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

stupid plots where the heroine accidentally gets caught naked or in her underwear, after spilling food over herself/spraying herself with a tap in the hero's bedroom/ knocking over a paint pot and covering herself in paint then 'having' to strip off and forgetting to lock the door so the hero/his mother/her boss walk in on her standing there.

Anyone padding about (as freepeacesweet said) - they just don't have their shoes on, so nbu for 50% of MN and bu for the other 50%

Anyone who guns the engine of their car. Gun is not a verb. They started it up, quickly.

However I am fairly partial to the alcoholic fifties tec, even if he's into jazz.

How about, "I'll have your badge for this" and detectives who eat doughnuts.

Am pmsl at the techno loving, alco pop drinking middl aged detective
Also the tooth mug - if you're going to be mingling and not wash your glass a tooth mug is as nasty as a normal glass

40 something male cop, divorced, bit of a maverick, narrows his eyes a lot as the smoke from his cigarette curls into them. Needs a shave and probably reeks of gin

Always just a hair breadth from flipping out and shooting someone in the US or getting frightfully angry and shouting loudly at someone if based in the UK. Thumps desks often.

Comes across as slightly unbalanced and metaphorically shoots from the hip and follows hunches.

Just who I want in charge of my muder investigations

Don't forget the frequent sex and inability to commit

In US cop lit, when they 'work' on a piece of pizza. Or 'snag' a donut.

Why can't just fucking eat normally?

I like the way that post juxtaposition makes it look as though LRD is opining that the one saving grace of the Clan of the Cave Bear series was that at least it wasn't set in London...

Oh yessss. Snag a donut. Why?

I hate it when male authors underwrite female characters but expect you to understand why another character loves them....like in Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Loved the book but just could not see what was so great about Patty.

Hum, that's not really a cliche is it?

Ok more of a cliche would be how in books everyone is miraculously way more articulate, especially teenagers and children. Every conversation gets to the point.

Oh, in books children are amazingly articulate, and precocious, and sometimes called Ptomely. They often act like hideous knowing preschool cupids by cleverly bringing together compatible adults

'Oh, miss, can you just help Mr Matthews with his dog, please?'

Cue Mr Matthews appearance, all broad shoulders in a checked shirt wrestling with a lead and a comical mongrel...

Books where the characters have almost supernatural powers of perception. "She understood, from the slight quirk of his left eyebrow, that he was still processing the events of that morning and wanted her to know that, despite everything, the game was still on."

Dogs!!! Where heroine meets hero through walking dogs at the same time.

That was acceptable in 101 Dalamations but that is where it should have ended!

Realistic diction is unrealistic (and crap to read/watch)

Chick lit - heroine splits up with leading man, discovers she's pregnant, misunderstanding resolved and they all live happily ever after in a matter of pages.

Boring, lazy and just a bit crap really.

"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."

Agree keema. TV and film is the worst for this, women being rescued and / or rescuing losers and putting up with abusive behaviour, but then it turns out fine because the man is saved by lurve. Urgh.

I hate it when the main female character is referred to by her first name but the main male character is always referred to by his surname. The Da Vinci Code is terrible for this (among other things!)

However I am a sucker for badly written 'erotic' scenes eg. "With trembling hands, he undid her bra."

In Homeland even Brody's wife calls him "Brody".

Trills - I was saying that to my DH in 'wtf' fashion last week!

trills, that struck me as odd though. is it more normal in america to call your husban by his sur name??

Trills My mom calls my dad by his (their) surname.

I hate, in crime thrillers, how the main character's career is always put in jeopardy when they are close to solving the crime. Kathy Reichs, I'm looking at you.

And the word irrevocably should be banned. I mean who actually uses that word!

I don't think it's America, it might be a military thing.

Then again Morena Baccarin was 31 when they were filming the first series (and the daughter was at least 16) so there are more problems here and maybe they met while at school...?