join in but I love everyone's posts.

[Trills]

In Jilly Cooper when someone is unhappy in love they get very thin because they stop eating and drink gin from a tooth mug.

It took me ages to work out what a tooth mug is - it's the mug you keep your toothbrush in. Because you are too depressed to wash up anything else.

Minty gin. Minging.

[tinselahohoho]

Oooh ooooh ooooh - this one! When, in a crime book, there's a serial killer who has committed about a dozen murders and everyone is on the case. Then the author throws in a comment about a burglary or something insignificant but YOU JUST KNOW it will be linked, and the key to everything! They think they're being really smart but it flashes like a beacon.

And 'yes' to whoever mentioned cars with kooky names.

And diabetic characters who never seem to have to worry about eating on time, but if they do go hypo, a glass of milk sorts them out no problem

[Primadonnagirl]

Thanks Imperial!Never would have noticed that before but now I shall be staring at people trying to find one! Have already checked in mirror..I don't have them but I do have alabaster skin and a cupids bow mouth! Ha!

[Trills]

Boy-girl twins (and often siblings in general) always look soooooo alike.

[LRDtheFeministDude]

prima - glad to know there are several of us gritting our teeth over the weightloss thing!

I quite fancy minty gin, though.

flowery - yup, absolutely.

If I may lower the tone significantly, I also hate implausible sex scenes. There's a bit in The Bronze Horseman which I read aged about 12, which had me mightily confused about sex as apparently it was all about 'giant members' and her moaning when he was only halfway in.

Note to budding authors: if it's only halfway in, we're not moaning. No-one has a penis that big!

[Trills]

They are ridiculous in many ways, but the Clan of the Cave Bear and sequels make me happy because they describe prehistoric life and don't omit details like weeing and having periods.

[KeemaNaanAndCurryOn]

I have no idea whether this has been mentioned or not BUT...

ANY fecking chick-lit that inevitably involves some high-flying woman living in London who can't find love until some low-life twonk comes along and repairs her damaged, single soul.

Any book where the woman ends up dating and/or marrying an utter loser as he has a soft and fuzzy side. HE IS STILL A LOSER.

Also, would love to point out to any authors out there, is that there are places other than sodding london to live. Yes, thousands and thousands of people DO live there, but there's a good chunk of the population who don't, so if you are going to write some hackneyed chick-lit, don't write about Hackney. Even sodding PRESTON would be a refreshing change.

[LRDtheFeministDude]

True, Jean Auel does have that going for her.

OTOH .... !

[TheLightPassenger]

The remarkable irresistibility of the late fifties, dysfunctional workaholic alcoholic detective to young females. He will also like jazz or opera. Strangely never into old school or techno.

[Trills]

If it's halfway in and the woman is moaning there is probably something going wrong, you should stop and ask her if she is OK.

[EuphemiaInExcelsis]

Stories where the central characters are independently wealthy, meaning they don't gave to do tedious things like go to work or clean the toilet.

Orphans, for similar reasons. They can wander the world at will without having to do their homework or answer to their parents.

[Salmotrutta]

Oh Lordy.
I had Fred about Clan of The Cave bear a few months back.

It's full of throbbing members.

And impossibly blue eyes.

[StairsInTheNight]

the 'borrowing an amazing party dress' device which suddenly makes various male characters realised what a stunningly beautiful person the heroine is, especially if she has long coltish legs normally hidden in jeans, and a mop of curls

[Salmotrutta]

I had a Fred.

[Trills]

Show us your Fred! I will rip the piss out of it with the best of them, I was just saying that they do wee and poo and have periods and go wash themselves after having their ridiculous perfect-person throbbing member sex.

[LRDtheFeministDude]

Good point trills.

I'm also fed up with the ones where woman, down on her luck, suddenly starts a successful business from her quaint hobby, which is invariably something 'girlie' like cooking or baking cupcakes or producing really A1 cosmetics. It's never a spot of light car mechanics or particle physics.

For this reason I give points to Joanna Trollope, who does write some formulaic stuff (that many books, who wouldn't?!), but also remembers that women can work in labs as well as bakeries.

[Primadonnagirl]

Oh and as I'm the central character in my own life can I have "tumbling locks too"?!and can I start up a business using grans old recipes for jam or some such and by the end of the book have orders tumbling in so I now e mploy staff?