I don't want to ruin every book you're going to read from now, but have you noticed they all have the word

[Cify]

Detritus.... in therm?

And now I've noticed it I can't stop seeing the word in everything I read.

And yet I've never heard a single friend complaining about the detritus in their kitchen.

Please tell me I'm not alone? Do you notice certain words or phrases (that people don't actually say in real life) being used over and over again in novels?

As I scooped up my well thumbed copy of Take a Break, Derek raised a quizzical eyebrow and whispered softly, "Why do you read this pile of shite?".

Izzy24 @ hot tears coursing down my cheeks

My mum's eyes would flash at us sitting on the backseat via the rear view mirror if we had a friend in the car and said something like, "come back to our house, we can all play in the pool" or "let's stop for ice-cream", etc.

Does anyone know what a weak chin is? It is something you'd read in older books.

It's a small and/or recessed chin. Often associated with inbreeding in the aristocracy, and is also found in fiction to denote someone a bit weak or cowardly.

Weak chin = loadsamoney but will turn out to be a wrong 'un.
Better off with the gardener / Deliveroo driver who will definitely be strong jawed. His eyes will flash as he lays down his hoe / pizza box.

I haven't seen it for a while but heroines (or their best friends) with a cloud of/mess of/riot of curls for hair. My DD has curly hair and it looks a bloody mess most of the time.

Cars 'nosing' into traffic. It might be Lee Child who is terrible for this but it really grates page after page.

Women 'curling their hands round a chipped mug' after a shock. Chuck the fucking thing out if it's chipped. And if it's a proper hot drink you'll burn your bloody hands.

Everyone is stoic or doing something stoically.... never heard this word in the real world!

She stoically shrugged and padded off to the sink hot salty tears coursing down her dewy cheeks after the chipped cup shattered mere moments after she curled her jewellery laden hands around the hot java sending the hot liquid coursing over her buttery leather jacket.

Once I noticed how many times characters mentioned/drank/poured coffee, The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo series was ruined for me. The crimes would have been solved much faster without all the fannying around with coffee.

How has nobody mentioned anyone being in a reverie yet?

Once I see that in a book, it's game over.

Low musical voice, anyone?

I just read “vise-like grip” I mean seriously. How can you read that back and not change it?

I believe that “vise” is the US spelling of “vice” ?

The book I read the DC for their bedtime story last night had lots of “waiving” in it.

As in, “The men waived their arms in excitement”. Or as in “They waived goodbye to Winifred”.

No. No, they didn’t. They waved.

I was itching to get a pen out and correct that.

stitches I wasn’t picking up the spelling, just how often someone is described as having a grip like it - so much that I wouldn’t think a writer would leave it in as so overused an image by now

It was an American writer.

Haven't read the whole thread, but has anyone mentioned "infinitessimally" yet?

It's an awful word. Nobody uses it irl, it's clumsy to read, disrupts the pace of the text, and smacks of "Oh, look! I found a big word on thesaurus.com. I must be a good writer".

Sorry Satsuki, I misunderstood.

Yes, it is a rather overused description!

Small chins as an indicator of weasellyness caused me no end of anguish.

@treaclesoda I can't remember if it's mentioned specifically in the books, but Cersei blinks very slowly in the Game of Thrones TV show.

No one ever experiences a rather disappointing and drizzly summer . It is always 'that long, hot summer when....'

I started wondering today whether writers of fiction set in the early twentieth century actually researched whether every summer actually was long and hot. They certainly aren't in Dickens (all that fog) or Eliot (floods!) : do you think this is because women began divesting themselves of unnecessary clothing ca 1900 and it all became pornromantic and full of stifled passions. I think I blame The Go Between or possibly Tess as a frontrunner. (admittedly it's awfully hot in Romeo and Juliet)

Matt Haig ahs made this observation on my Facebook feed today : wonder if he has been perusing Mumsnet!!

Why do romantic men always tuck a strand of hair behind someone's ear in modern books? That's pretty much all they do. I might write a book called The Hair Tucker. Weirdos.

@Piggywaspushed No one ever experiences a rather disappointing and drizzly summer One exception is The Magician's Nephew, CS Lewis; it was one of the coldest and wettest summers.

But speaking of seasons, as a child I used to be annoyed by "the long, hot summer had ended at last. Now it was winter." This happened in several books. What happened to autumn?!

Although I love the Harry Potter books, certain mundane things (not central to the plot) are conspicuously mentioned again and again.
Trainers; is this to remind us that they are teenagers in modern times?
Socks have loads of mentions, and not just for Dobby.
Harry's glasses. "Hermione's hand narrowly missed Harry's glasses at it shot up again."

"...as a gold prospector sifts for gold". This description appears several times when Dumbledore swirls the Pensieve.
Spitting. "'Do not say the Dark Lord's name!' spat Snape." Oliver Wood was spitting with rage.
Bathrooms are used a lot (admittedly it's important in Chamber of Secrets).

I loved the focus on coffee in Girl with the Dragon Tatoo.

In The Nightingale, they constantly drink made-from-acorns-coffee as if the writer couldn't bear to leave hot liquid out but her research told her they had no real coffee and because they are French they, of course, smoke constantly. Always a Gauloises.

Romeo and Juliet are in Verona - so not as accustomed to a drizzle. They wouldn’t have all acted so rashly in a drizzle.

I love the Go Between. I think that more can happen in a hot summer, feelings run high so it does a lot of work for writers in terms of backdrop. It’s harder to have passionate liaisons and hotheaded fall outs when everyone’s a bit nippy and someone has to pop back for a cardigan.

However, I’m certain that I fell so hard for Jane Eyre the first time I read it aged 8 or 9 because I identified so strongly with the first sentence. A bit of drizzle goes a long way.

Oh god, if I wrote a book I’d annoy everyone by overuse of the word “drizzle”, clearly