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

yes, I did wonder about that, I was thinking now is stinking the new 'baaad'
top cliche book I read a while ago was by Elizabeth Haynes, she did quite a good stalker boyfriend book which was always recommended on here - well the follow up's a top turkey
heroine is ex lap dancer who has retired to the country to live on a houseboat

you'll enjoy the singer-songwriter Feist too then

Can I move the thread back to cliches? I hate books with loads of 's/he said, simply'

Instead of saying it complicatedly.

Male characters who have been working all night (poring over law papers or unsolved missing persons cases usually) who run their fingers over their stubble, with bleary eyes.

Female characters who 'jut out their jaw' defiantly. That can't be a good look, surely? Piss off she said, doing her best Jimmy Hill impression

I'm not especially fond of people who narrow their eyes.

That's an anatomical impossibility actually.

I think they mean from top to bottom, not side to side.

In fiction, the dippy girl who has a crap career and is slightly overweight always lands up with a rich intelligent man who everyone else is listing after.

Sorry - lusting after

now i am thinking of goat slot narrowed eyes. snurk

Bunty, they're all so bloody formulaic aren't they? My five year old has more imagination.

Any over-described outfits, especially if it involves the use of brand names- "She slipped on her Marc Jacobs cardigan and fiddled with the buttons on her Alice Temperley blouse" etc.

It really irritates me.

You're not a fan of the costume porn then BoF?

Brand names just make things date horribly.

Oh yes,
'She adjusted her Alexander McQueen scarf and closed the clasp on her vintage Chloe handbag, mussed up her long red mane, and applied her favourite Chanel lipstick. Pouting she surveyed herself (insert self depreciating description of obviously stunning person here), sigh, she'd have to do'.

But trills your eyeballs cannot narrow in any direction.

So all that narrowing eyes is actual anatomical shit.

And when the heroine's breath comes in shallow gasps because Mr Fantastic has ripped her bodice she should probably seek medical help.

Babies are never born in hospital. Always an unplanned home delivery, no midwife in attendance, just the male character with whom the mother has been having an ongoing misunderstanding/unrequited love interest. An unplanned homebirth guarantees to resolve all this swiftly.

The brother/sister looking identical is the main plot device in Twelfth Night and DH can't get why I don't like Shakespeare.

And Comedy of Errors.

I still like him though.

Babies being born by the waters breaking theatrically as a first sign of labour is my pet hate cliche from TV at the moment.

And I'm lead to believe, by *DH that non of Shakespeare's plots were totally original, so this cliche business has been going on a long time.

(I'm inclined to believe him as FIL was a serious English scholar)

Um ... not that I can think of. Macbeth might be? Dunno. Most of them aren't.

Is one of them a girl in Comedy of Errors? I really haven't been paying attention, then...

My waters breaking theatrically was my first sign of labour first time around - - although it does seem to happen with more than strictly statistical likelihood on the telly.

Two sets of boys, sorry ... ignore me!

I hate it when everything is solved through the power of love. Obviously it's mainly used in children's fiction, but that's no excuse!