Stupidities and irritations in novels

[UnquietDad]

What are the things which annoy you most in fiction? Things characters do, assumptions authors make, etc?

I think my number one has to be the "affluence assumption", where people who are supposedly worrying about money still "have" to send Jonty and Jocasta to the lovely little prep school and violin lessons. (Mind you, there's enough of that on here.)

DW has just finished reading these, which feature such laughable idiocies as a state primary school where people talk about "first years" and "second years" and which has its own dedicated science block and music block.

There are an awful lot of thirty- and forty-something women writing novels these days who are out of touch with any reality beyond their cosy little London mums-and-coffees-and-gym circle. And - surprise, surprise - they are books about cosy little London mums-and-coffees-and-gym circles.

Love Paretsky. Yes, the earlier books are having to kick back against 80s stereotypes and so have Vic knocking back the whiskey and not doing the pots, times have moved on - thank god!

I was musing only yesterday (really) that once someone said to me "why are all your favourite singers women?" to which I replied "why are all yours men?". No-one would think it odd if you listened to Oasis, Coldplay, whatever. And I have a feeling that in the main the same is true of authors. Is it mainly women who read men and women and men tend to read men?

I think Marian Keyes tends to be typed as chick lit when she shouldn't be, given the stuff she covers with enormous humour and wit.

I've no idea who came up with "chick lit" (I think it's a horrible phrase) but people run with it and use it, including women agents and editors. I've no idea how many directors are women - I suspect few, but then again 30 years ago there would have been none. All I can say is there seem to be more female commissioning editors than male ones now in my experience - so something has changed.

once read a chicklit i got free with a magazine summat about shopping.felt dirty,will never get that time back

Quite a few dittany. HarperCollins for one. Penguin for another. IME, there are a lot of women in the top jobs in publishing. It's way more feminised than many industries. I'm afraid you can't place all of the blame for chick lit at the feet of men.

Though I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Mr Parsons' oeuvre.

Marketing evidence (I was told by a female editor when discussing book jacket colours) shows that women prefer not to read books with blue covers and men won't read books with pink covers.

If you think this is horrifyingly superficial, you'd be right. Sadly, it's also true.

Some holiday chick-lit books have come out in two editions - one with a pink cover for her, and one with a blue cover for her man to read by the pool and not feel ashamed.

I wish I was making this shit up, I really do.

But UQD am I making it up, or is there really a case for the fact men don't like to read women authors? (In general I mean, not overall).

Hmm, not sure about that dittany: the big publishers are so much more influential, or at the very least have so much more financial clout than the smaller ones that if women are in charge of those then it makes a big difference, IMO.

I can only speak for the (very big) publishing house that I worked for pre-children. I was working in a non-fiction division, but my manager, my manager's manager, and her boss (the head of division) were all women, as were all bar one of the directors. Loads of the commissioning editors for fiction were women and the Chief Exec was a woman.

I don't have any data on that, tribpot. It's hard to say from my own experience, because most people I know are in couples and, like me and DW, each will read the books the other buys as well as their own.

I think it's fair to say most men don't read a lot of chick-lit. But that's more to do with the way these books are marketed and their vacuous subject matter. I'm quite happy to read Margaret Atwood, Maggie O'Farrell, Anita Brookner, etc., because they aren't marketed as "women's" writers and they write about universal themes.

And on the other hand I have never read a word of Wilbur Smith, Jack Higgins, et al...

No, agree, I think chick-lit is a genre targeted at women, women writers don't write to a single genre. Austen, despite being surely quite chick-lit-ish by our standards clearly wrote to a universal audience who viewed it as social commentary not "girl meets landowner"

In terms of location-genre, my home city (Leeds) is Woman-of-Substance country, ah yes, an entire genre on its own, gritty serving girl takes on the entire blardy world. And wins.

What irritates me is how characters in novels can simply pick up and move to whatever country they please, with nary an immigration or visa issue.

Oi UQD! Have CATted you, now tell meeeeeeee!

And how dozy bints who are supposedly skint always share flats in nice neighbourhoods, usually in London, with incredibly tolerant flatmates.

Oh, and all Scottish men fall to their knees when they encounter London women, in their kilts, of course.

skint as in called jocasta/libby/india scatty but lovable from notting hill faced with dilemma such as what bag to buy

No one ever lives in a room shared with three illegal immigrants who work in the food industry in a flat owned by rogue Russian gangland boss landlord.

And despite being in junior-level positions, these characters are never anything like a receptionist in a hotel or care assistants or the like.

jocasta is always juggling her prada or miu miu latte lifestyle with good humour waiting on mr right

never lives in a rental in archway with a ticky boiler

Agree- characters are often juniors in publishing, journalism or marketing (all very competitive, yet being a bit dim is no barrier it seems), never working in the chippie or the newsagent's...

Crap research and lack of plausibility in a plot annoys me.

I read "Us" a while ago by Richard Mason but probably not The Richard Mason who wrote Suzy Wong. It's about 3 characters all feeling guilty about the death of the main dead character which happened at a boat club in one of the Oxford colleges. Too many holes and just unbelievable.

jodi picoult popularity baffles me.read 10th circle.turgid,clichéd.precious time lost forever

Oh, yes, they show up late for work regularly, turn up obviously hungover, pull sickies to shag some bloke, cock up big projects, but they somehow escape by being transferred or even promoted.

And have so many high-powered connections that every graduate of mediocre university has.

Never any student loan debt, either.

And they can always flee to Mummy and Daddy's country pile with the 85 dogs and the Aga when Mr Bastard dumps them temporarily...

Mind you Christina Jones is a lot better in terms of jobs: her heroines do things like run haulage businesses or belong to fairground families (though I can't say I know how realistic any of it is, knowing fuck all about driving a lorry or working on a funfair myself...)

Or worse, they flee to some old, rich, eccentric aunt/godparent who puts them right, introduces them to the local hunk for rebound fling that shows them the way and gets out of their way for long walks. AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!