Annoying Literary Cliches

[wukter]

I hate "The Somethings Daughter/Wife".
It's never The Insurance Claims Processor's Wife or The Carpet Fitter's Daughter.

Also hate feisty heroines.
Why can't they be mild mannered and polite, and yet have an interesting life.

Well. That's off my chest anyway.

The return of the bad boy from the past who is threatening to destroy current happiness.

Creative use of verbs.

Particularly 'hopped' and 'jumped' when referring to the act of stepping (somewhat cautiously, because you might slip) into the shower, or getting into some sort of vehicle.

"Achingly" anything drives me to distraction. Used by lazy writers and even more so by journalists.

ones with titles which are insipid girls names...theres a whole series of them..

anything by that freya north bird

Ooh, bobbie, that used to drive me mad about Bridget Jones! All that bleating on and on and on about her weight and she was about 8 and a half stone, the skinny cow!

My absolute pet hate, however, is the ridiculously overused cliche whereby whichever man the heroine hates the most in the first chapter is of course the one she ends up with.

Clergy bad guys as in Poisonwood Bible and Chocolat. They are so much more likely to be good guys in real life, these days.

Although I suppose I could suspend disbelief for Irish Catholic paedophile priests, after all that's been in the news about them.

I hate books written in the first person..
'Today I had a revelation and decided to give up.....'
I just can't get into the story when it's me me me.

In proper 'literary fiction', I always get annoyed by the word 'move'. 'She moved across the room'. 'Swishily, they moved through the long grass', etc. I have no idea why it gets on my pip so much, but it just does.

It's those creative verbs again, Botbot.

Constant references (in great detail) in crime thrillers to the music the detective listens to, and what booze he drinks (it pretty much always male characters), lazy characterisation IMO. He a decent bloke because he drinks Laphroaig and listens to the 1938 recording of la Boheme featuring dame Nelly Melba etc..

or single malt and jazzzzzz like my current one...

in a barren room because he hasn't unpacked since leaving the marital home....

oh yes they never drink bacardi and coke do they? Or ribena?!

polly - Rebus or Resnick??

or Bosch....(blimey bit of a cliche isn't it )

When a tear falls silently down their cheeks.

If they were that bloody upset, they'd be red faced, sobbing and honking, with maybe a dribble of snot trailing down.
Grief isn't pretty, ime.

blackduck...inspector banks, peter robinson...literary equivalent of junk food...long for one , gobble it up, don't feel satisfied, long for one......

Try Resnick - the descriptions of his sandwiches make me drool....

Oh Inspector Banks, king of the disasterous love life, detailed play list and complex sophisticated drinking choices!

Try Peter James' Roy Grace novels for character descriptions cut and pasted from one book to the next.

I still read them though

dorothy koomson heroines who all know the way to salve a broken heart, esp when a child is involved. Gay best friends who are always 'hilariously' camp. Cancer - I have read a couple recently where the heroine thinks her mate/ boss is being a cow, and its cancer. Then they have to soothe the broken hearts of the family. Despite that not being v likely in real life.

kurri, have recently read my first (and prob my last) roy grace novel...character descriptions(such as they were) seemed to have been cut and pasted from someone else's detective book...

bump
who wrote the roy grace stuff? name rings a bell

as an opposite to this thread, I love when I writer goes into great detail about an area of work. For example if you read Robin Cook, you could choose to knock a year off a medical degree

or become a specialist in cryogenics automatically SPB

it's peter james who wrote the roy grace books

oh yes, thanks, in between the books that start out normally then become weird supermatural thriller types Not a fan!
Just noticed Kurri mentioned it as well, sorry!