Things that really wind you up in novels

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I just finished reading a 'chick-lit' book (not how it was marketed but it most definitely was, IMO) where the heroine starts out as an ambitious, independent professional who seems like she might be an interesting character for once, then as soon as A Man appears she turns to mush and reveals that all this strong exterior is just a facade she's putting up to stop her heart being broken again. Sigh. To make things worse you could tell she was going to fall for him from about page 20 because a) they hated each other and b) his wife was conveniently dead, AND it had one of those 'quirky' The Quaintly-Named Suburban Avenue Ladies' Flower Arranging Society type titles. It was a shame because otherwise it wasn't a badly written book, it was just ruined for me by too many cliches... What things in a novel make you sigh and think 'Oh God, it's one of those books'?

frogisatwat I read a Peter James where the guy nuzzled the girl's neck WHILE SHE WAS GIVING HIM A BJ. Nice trick

There are quite a lot of crime novels - I'm thinking of Nicci French in particular - where the heroine's entirely reasonable suspicions that someone is a psychopath intent on killing her are downplayed by all her friends as well as the police officers. I always think, C'mon, nobody's that stupid in real life. And I do love the Nicci French novels.

"deste to MsBojangles are you sure number three wasn't a post from Mumsnet."

BAHAHAHAHHA :D :D :D

Dialogue in which each character says the other person's name at the end of every sentence. Presumably the author is trying to help you keep track of who is speaking but a) real people do not do this, and b) I'm not stupid.

For me it was a three book series with a great storyline although in the final book the heroine falls for the previously bad man. But I can forgive that because the actual storyline was still intriguing. But after three books with a massive finale build up to crucial character dies THE END nothing more no detail how everyone else reacted or anything. It was like the writer wrote the ending with a minute to Spare before it had to be at the publishers. Oh how I felt cheated. Three books worth leading to....they die boohoo.

I realise I have said Three books a lot
Sorry I must still be bitter

Oh yes, books that just skid to a halt (presumably the author was either on a deadline or had a very strict wordcount.)

Petrificus my eyes genuinely change colour because they are mid-green in the middle and change to a dark green-brown at the outer edge. When my irises are contracted my whole eye looks green but when they are dilated my eyes appear brown. The type of lighting and what I'm wearing affect the colour too. Sadly, I'm no romantic heroine and people only ever comment on it in a 'you are a bit of a freak' sort of way.

I'm not keen on verbal tics, but it can be acceptable if it suits the character. However I've read a few books recently where virtually every character in the book uses the same phrases repeatedly so it's obviously something that the author him/herself says a lot, and that's bloody irritating.

Mine are the same as yours but with the colours the other way round.

Oh on a lesser scale. The Twilight ending I picked through the crappy story and the pathetic girl character who is suppose to be intelligent and strong minded
To again, build up to grand finale then.....'oh well, we'll just go home then, cheery oh'

Books where the female character wakes up naked in strange mans bed then wanders off, still in the buff, to find the loo and bumps into strange man's elderly grandmother/ laddish flatmate etc etc cue much embarrassment . Would anyone in RL wander round a strange house naked?

Yy to heroines who jut out their chin defiantly. Also older characters who say 'very well'. I don't think I have ever heard anyone say this in real life!

Oh yes to the long involved novel with slowly paced storyline, building up, building up and then WHAM! cuts out in 2 short chapters, as though the author has either run out of time or ideas. I HATE that.

IAmAllImportant - yes, it really is everywhere. I guess that means some people really don't communicate but it does wind me up. Especially when in a book/film/whatever, someone refuses to answer endless calls and messages from someone clearly desperate to explain. Grrr!

It always gets me when the one who wants to explain, you know, the explanation that would clear everything up, starts speaking and the other one says either:
"I know what you're going to say..." and goes on to say completely the wrong thing, culminating with "and so I think we should just leave it/split up"
or:
"no, let me speak first..." and goes on to give their completely wrong view of the other person's feelings, culminating with "and so I think we should just leave it/split up"
both of which completely shut down the first person's chance to explain and clear everything up, allowing them to have their happy ever after. Why don't they just say "no, shut up, I need to say this first!"

I love Stephen Kings stories but the writing annoys me. Half a page describing the leaves in the street.

This is fabulous! Love this thread. I'm an editor and work a lot on fiction. I hate the following:

Poorly written regional dialogue - please don't! There are books and blogs advising how to write dialogue - and 'e sed e woz thik' is not the way to do it!

Dialogue tags - please, stop with the 'she riposted', 'he ejaculated' etc. No need! Obvious and clunky.

Changing tenses and from first to third person during a scene - bad editing!

Too many adjectives - one is enough!

:)

Oh yes, Stephen. King really overdoes
the italic bit that are supposed to be
Weird surfacings from the id and from advertising
because looking good
Jingles
starts from the inside

Couldn't agree more.

I can never relate to his characters either. I suppose that's not really his fault but I always find them to be incredibly annoying

Mine is the constant beand clanging, i just dont care, i put one book down after page 1 i had no desire to know the brand of her knickers, shoes, jacket, carpet, car.

Petrificus my eyes genuinely change colour because they are mid-green in the middle and change to a dark green-brown at the outer edge. When my irises are contracted my whole eye looks green but when they are dilated my eyes appear brown. The type of lighting and what I'm wearing affect the colour too

Me too

Only mine are blue/grey brown/green

I have NEVER had it described as sexy, only weired/creepy:)

My bugbear is seasonal/ natural world incorrectness. Like a character looking at a flower that wouldn't grow in that location or in that season. Susan Cooper does this a couple of times, a skylark singing in October in Wales (possible, but skylarks tent to give up in about August) or in the Dark is Rising she describes Will looking out on a day lit snow covered vista 'it was still very early' it is December the 21st. It gets light at 8am. Not 5am.

Mind you I got pissed off ad the 'Robot of Sherwood' Dr who episode, ( not a novel, but It still irritated me) which was clearly filmed in March by the state of the foliage on the trees, but a character sys it is August, and the plants in the camp are all wrong, too many flowers. I was shouting at the TV, and DH said 'it is a programme about an immortal alien visiting robotic historical figures in a 1960s phone box spaceship, and you are cross because the plants and seasons are implausible...?'

Fair point.

New man/woman in town spends his/her time pouting and stomping around the village. Rather than thinking 'what a grumpy idiot' the grouchy ways only serve to inflame the heart and loins of many an admirer.

In Victorian page turnery type books a lot of chapters end with the hero narrator saying things like 'as I alighted from the hansom I thought I saw Ms Perriwig come out of the haberdashers but decided I must have imagined it as she was in Gloucestershire for the season'

or 'I had the strangest sensation I was being followed as I strolled to the tobacconists but decided I was imagining it'

or 'I thought I saw a wisp of a smile around Miss Amelia Cavendish's usually placid mouth when I mentioned Hubert Forbes-Pemberton's untimely death but decided I must have imagined it'.

It WAS Miss Perriwig, you WERE being followed to the tobacconists and Miss Amelia Cavendish ISN'T as placid as she seems you muppet.

People with purple eyes, or, in fact, any kind of "striking" eye colour.

Count up the number of people you know with "striking" eye colours that you notice every time you meet them. The only time I've noticed someone's eye colour without intentionally checking in the first place, it was because they were wearing those disposable colour contact lenses.

Anyone looking in the mirror and bemoaning their too-full lips, or some other non-existent flaw. It's never, "Sarah malevolently eyed the irradicable blackheads on the side of her nose" but "Tammy brushed her hair back into a braid. She paused to assess herself: slightly too pale skin which contrasted with her black hair, a petite nose with a definite tilt at the tip, and narrow cheekbones. No, she could never compete with Evangeline".

Rein/reign.

When entire plots are from another book. Eragon is directly copied from David Eddings. Whole scenes/characters/names all copied. Arse.

Along the same lines as Dalekanium's Dark is Rising complaint:
I'm currently reading Harry Potter to ds, we just finished Prisoner of Azkaban. I read this first when I lived in the US and didn't notice then but now that I live in Scotland it is glaringly obvious to me. The big revealing scene in the Shrieking Shack takes place at the end of June and it is dark outside when they get to the Whomping Willow, at this time of the year you get about 3 hours of proper darkness in the North of Scotland, so if they sneaked down to Hagrid's hut around 8pm, hung about for an hour before returning to the castle, it is not getting dark, the sun won't even have set yet.