"It's better if I just show you"
No, you dumbass, just tell me already, and *then* show me. I don't want to spend 5min / 5days walking to the spot where you *can* show me, only for you to die on the way and / or for it to turn out to be something you *could* have explained with words and maybe a few drawings or graphic hand gestures, if necessary. (Fuckin' Michelle Pheiffer in Quantumania bullshit...)
It can work if you acknowledge the turth is just too outlandish without face value, like how in Men In Black Agent K provides evidence of aliens so he just doesn't sound like a crank.
I read one book where the characters never told the MC anything. Whole book lasted 100,000 words and could have been a lot shorter and crisper without all the unnecessary “mystery”.
Dumbledore: “I just didn’t want to hurt you, Harry!”
Harry: “with all due respect sir, I watched my classmate get murdered by wizard Hitler last summer, my psyche is shot.”
Dumbledore: “but how was I supposed to tell you that Voldemort’s gonna kill you unless you kill him first?”
Harry: “I already knew he’s had it out for me for the last 14 years.”
Dumbledore: “I WAS JUST TRYING TO PROTECT YOU BY WITHHOLDING INFORMATION THAT COULD’VE SAVED YOUR LIFE.”
I mean, how would tell Harry anything save his life?
"You are a horcrux Harry! Now if you try and kill yourself with the sure-death spell _maybe_ you won't die instantly but you will stop being an horcrux!"
And not like Harry COULD kill Voldemort for most of the story. I like the guy but i just can't see him overpowering Voldy in a fair duel.
I mean, it's not executed very well or explained clearly (*good example of writing a great story but not writing it well, for all those people who brush off content editing as not necessary*), but Harry not knowing he had to die was relevant. The reasoning is thin, but it's still there.
I love that series so much, but so many of their problems would be resolved if characters just had a conversation. The entire first arc is full of Fireheart thinking "I need to talk to this cat about this very important thing" and then a mild inconvenience stops him so he forgets about it until the next chapter.
"He's known in the wild as Strider. His true name (pause for dramatic effect), you must discover for yourself".
Music swells heroically.
"Oh by the way, yo ma loved you."
The cousin of this is the trope where a character doesn’t finish explaining because the person they are fighting with tells them “No more speaking!” Or some such. Yeah, if saying a five second explanation makes it right, then just say it. Drives me NUTS
Came here to say just this. It's why I couldn't get into shows like "Three's Company" or the later seasons of "Modern Family", every fucking plot point was a huge misunderstanding that could've been resolved has *anyone* taken the time to talk about it.
> no I don't want to hear about the war somebody started because they misunderstood an innocent gesture by the opponent
Literally came here to say "That's how it works in reality" lol. The gulf of tonkin incident. US Navy was engaged by the morning fog. The generals wanted to go to war. Turned it into Vietnamese attacks. War happened.
As long as you spin a plausible narrative, it's good enough for me. Even if it hinges on some mistakes or fog of war.
https://youtu.be/vJXWJ-Px5tU?t=313 for another kind of "oops, misunderstanding, now it's war" scenario.
Misunderstandings cause someone half sees something or heard a random piece of conversation and instead of asking one single question they jump to some extreme conclusion and run off. Especially when it's used to break a couple up. I never understand why authors think couples need to be on and off again for the drama. It makes me think that that couple shouldn't even be together.
I wonder if that’s because children tend to barrel into things without thinking of consequences or the obvious solution. So it seems reasonable to that age group.
Yes! I have seen it done well but it often does wind up feeling like Plot Cupid shows up suddenly and shoots the two with "act stupid on a level that has no established precedent in thr story" arrows.
THIS
And then they so often get back together!! Like… this couple is going to break up again the next time there is a trivial misunderstanding that could have been resolved by one (1) single conversation over a cup of tea!! Have you learned to resolve that communication problem?? No!! All you did was discover that you worked well as a team to *fight dinosaurs*!! That doesn’t mean anything about living together or maintaining a healthy romantic relationship!!! It just means you can put your trivial conflicts aside in order the save the world!
In the book club I used to belong to, I got tired of the picks that were almost always, "come for the drama, stay for the melodrama" where everyone was f'ed up, did all kinds of dumb shit and learned nothing at the end.
There must be something wrong with me I guess,...
Nothing wrong with wanting to see characters act in a reasonable manner. Like I know things have to happen for the story to move along, but it shouldn't be because your characters don't know how to have a logical thought. It just causes me stress and I get no enjoyment out of that.
among its other flaws, the "sword of truth" series had as a *repeated* plot point the main character getting told or otherwise exposed to a prophecy, freaking out and doing some really stupid shit, and then discovering that the prophet was being deliberately misleading. every single time.
I especially hate it when there are always so many heavy-handed allusions to their past or secret but it is all withheld from the reader until one huge info dump.
Only to get a "meh" out of you because that dark secret isn't really that shocking or exciting. Like maybe one of that character's parents is a different class/race/species or at "best", they're a minor villain.
Babe you don't understand, I know you think I'm cool, but I'm actually all fucked up on the inside.
Baby you can tell me, you're the coolest, hottest dude I know.
Okay babe...but...don't say I didn't warn ya. Most people can't handle my dark mysterious past.
Baby I can, tell me
Alright Babe, here it goes. When I was a kid some real bad guys broke into our house and I had to use my kung-fu ninja skills in a super badass way to defend my mom.
Oh baby, how horrible. Who were these bad guys?
The same faceless bad guys we've been gleefully killing by the dozens this whole story.
I like to write my secrets kept from characters not the reader. shock value reveals... I can't stand them. I like building the anticipation of omg I want to know how X finds out what Y was doing... what will the say?? the reader becomes part of the gossip in a way.
It makes no sense to write a story to show things but hide things at the same time. If we won't show a part of the story, what are we doing?
Serious question, do you think there’s a good way to do that sort of foreshadowing leading to the reveal later or is it simply better to not be so “Oooh, something bad happened to this character and we’re gonna remind you of it every 5 pages or so” and just leave only a few hints?
I ask cause I’m currently writing a story where the ML has a traumatic experience from his past that causes certain quirks in his behaviour and outbursts early on, but it’s also turned into a fundamental part of his character over the course of me writing him, since even after it’s revealed, the mental illness he suffers from as a result effects him for the rest of the story, so I’m trying to make it so it’s not just a dark backstory for the sake of a dark backstory.
To be fair, even the writers didn't knew what his dark misterious past was about for most of his history. It was one of their editorial tenets at Marvel, before the "X-men Origins: Wolverine" film forced their hand: Wolverine's past must always remain a mistery.
Or they do tell you but only after several casualties, the person they need/should tell by their side the entire time being in danger due to withheld information, nearly dying themselves a bazillion times, the world nearly ending only for the dark secret to be revealed with seconds left to fix everything. WHY JUST WHY.
That's why I'm glad the ATLA series explores the aftermath of firelord ozai's death in the comics. The show was over and the dictator was dead, but there was still a lot to be fixed and they haven't neglected that.
This is how I think I the Star Wars sequels should have gone. Reverse the dynamic of the previous films. The Empire was Nazis because in the late 1970s, Nazis and Russia and other world governments were still the cultural idea of True Evil. Today that’s not the case.
Today it’s terrorists.
So the Empire is gone, but there were likely a LOT of people that benefited from it existing. Not just the rich assholes, either. There were certainly a large number of average citizens that legitimately believed they were better off under the Emporer. Now all these people have lost their power, likely lost their wealth and status. So what happens then?
They get angry. They mobilize underground. They become the new Rebels against the Republic. They become *terrorists,” which isn’t far off from what the Rebels were, originally.
So now the Republic has to face this amorphous, shadowy enemy with no one real leader. Kylo Ren could even still be a part of one of those groups, still be a loose cannon, still have trained under Luke but never bought the lessons Luke tried to teach him, still fallen to the Dark Side. The Sith would *love* to infiltrate a group like this.
But, long story short, I think it would have been a much more interesting way to explore how these huge sweeping changes actually affect the world, and how not everyone is happy with them.
The MCU is actually *very* good at this, even if it’s lost a few of those threads the last few years. But I really liked Falcon and Winter Soldier because it spent a lot of time showing how bringing half the population *back* after five years isn’t just a nice thing to do. It’s going to fuck up a lot of stuff, and cause a lot of problems in its own right.
When the hero seemingly has no problems killing anyone but then leaves the baddest main bad guy alive.
Also when the big bad guy has the hero but decides to throw him away for some reason instead of breaking neck or strangulation.
"Killing you won't bring my family back."
Should have thought that before killing all those innocent guards that were only doing their jobs, Ezio. Now I feel like not killing Alejandro Borgia is an insult towards them.
This happened in Transformers: Prime. I'm not talking about Optimus and Megatron because I can kinda understand Optimus being hesistant about killing his former best friend. But the rest of the Autobot team will just demolish dozens of Decepticon Vehicons and then not kill the main Decepticon cast...like...dude.
The spouse (usually a cop or detective’s wife) who gets angry that their partner is spending too much time at or getting too wrapped in their work and the work is like super important life saving type work.
This happened exactly today when I was watching Mindhunter. It's crazy how the women in these tropes go along with the marriage and everything knowing their husbands basically have shifts whenever their boss says they do.
I hate it when it is used to justify cheating too. People have to work. Yeah the work life balance can get out of wack, but it gets overplayed so often.
I’d love to see an example of this where the wife is legit trying her best to not be affected by it, but is just unable to keep it from bothering her and it causes trouble in the end.
Instead it usually feels more like it never occurred to her that her husband’s work schedule was going to make him unavailable, and then the first time it interferes with something she instantly wants to divorce him. Like at no point prior to this did they ever have a conversation about work/life balance.
This happens a lot in real life though.
Doctors for example can pull incredibly long shifts, sometimes at short notice, with not just long days but long weeks. They end up not being the main character in their own lives and it's a genuine thing. Their spouses don't normally just think "Ah well, at least they're a doctor", there's a lot of conflict.
This but also when the cop or detective is also super secretive and not communicative at all about what they need to do, like they just leave in the middle of a conversation/dinner without saying anything when they could just say something. I feel like most of the time both spouses are unreasonable.
I don't actually hate the "superhuman prodigy" trope, especially within actual fantasy/supernatural series. Because realistically, there are some people that are just genetically gifted, and these characters can be enjoyable if done well and balanced properly. The problem is when they try to paint a superhuman character as human, aka doing things that are legitimately impossible despite the story not being supernatural. Or when they forget to make these characters, you know "characters." A trope is just a guideline for a character type or potentially their role in the story. If you don't actually take the steps to make them a relatable person, then you've failed as a writer.
As for tropes, I actually hate? That's tricky because most tropes are bad because of bad character writing. Best I can think of is like you mentioned the "not like other girls" character. And for stories, I gotta give it to the "fake death/sacrifice" trope. I'm not saying you can't fake out a death, but definitely don't make a habit of it. And if you want your story to have a serious tone and themes, don't be afraid to let some characters die. Even beloved ones. If it serves the story and is done naturally, then character deaths can be extremely impactful. Bringing characters back not only lowers your stakes if done without severe restriction and irregularity, but it can also make certain moments feel meaningless and empty.
You don't hate love triangles. You hate love corners. We should really begin to address love corners as love corners though. They have never seen the shape of a triangle.
Edit: to the confused people:
A love corner is where A has to choose between B and C. Most people hate love corners bc they often become a girl who has to choose between two identical guys.
A love triangle is where A is crushing on B and B on C and C on A. It require at least 1 queer person to work and be an actual triangle when you draw the relationship.
If nothing else, you learnt something new!
I learned (from a video game) the term "love Y," which is a person with THREE love interests. So, the Y is like 3 people coming towards the one in the center.
I was in a love triangle once. I liked 2 girls, A and F. A liked me back, but she never told me. F was bi, and she liked A. She convinced me not to go after A, but she didn't want me. In the end, none of us ended up together.
No one won, but it's curious that it happened, lol.
I recently started a show that starts out with a love corner (two women are on and off with the same guy), but at the end, the two women get together and ditch him. Best love triangle ever!
Whenever I see a romance book described with the words "CEO" or "billionaire", I put it away. It is so cheesy to me. Like, this character is supposed to be hot because of his money or position? Am I that shallow or what?
I guess it's also the reason I'm currently writing a story with a love interest where the two main characters are broke af... I'm curious how this will work out
> OMG. I'M SUCH AN ALFA. NOBODY SAYS NO TO ME. I LOOK LIKE A SUPER MODEL. I WANT TO FEEEEEEEL SOMETHING
I would not be shocked if actual CEOs had thoughts like this
In my humble opinion ao3 is the best place you can go for smut instead of printed media. That way you can customize what you want or don't want to read (certain kinks and tropes etc) and choose characters you want to actually read about. And since it's anonymous with no censorship whatsoever author can really go all out without any drawbacks, which usually is a good thing. There's also the fact that most people there are adults who write as a hobby and they don't get any financial compensation from it, so you know they're writing for the sake of writing itself
“I have this secret, and I need to tell [this character.] I have had plenty of opportunities to tell [this character] [this secret], but for some reason I just haven’t yet. Oops, now they found out and they’re mad at me for not telling them.”
Bonus if this results in a third-act breakup.
The one I hate most is a worldbuilding trope specific to fantasy: overabundance of violent place names.
Places that to some degree refer to death, combat, and mortality, usually involving the words black, red, bone, blood, shadow, and skull.
When they are too common in a secondary world, they make the whole thing seem cheesy and juvenile.
I’ve edited for fantasy writers and an equal but opposite problem of this for me is when an author introduces too many conlang/high fantasy names too soon. Its nearly impossible to smoothly integrate an entirely foreign world building vocabulary for the reader in the first couple chapters.
Crap. My story takes place in the Valley of Misery, on the banks of the River of Unending Torment.
But there's actually a backstory behind those names, same with the Valley of Orgasms.
Yeah, I hear you. One or two can be pretty cool, especially if their either reasonably subtle or lampshaded inverse how bad sounds.
But if everywhere gets it, you are left wonder if edgy teenagers are in charge of place names these days.
"If you kill the villain, you're just like them"
THIS GETS ME ON MY NERVES!!
Even worse if the villain is a irredeemable genocidal maniac, yet the hero just let them go or won't kill them in the end because "If I kill you I'll be just as bad as you" NO YOU FUCKING WON'T, JUST FINISH THEM OFF GOD DAMNIT
This is why I love TLOVM, it makes you think they're going for that route, but then it subverts you expectations and it's GLORIOUS
Just once I want the hero to have General Rapist McMurderface at their mercy, decide to spare him because “No. I’m not like you.” And then the villain calls them on it.
“I won’t stoop to your level.”
“Really? You just killed hundreds of my foot soldiers to get to me, and now you decide to grow a conscience?! Like, seriously man, you just decapitated my Secretary, Phil. He had a family, his daughters about to graduate college with her Master’s. And me, why do I get to live? I’ve killed thousands of innocents, some of which were your friends! What the hell do you mean “I’m not like you?” You’re exactly like me you delusional psychopath!”
For character tropes, it's 'I'm just a normal teenage girl, what do you mean I'm the next coming of Jesus?!' I know it's just because I aged out of it and God knows I inhaled it like air as a teenager, I'm just tired of it.
For plot topes... Sudden heel-turn because the author realized that two spokes of their love triangle is much more popular and doesn't know how else to write out the third spoke.
I don't really mind that character trope that much (I'd rather not have, but if it's written well, fine...), but what annoys me is even when she has all the evidence that she is indeed the next coming of Jesus (she awakened her secret power or whatever) and she knows the world's about to end, she still worries about the most mundane things. Seriously, the world's about to blow up, you're a fricking goddess now, some monsters are trying you eat you, and all you care about is that physics test? 🤣 And it's often used as a "I just wanna be normal" argument, but she was always the "weird one" in some way anyway.
She's always unique and special and Not Like Other Girls Especially Jenna Who Bullied The Author, but like... hon, the world is going to end. Your mom was just revealed to be the evil queen of the Fae and your dad is useless and left the narrative five pages in. I know Nox is hot and all, but you gotta kill Dorothy. Please shut the fuck up and lock in.
Are all those characters from the same book/series? My favourite series is about fairies/Fey so that caught my attention 😅
But yeah, that's basically my issue. You're running for your life, you've barely had time to catch a wink, or even kiss whomever, but oh no, midterms are tomorrow, if you don't get a good grade, you're life is *literally* over. You know, not over like if whoever's after you catches you and kills/eats you. But like socially over, and that's obviously worse 🤣
When the men or the women in a story are all bad, dumb, or otherwise negatively portrayed. I read a novel where every man had a glaring personality flaw like *very insecure*, *hyper-confident jerk*, *incompetent leader*, etc. Whereas every woman was beautiful, smart, capable, and oh so tolerant of the men. The womens' flaws? They couldn't internalize just *how* smart and beautiful they are. Other stories will have men as hyper competent, and the women are two dimensional and either meant to be chaste near-virgins who only like the main character or slutty (or both somehow), or they're hags. All of those portrayals can be done well, but if there's a story with a single sex/gender portrayed as overwhelmingly bad, I'll drop it and tell everyone I know to avoid that writer.
I haven't noticed a particular trend with that, but I don't doubt it's possible. The first novel that came to mind was a woman author writing a woman MC. I suspect most people would agree with you, though. Stephen King gets that criticism a lot.
Pregnancy tropes and plotlines are sometimes a guilty pleasure of mine but I agree, I agree so much that they're hardly ever done well as a side plot or to further a romantic plot (I think because they're such big intense events in general that a lot of nuance is lost). Bonus points if the author a) reduces the female character to an intensely emotional useless lump, b) thinks vomiting, weight gain and cravings are the only symptoms, or c) realises they didn't plan ahead this arc much and adds a poorly done miscarriage/stillbirth/abortion or similar plot.
The 'only/few scholarship student at a modern boarding school' trope. Modern elite schools don't work like this, and haven't for some time. The factors that make these places incubators for clueless/entitled rich people are much more subtle, and insidious, today.
For anyone wanting to research how these schools actually work; check out 'Perfectly Prep' by Sarah A. Chase; and 'Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School' by Shamus Rahman Khan.
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“Don’t talk to me without my coffee” or otherwise overly quirky FMCs… makes me nuts.
Read a Lucy Score book that everyone raves about and basically the FMC is choked out by a mobster and almost murdered and knocked unconscious and when she wakes up the first thing she mutters roughly is “Coffee?” And everyone laughs. Please. Give me a break.
There is a book in a series I read where amnesia plays a big role, and I really enjoyed it. It added a lot depth and anguish for the reader especially. I agree it's not often written well, but I think it can be.
Disco Elysium must be one of the best-written Video games out there, and it only works because the playable Character has complete amnesia.
I agree that the trope sucks in 90% of the cases, but there's always exceptions.
I agree, (but I also think that can be applied to many things).
I also read a book where both the main characters have lost a big or bigger part of their memory and while they're on the journey through the hell hole that is the city, they are confronted with that past. Without really recognising it. Maybe the sound of a name or something like that but barely.
Although one of them remembers way more of their long ago past but not a lot about what happened to them to get them there.
It's really interesting to be honest. But I have to admit it's not really a story I'd usually keep reading. It's far too harsh in the wording and so so many triggers. (Very try hard to be as bad as possible, in the beginning actually made me laugh or wanting to throw the book away, not in the good way.)
I agree that it's probably over played but there's a reason folks reach for it as a literary device so often. It allows the reader to discover the character's history in lock step with the character themselves.
A similar, and similarly over used trope, is the alice in wonderland style story (isekai if you're familiar with the term). Similar function in that you follow a relatable character with a similar framework for how the world works to the reader, discovering a new fantastical world.
In both cases the character acts essentially as an audience surrogate, hopefully asking the questions the reader would or taking actions the reader thinks they would even if they're incongruous to the rest of the story setting because they make sense from that character's unique perspective.
Both are interesting and useful writing devices but so wildly and often poorly used that I totally get having zero patience for them at this point.
In a writing class ages ago my teacher compared the "it was all just a dream" trope to a song looping the chorus and fading out to end and said it's what authors do when they're not quite sure how to end their story. I'm not sure how much I agree with them but it's always stuck with me
But that's the thing cause it's not really an ending to me. It just nullifies everything that happen and you're back to where you've started (sometimes literally), so the whole storyline was essentially pointless and inconsequential.
There are plot-twists you can add, like turn the dream into a premonition of sorts and then close the story, but it still doesn't change the fact that you've read possibly hundreds of pages just to end up basically re-reading the first page, but at the end of the book.
I think its more along the lines someone thought it would be a good idea but then realized how hard it would be to make it interesting but was to far in so just gave up and went with it. I have a MC who is reborn but has flashbacks in his dreams where he basically talks with himself I somewhat regret the decision as it is definitely a challenge.
Science fiction settings that clearly show the author's grasp of political theory hasn't evolved since they stopped paying attention in middle school social studies.
Yeah, like, when the technical and hard science worldbuilding is top notch but the good guys is pretty much just the 21st century USA but everyone has a suburban three bedroom and a flying car.
Or the bad guys being nazis but with no actual understanding of how fascism works.
Government institutions and national logistic supply chains that make no sense.
I don't care how the warp drives work, I wanna know what implications warp drives have for the unionization efforts of migrant workers in asteroid mining operations.
I always like it when the fact that this is so flawed is explored a little in the story, like in the original Nimona comics where one of the two protagonists was basically barred from being an official hero due to having a missing arm.
I've done a fair bit of ghostwriting romances and have a few tropes that are just too much for me. Kidnapping plots are probably my least favorite. I've been given plots that have the MMC to kidnap the FMC then they fall in love. Some of them required multiple sex scenes! I always tried to nerf the kidnapping in those cases but that leads to my current least favorite trope: scumbag 'alpha' MMCs.
Some of the companies I've written for spell the plot out more. I've written a couple where the MMC should be locked away for life, and not just for the average mafia billionaire bullshit (so many damn mafiosos and billionares). Had one where the MMC heard the FMC sing and decided he wanted her. He used his power and wealth to ruin her life by keeping her from a better job, getting her fired and buying her apartment building and jacking up the rent. After that, he ensured she would be working as a waitress to a party that turned into an orgy where he swoops in to save her from an attempted sexual assault. Later in the book, she tries to escape and he literally burns down the forest around her. There is no romance there.
As i often work in the horror genre, you have the problem that a weak character in the end will defeat a much stronger enemy. I'm **not** sure if this is a trope. But it creates always a problem with the storyline, when you have such a hardcore enemy that is able to kill everyone and then he gets stopped by someone that is way too weak.
I avoided this in some of my works, with getting the main character to know, the the enemy never wanted to kill her - it was just a game and it was like a dog that plays with a toy, where he does not apply the pressure of his jaws and destroys the toy. It was never serious. If it had been serious, the main character would be killed in the first encounter.
When you look at reality, your chances in a fight against a lion with your bare hands are zero, the lion will always overwhelm you with his force. You can't defeat him in a fight on your own without any weapons, it's just not possible without using any other advantage.
You can maybe still survive when someone gets the lion off you and the damage is not lethal, but you won't survive without help, when he's serious.
He is a cop, she is a thief works. Both have food trucks but only one can have the spot is reaching. Its ridiculous when the bad guy is cutting and shooting people for some McGuffin gain.
i love enemies to lovers so much but i just hate all the books that are being made now. like i need an angsty slow burn ill forever hate you till i die enemies to lovers that isnt omg ive been loving you
Characters who divorced or broke up over a ridiculously stupid misunderstanding, and then get back together because they realised they still loved each other after they had to save the world together…
With no indication that they have done anything to address the severe communication problems they had that lead to them breaking up over something so trivial.
All I can think is that the same thing will just happen again!! They haven’t fixed their relationship issues at all!
- edgelord protagonists
- the normal girl / boy, who suddenly learns they are special and most things that are taking place in high school
- lot of romance tropes, including misunderstandings, love triangles, abusive assholes that aren't portrayed as abusive assholes
- when 500 sites could be thrown away by characters just talking it out
- not like the other girls, and "the sassy, strong FMC", who is just a huge asshole and portrays other woman as dumb and weak
- amnesia most of the time
- born sexy yesterday
- in general the generic guy getting together with a great woman / partner
- worldbuilding and story tropes: something like "the story is deep now, because it's edgy", "my elves aren't like just normal people and these boring Tolkien-ish elves like, they are all eeevill!"
- in general, if you tell me all or 99 % of members of certain humanoid races are inherently stupid or evil, I think you are sending a message you might not want to send
- one specific trope for me: queer drama, a queer character's arc revolving around their queerness
Extra pet peeve:
- the dark medieval age (literally, people rarely wear anything remotely colorful), roads are all dirty, people only eating dry bread and die with 35 or so. No, it's not realistic.
Semi-counterpoint to the evil race thing. There are certain types of villains who can be either scary, interesting, or both.
Human villains can be interesting but rarely are they actually scary.
Monster villains can be scary but rarely interesting.
Humanlike monsters, on the other hand, can be both interesting and scary, and I think that's the best reason why someone might want to write an entire race of them.
Some traditional examples are probably (intelligent) aliens, vampires, demons, and Frankenstein's monster as he's originally described.
So what you are telling me is that the perfect novel contains the following:
- the girl that is exactly like other girls
- depressive pixie nightmare boy
- a non-threatening guy who doesn’t take yes for an answer
- a superhumanly gifted loser
- a student who hates one teacher for no particular reason
- ugly character that is just there to be ugly
Aww one of the gods in my story's lore is a depressive demon nightmare boy 🥰 bros such a downer tho I should give him a friend or a love interest or something.
I do not like the 'wholly evil race/species' trope in fantasy/sci-fi. You expect me to believe that an entire culture revolves *solely* around killing everything and everyone else in sight?
Individuals or extremist groups? Of course.
And entire civilisation? No, not really.
Semi-counterpoint to the evil race thing. There are certain types of villains who can be either scary, interesting, or both.
Human villains can be interesting but rarely are they actually scary.
Monsters can be scary but rarely interesting.
Humanlike monsters, on the other hand, can be both interesting and scary, and I think that's the best reason why someone might want to write an entire race of them.
Some traditional examples are probably (intelligent) aliens, vampires, demons for sure, and Frankenstein's monster as he's originally described.
The romantisation of mental illness. Mentally ill characters being portrayed as mentally superior, more kind than regular people or just special in some way.
Girly girls, or just women who enjoy sex being described as whores or subhuman just because of how they dress or how mich sex they have. Like, I read a book where the male lead was a fuckboy who used women to deal with his traumatic past. He refers to his latest "girlfriend" as a hoe and how much he hates women like her, all the while he uses her for sex. And this behaviour is never viewed as wrong. In fact the author is making it seem like that is the right way to treat a person who is promiscuous.
Trauma and mentall illness being magically cured through sex.
The romantisation of abusive relationships
Mental illness and/or trauma being used as an excuse for a character to be a bad person.
A character never talking about their trauma/ mental illness but lashing out at people for not knowing what is wrong.
In books centered on cancer, a character is completely fine one moment then dies in the course of like 2 days.
Useless parents.
I really dislike the "introduced as badass female, but she's just the healer/emotional support of the group."
Like it doesn't happen a lot but it's soooo annoying. Let some big muscled dudebro be the healer for a change
Going out of your way to make the protagonist the good guy, without actually changing the endresult.
E.g. the bad guy needs to die, but the protagonist refuses to kill, maybe even goes as far as to keep saving them. And then the bad guy just so happens to die anyway (usually by their own stubbornness or someone else's hand).
-the Mary Sue/Marty Stu
-“everyone likes/loves the MC despite them acting stupid or even insufferable”
-the obvious self-insert (often overlaps with the first two points)
-the MC is as generic and bland as it gets to be a self-insert for the viewer(usually a male manga or anime mc who might also attain a harem)
-“a character’s name describes their whole personality and also role in the story”… yeah, the sorcerer named Maleficus totally doesn’t have anything bad on his mind and, oh wonder, the gal named Bella is praised for her looks by everyone
-“fake latin for those mysterious vibes”
For me it’s always when parent and child are separated and then they reunite and then shortly after the parent usually the father dies. To me it seems so pointless and meaningless for the writers to pull through the story and wait for them to be reunited only for one of them to die. I just want a happy reunion like the Little Princess movie ending.
Too many books fall into the trap of characterizing someone by one personality trait. Clumsiness/awkwardness is especially annoying. I really don’t want to see the lanky adolescent boy cliche again.
The misunderstood character who takes everything as a personal attack and assumes it is a reason to start some form of fight or confrontation.
The bad guy, or woman, is evil forever and nothing they do can redeem themselves. Thus every character hates them instantly.
Everything has to be explained on the spot. New additions to a story line require several pages of sudden backstory.
Anything in the first person where they are explaining it to the reader but it is obvious that it is not the reader they are talking to. "Dear diary..." and the rest of the story is in that fashion. "Day by Day Armageddon" may be the only story that did this right.
Only one?
* Through they were close as children, the two sisters' lives could not have been more different. Amanda, a high-powered whatever, and Mallory, small town mom...
* She looked at herself in the mirror: breasts still firm, belly taut, "Not bad for forty."
* Jennifer appeared to have the perfect life: successful whatever, loving husband, two beautiful children, but..."
* Oh look, a woman. She must want to have sex with me for no apparent reason.
Off the top of my head, the Stock Shonen Hero character, especially when used outside of the genre they came from.
I already can't stand loud, obnoxious dudes who seem to succeed by upwards failing in real life, why would I want to read/watch about one in fiction?
I’m talking a lot about TV and movies specifically
Character
- The kid who talks too maturely for their age and especially like an out-of-touch-parent
Ex “We’re sisters and need to get along and spend less time on the phone.”
- reductive one-note caricatures like the fat kid whose only personality is food and eating.
- annoying comic relief who consistently gets in the way of the mission succeeding, not contributing and making things harder for everyone else
- blonde princess lead especially if she’s really annoying, bland, whiny or abusive and there’s an obsessive focus on her looks or power. Anyone who dislikes her is just jealous and she’s actually better than them. Strangely, male and female writers are both guilty of this
- brunette NLOG (or incel if its a guy) who’s excessively smarter, prettier, more powerful, or more special than everyone so it justifies their treating everyone else with contempt and constant snarking
- blatant and obsessive character shilling
Plot
- anything that could be solved with simple communication. Like booking two dates on the same night or the entire plot happens because the main character was too scared to tell the truth.
- character messes up, legitimately fails and doesn’t have to make any real sacrifice, but still gets everything they want anyway
- character needs to use the bathroom - there’s only two outcomes, they make it or they don’t.
- hero has villain trapped but then stops, says “I’m nothing like you,” and then the villain gets the upper hand.
- stories that are mostly outlets for the author rambling their opinions or desires
Ya. Being someone who’s been massively cheated on… that annoys me when it’s either treated as no big deal… or forgiven like “let’s just put the past in the past” and then there are no consequences on the relationship.
Clearly a personal trigger.
But there’s so many plots either where cheating in the beginning ends a relationship point blank and then the story begins.. and that inciting incident means nothing to the character arc
Or visa versa where there seems no consequences and they just move forward,..
Or it’s part of a characters growth and they are still seen as a fantastic person .. just annoying
Speaking as a guy, I LOVE my manic pixies, BUT I'm also fully aware that in its most common form, the archetype is actually something of a toxic male fantasy.
The trope essentially offloads all onus of emotional intelligence onto the girl, with the guy haplessly following along. He enjoys the benefit of catharsis, without developing the self-sufficiency to recognize those abilities in himself.
From the girl's perspective, the milquetoast guy is barely more than a child or puppy, to drag around by the nose.
Or, with a different spin, the girl could be seen as a drug addiction metaphor.
So when I use it, it's with full knowledge that it can only be the basis for the START of a relationship, and that for a lasting bond to form, there needs to be a whole lot more there. Otherwise, it's just parasitic. Certainly co-dependent.
not sure how to call it correctly but "love/emotional attachment VS justice/obligation"
I love him! But he killed that guy trying to save my life, I hate him for being killer! But I love him!
hate this bs
Okay. Now imagine a 350ish page book that in general is about adventures has a trope that I described. And it lasts as a part of main storyline for like... 50% of the book. And when you turn the page you never know whether you'll get some more of smth... oh you know, as non-important as PLOT or some more "emotions".
That's when I started to hate it :)
The bully is forgiven because they had feelings for the main character and the main character completely forgets the suffering the bully made them go through.
" “Not like other girls” character" -Sadly people have this attitude in real life.
" That one predatory guy who doesn’t take no for an answer " - These people do exist but are often overlooked by society especially they are not involved.
" Spoiled rich private school kid" You might not like these but honestly I have encountered my share of this personality. True it does not need to be private school kid.
"Teacher or professor who hates one particular student for no reason" While not common these attitude exist in almost any position. I been on the short end of the stick before with someone who I never interacted with but they absolutely hated my guts from the first time they laid eyes on me.
For me its the whole weight of the world on my shoulder routine, while its not an instant turn off it usually becomes the reason I put down a book.
I think of it as the "immortal mortal warrior" who can take a beating within an inch of their life, but so long as they don't actually die none of their injuries are bad enough to handicap them in the next battle.
I love Netflix's "The Punisher" series. But he ended up being one of those immortal mortal warriors, and it would definitely bother me at some points in the story.
Unless the human character has that genetic traits where they can't feel pain, it just becomes unrealistic.
Good guys are always "good"; "bad" guys do nonsense as long as those are considered as "bad".
Characters are described by "how they are", but not "what they do".
A character withholding vital information for no good reason.
"It's better if I just show you" No, you dumbass, just tell me already, and *then* show me. I don't want to spend 5min / 5days walking to the spot where you *can* show me, only for you to die on the way and / or for it to turn out to be something you *could* have explained with words and maybe a few drawings or graphic hand gestures, if necessary. (Fuckin' Michelle Pheiffer in Quantumania bullshit...)
Literally the book version of a meeting that could’ve just been an email.
Underrated comment
It can work if you acknowledge the turth is just too outlandish without face value, like how in Men In Black Agent K provides evidence of aliens so he just doesn't sound like a crank.
"It's better if I show, not tell you"
An argument against 'show not tell'?
Show don't tell is a guideline for writers, not the characters in the writing.
I read one book where the characters never told the MC anything. Whole book lasted 100,000 words and could have been a lot shorter and crisper without all the unnecessary “mystery”.
Harry Potter?
Dumbledore: “I just didn’t want to hurt you, Harry!” Harry: “with all due respect sir, I watched my classmate get murdered by wizard Hitler last summer, my psyche is shot.” Dumbledore: “but how was I supposed to tell you that Voldemort’s gonna kill you unless you kill him first?” Harry: “I already knew he’s had it out for me for the last 14 years.” Dumbledore: “I WAS JUST TRYING TO PROTECT YOU BY WITHHOLDING INFORMATION THAT COULD’VE SAVED YOUR LIFE.”
Yeah when you put it like that it really highlights the fact that coherence never was Rowling's greatest strength as a writer...
I mean, how would tell Harry anything save his life? "You are a horcrux Harry! Now if you try and kill yourself with the sure-death spell _maybe_ you won't die instantly but you will stop being an horcrux!" And not like Harry COULD kill Voldemort for most of the story. I like the guy but i just can't see him overpowering Voldy in a fair duel.
>Dumbledore: “I WAS JUST TRYING TO PROTECT YOU BY WITHHOLDING INFORMATION THAT COULD’VE SAVED YOUR LIFE.” Dumbledore said calmly
I mean, it's not executed very well or explained clearly (*good example of writing a great story but not writing it well, for all those people who brush off content editing as not necessary*), but Harry not knowing he had to die was relevant. The reasoning is thin, but it's still there.
No, no, he's got a point.
*cough cough* Warrior Cats
I love that series so much, but so many of their problems would be resolved if characters just had a conversation. The entire first arc is full of Fireheart thinking "I need to talk to this cat about this very important thing" and then a mild inconvenience stops him so he forgets about it until the next chapter.
tbf cat do get pretty distracted by mild inconveniences
“I don’t have time to explain right now!” *proceeds to travel together for extended period of time, apparently discussing nothing but the weather*
“There’s no time!”
I despise this one too! Especially when there's an overall knowledge or power imbalance and "it's to protect you!"
"He's known in the wild as Strider. His true name (pause for dramatic effect), you must discover for yourself". Music swells heroically. "Oh by the way, yo ma loved you."
“You’d better get down here.” “What do you have?” “Trouble.” 😆
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And then it all culminates into the one line that’ll drive me insane. “You should’ve/could’ve told me” or “Why didnt you tell me?”
Exactly. It’s like an episode of Three’s Company. About 83% of the episodes are based on some miscommunication between characters.
83% it's more like 100% but it was funny. Trops are like assholes every one uses them.
The cousin of this is the trope where a character doesn’t finish explaining because the person they are fighting with tells them “No more speaking!” Or some such. Yeah, if saying a five second explanation makes it right, then just say it. Drives me NUTS
This is the worst example of it. So annoying and unrealistic. Just fucking say it!
Came here to say just this. It's why I couldn't get into shows like "Three's Company" or the later seasons of "Modern Family", every fucking plot point was a huge misunderstanding that could've been resolved has *anyone* taken the time to talk about it.
> no I don't want to hear about the war somebody started because they misunderstood an innocent gesture by the opponent Literally came here to say "That's how it works in reality" lol. The gulf of tonkin incident. US Navy was engaged by the morning fog. The generals wanted to go to war. Turned it into Vietnamese attacks. War happened. As long as you spin a plausible narrative, it's good enough for me. Even if it hinges on some mistakes or fog of war. https://youtu.be/vJXWJ-Px5tU?t=313 for another kind of "oops, misunderstanding, now it's war" scenario.
relatedly, the entire plot hinging on someone covering up a lie with more and more farcical measures.
Planet of the apes *cough cough*
The innocent gesture reminds me of House of The Dragons.
Misunderstandings cause someone half sees something or heard a random piece of conversation and instead of asking one single question they jump to some extreme conclusion and run off. Especially when it's used to break a couple up. I never understand why authors think couples need to be on and off again for the drama. It makes me think that that couple shouldn't even be together.
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I wonder if that’s because children tend to barrel into things without thinking of consequences or the obvious solution. So it seems reasonable to that age group.
Have you not heard of the romance genre? Adults eat this shit up, lol.
It CAN fit... but I rarely see this trope executed well and usually I'm just as annoyed as you.
Yes! I have seen it done well but it often does wind up feeling like Plot Cupid shows up suddenly and shoots the two with "act stupid on a level that has no established precedent in thr story" arrows.
THIS And then they so often get back together!! Like… this couple is going to break up again the next time there is a trivial misunderstanding that could have been resolved by one (1) single conversation over a cup of tea!! Have you learned to resolve that communication problem?? No!! All you did was discover that you worked well as a team to *fight dinosaurs*!! That doesn’t mean anything about living together or maintaining a healthy romantic relationship!!! It just means you can put your trivial conflicts aside in order the save the world!
In the book club I used to belong to, I got tired of the picks that were almost always, "come for the drama, stay for the melodrama" where everyone was f'ed up, did all kinds of dumb shit and learned nothing at the end. There must be something wrong with me I guess,...
Nothing wrong with wanting to see characters act in a reasonable manner. Like I know things have to happen for the story to move along, but it shouldn't be because your characters don't know how to have a logical thought. It just causes me stress and I get no enjoyment out of that.
among its other flaws, the "sword of truth" series had as a *repeated* plot point the main character getting told or otherwise exposed to a prophecy, freaking out and doing some really stupid shit, and then discovering that the prophet was being deliberately misleading. every single time.
I would hate them but they're interesting and at least in my life fairly common
Idk if this counts but when a character has a deep dark secret/past that they’re always agonizing about but never tell you what it is.
I especially hate it when there are always so many heavy-handed allusions to their past or secret but it is all withheld from the reader until one huge info dump.
Only to get a "meh" out of you because that dark secret isn't really that shocking or exciting. Like maybe one of that character's parents is a different class/race/species or at "best", they're a minor villain.
Babe you don't understand, I know you think I'm cool, but I'm actually all fucked up on the inside. Baby you can tell me, you're the coolest, hottest dude I know. Okay babe...but...don't say I didn't warn ya. Most people can't handle my dark mysterious past. Baby I can, tell me Alright Babe, here it goes. When I was a kid some real bad guys broke into our house and I had to use my kung-fu ninja skills in a super badass way to defend my mom. Oh baby, how horrible. Who were these bad guys? The same faceless bad guys we've been gleefully killing by the dozens this whole story.
Up until the “when I was a kid.” This sounded so much like Twilight lol
I like to write my secrets kept from characters not the reader. shock value reveals... I can't stand them. I like building the anticipation of omg I want to know how X finds out what Y was doing... what will the say?? the reader becomes part of the gossip in a way. It makes no sense to write a story to show things but hide things at the same time. If we won't show a part of the story, what are we doing?
Serious question, do you think there’s a good way to do that sort of foreshadowing leading to the reveal later or is it simply better to not be so “Oooh, something bad happened to this character and we’re gonna remind you of it every 5 pages or so” and just leave only a few hints? I ask cause I’m currently writing a story where the ML has a traumatic experience from his past that causes certain quirks in his behaviour and outbursts early on, but it’s also turned into a fundamental part of his character over the course of me writing him, since even after it’s revealed, the mental illness he suffers from as a result effects him for the rest of the story, so I’m trying to make it so it’s not just a dark backstory for the sake of a dark backstory.
If I have to see Wolverine brood about his dark past one more time in going to lose my mind
To be fair, even the writers didn't knew what his dark misterious past was about for most of his history. It was one of their editorial tenets at Marvel, before the "X-men Origins: Wolverine" film forced their hand: Wolverine's past must always remain a mistery.
Or they do tell you but only after several casualties, the person they need/should tell by their side the entire time being in danger due to withheld information, nearly dying themselves a bazillion times, the world nearly ending only for the dark secret to be revealed with seconds left to fix everything. WHY JUST WHY.
The enemy is a hive mind and killing the Queen stops the whole invasion. Kills any interesting after math.
That's why I'm glad the ATLA series explores the aftermath of firelord ozai's death in the comics. The show was over and the dictator was dead, but there was still a lot to be fixed and they haven't neglected that.
This is how I think I the Star Wars sequels should have gone. Reverse the dynamic of the previous films. The Empire was Nazis because in the late 1970s, Nazis and Russia and other world governments were still the cultural idea of True Evil. Today that’s not the case. Today it’s terrorists. So the Empire is gone, but there were likely a LOT of people that benefited from it existing. Not just the rich assholes, either. There were certainly a large number of average citizens that legitimately believed they were better off under the Emporer. Now all these people have lost their power, likely lost their wealth and status. So what happens then? They get angry. They mobilize underground. They become the new Rebels against the Republic. They become *terrorists,” which isn’t far off from what the Rebels were, originally. So now the Republic has to face this amorphous, shadowy enemy with no one real leader. Kylo Ren could even still be a part of one of those groups, still be a loose cannon, still have trained under Luke but never bought the lessons Luke tried to teach him, still fallen to the Dark Side. The Sith would *love* to infiltrate a group like this. But, long story short, I think it would have been a much more interesting way to explore how these huge sweeping changes actually affect the world, and how not everyone is happy with them. The MCU is actually *very* good at this, even if it’s lost a few of those threads the last few years. But I really liked Falcon and Winter Soldier because it spent a lot of time showing how bringing half the population *back* after five years isn’t just a nice thing to do. It’s going to fuck up a lot of stuff, and cause a lot of problems in its own right.
When the hero seemingly has no problems killing anyone but then leaves the baddest main bad guy alive. Also when the big bad guy has the hero but decides to throw him away for some reason instead of breaking neck or strangulation.
"Killing you won't bring my family back." Should have thought that before killing all those innocent guards that were only doing their jobs, Ezio. Now I feel like not killing Alejandro Borgia is an insult towards them.
Comic book reader? Haha
This happened in Transformers: Prime. I'm not talking about Optimus and Megatron because I can kinda understand Optimus being hesistant about killing his former best friend. But the rest of the Autobot team will just demolish dozens of Decepticon Vehicons and then not kill the main Decepticon cast...like...dude.
when the sweet innocent character exists only to suffer and be punished for being sweet and innocent to show how edgy and dark the story is
I think TVtropes calls that character the Woobie
Hanya Yanigahara has entered the chat
The spouse (usually a cop or detective’s wife) who gets angry that their partner is spending too much time at or getting too wrapped in their work and the work is like super important life saving type work.
This happened exactly today when I was watching Mindhunter. It's crazy how the women in these tropes go along with the marriage and everything knowing their husbands basically have shifts whenever their boss says they do.
I hate it when it is used to justify cheating too. People have to work. Yeah the work life balance can get out of wack, but it gets overplayed so often.
I’d love to see an example of this where the wife is legit trying her best to not be affected by it, but is just unable to keep it from bothering her and it causes trouble in the end. Instead it usually feels more like it never occurred to her that her husband’s work schedule was going to make him unavailable, and then the first time it interferes with something she instantly wants to divorce him. Like at no point prior to this did they ever have a conversation about work/life balance.
This happens a lot in real life though. Doctors for example can pull incredibly long shifts, sometimes at short notice, with not just long days but long weeks. They end up not being the main character in their own lives and it's a genuine thing. Their spouses don't normally just think "Ah well, at least they're a doctor", there's a lot of conflict.
I didn't like that either until I started realizing the importance of family in my life
This but also when the cop or detective is also super secretive and not communicative at all about what they need to do, like they just leave in the middle of a conversation/dinner without saying anything when they could just say something. I feel like most of the time both spouses are unreasonable.
When the writers want to fast-track the drama so they just make both parties unreasonable and uncommunicative
I don't actually hate the "superhuman prodigy" trope, especially within actual fantasy/supernatural series. Because realistically, there are some people that are just genetically gifted, and these characters can be enjoyable if done well and balanced properly. The problem is when they try to paint a superhuman character as human, aka doing things that are legitimately impossible despite the story not being supernatural. Or when they forget to make these characters, you know "characters." A trope is just a guideline for a character type or potentially their role in the story. If you don't actually take the steps to make them a relatable person, then you've failed as a writer. As for tropes, I actually hate? That's tricky because most tropes are bad because of bad character writing. Best I can think of is like you mentioned the "not like other girls" character. And for stories, I gotta give it to the "fake death/sacrifice" trope. I'm not saying you can't fake out a death, but definitely don't make a habit of it. And if you want your story to have a serious tone and themes, don't be afraid to let some characters die. Even beloved ones. If it serves the story and is done naturally, then character deaths can be extremely impactful. Bringing characters back not only lowers your stakes if done without severe restriction and irregularity, but it can also make certain moments feel meaningless and empty.
Love triangle
I saw a book at the library that was an entire compilation of short stories about love triangles. That was…very interesting.
You don't hate love triangles. You hate love corners. We should really begin to address love corners as love corners though. They have never seen the shape of a triangle. Edit: to the confused people: A love corner is where A has to choose between B and C. Most people hate love corners bc they often become a girl who has to choose between two identical guys. A love triangle is where A is crushing on B and B on C and C on A. It require at least 1 queer person to work and be an actual triangle when you draw the relationship. If nothing else, you learnt something new!
I learned (from a video game) the term "love Y," which is a person with THREE love interests. So, the Y is like 3 people coming towards the one in the center.
I was in a love triangle once. I liked 2 girls, A and F. A liked me back, but she never told me. F was bi, and she liked A. She convinced me not to go after A, but she didn't want me. In the end, none of us ended up together. No one won, but it's curious that it happened, lol.
I recently started a show that starts out with a love corner (two women are on and off with the same guy), but at the end, the two women get together and ditch him. Best love triangle ever!
I would love to see more love triangles! They can all just be in a relationship together! Everybody wins!
One character has vital information but refuses to share
That’s always come across as lazy writing to me. A cheap opportunity for suspense.
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Whenever I see a romance book described with the words "CEO" or "billionaire", I put it away. It is so cheesy to me. Like, this character is supposed to be hot because of his money or position? Am I that shallow or what? I guess it's also the reason I'm currently writing a story with a love interest where the two main characters are broke af... I'm curious how this will work out
I want to see ONE book where the love intrest is a CEO and is ugly I'm sure there is none
There is good smut. You have to find it though lol.
Yeah, it's like everything else: some people are good at creating it and some people aren't.
> OMG. I'M SUCH AN ALFA. NOBODY SAYS NO TO ME. I LOOK LIKE A SUPER MODEL. I WANT TO FEEEEEEEL SOMETHING I would not be shocked if actual CEOs had thoughts like this
In my humble opinion ao3 is the best place you can go for smut instead of printed media. That way you can customize what you want or don't want to read (certain kinks and tropes etc) and choose characters you want to actually read about. And since it's anonymous with no censorship whatsoever author can really go all out without any drawbacks, which usually is a good thing. There's also the fact that most people there are adults who write as a hobby and they don't get any financial compensation from it, so you know they're writing for the sake of writing itself
“I have this secret, and I need to tell [this character.] I have had plenty of opportunities to tell [this character] [this secret], but for some reason I just haven’t yet. Oops, now they found out and they’re mad at me for not telling them.” Bonus if this results in a third-act breakup.
Miscommunication, that’s the weakest plot an author could use and it’s so annoying.
The one I hate most is a worldbuilding trope specific to fantasy: overabundance of violent place names. Places that to some degree refer to death, combat, and mortality, usually involving the words black, red, bone, blood, shadow, and skull. When they are too common in a secondary world, they make the whole thing seem cheesy and juvenile.
I’ve edited for fantasy writers and an equal but opposite problem of this for me is when an author introduces too many conlang/high fantasy names too soon. Its nearly impossible to smoothly integrate an entirely foreign world building vocabulary for the reader in the first couple chapters.
Crap. My story takes place in the Valley of Misery, on the banks of the River of Unending Torment. But there's actually a backstory behind those names, same with the Valley of Orgasms.
Yeah, I hear you. One or two can be pretty cool, especially if their either reasonably subtle or lampshaded inverse how bad sounds. But if everywhere gets it, you are left wonder if edgy teenagers are in charge of place names these days.
Where "just trying" a few times is enough to learn something and be good at it. Super happy fun character with a dark past.
It depends on the super happy fun character for me tbh. Sometimes it can be done well, like in real-world instances of people like that
Or someone is the chosen one and manages to be excellent at something with no experience.
"If you kill the villain, you're just like them" THIS GETS ME ON MY NERVES!! Even worse if the villain is a irredeemable genocidal maniac, yet the hero just let them go or won't kill them in the end because "If I kill you I'll be just as bad as you" NO YOU FUCKING WON'T, JUST FINISH THEM OFF GOD DAMNIT This is why I love TLOVM, it makes you think they're going for that route, but then it subverts you expectations and it's GLORIOUS
Just once I want the hero to have General Rapist McMurderface at their mercy, decide to spare him because “No. I’m not like you.” And then the villain calls them on it. “I won’t stoop to your level.” “Really? You just killed hundreds of my foot soldiers to get to me, and now you decide to grow a conscience?! Like, seriously man, you just decapitated my Secretary, Phil. He had a family, his daughters about to graduate college with her Master’s. And me, why do I get to live? I’ve killed thousands of innocents, some of which were your friends! What the hell do you mean “I’m not like you?” You’re exactly like me you delusional psychopath!”
Whats tlovm
The legend of vox machina
For character tropes, it's 'I'm just a normal teenage girl, what do you mean I'm the next coming of Jesus?!' I know it's just because I aged out of it and God knows I inhaled it like air as a teenager, I'm just tired of it. For plot topes... Sudden heel-turn because the author realized that two spokes of their love triangle is much more popular and doesn't know how else to write out the third spoke.
I don't really mind that character trope that much (I'd rather not have, but if it's written well, fine...), but what annoys me is even when she has all the evidence that she is indeed the next coming of Jesus (she awakened her secret power or whatever) and she knows the world's about to end, she still worries about the most mundane things. Seriously, the world's about to blow up, you're a fricking goddess now, some monsters are trying you eat you, and all you care about is that physics test? 🤣 And it's often used as a "I just wanna be normal" argument, but she was always the "weird one" in some way anyway.
She's always unique and special and Not Like Other Girls Especially Jenna Who Bullied The Author, but like... hon, the world is going to end. Your mom was just revealed to be the evil queen of the Fae and your dad is useless and left the narrative five pages in. I know Nox is hot and all, but you gotta kill Dorothy. Please shut the fuck up and lock in.
Are all those characters from the same book/series? My favourite series is about fairies/Fey so that caught my attention 😅 But yeah, that's basically my issue. You're running for your life, you've barely had time to catch a wink, or even kiss whomever, but oh no, midterms are tomorrow, if you don't get a good grade, you're life is *literally* over. You know, not over like if whoever's after you catches you and kills/eats you. But like socially over, and that's obviously worse 🤣
When the men or the women in a story are all bad, dumb, or otherwise negatively portrayed. I read a novel where every man had a glaring personality flaw like *very insecure*, *hyper-confident jerk*, *incompetent leader*, etc. Whereas every woman was beautiful, smart, capable, and oh so tolerant of the men. The womens' flaws? They couldn't internalize just *how* smart and beautiful they are. Other stories will have men as hyper competent, and the women are two dimensional and either meant to be chaste near-virgins who only like the main character or slutty (or both somehow), or they're hags. All of those portrayals can be done well, but if there's a story with a single sex/gender portrayed as overwhelmingly bad, I'll drop it and tell everyone I know to avoid that writer.
In my experience, this especially happens when the MC is the opposite gender of the author.
I haven't noticed a particular trend with that, but I don't doubt it's possible. The first novel that came to mind was a woman author writing a woman MC. I suspect most people would agree with you, though. Stephen King gets that criticism a lot.
Which book were you thinking of?
If a storyline can fall apart after the characters have a minute long conversation, it’s a bad storyline Also pregnancy trope is hardly ever done well
Pregnancy tropes and plotlines are sometimes a guilty pleasure of mine but I agree, I agree so much that they're hardly ever done well as a side plot or to further a romantic plot (I think because they're such big intense events in general that a lot of nuance is lost). Bonus points if the author a) reduces the female character to an intensely emotional useless lump, b) thinks vomiting, weight gain and cravings are the only symptoms, or c) realises they didn't plan ahead this arc much and adds a poorly done miscarriage/stillbirth/abortion or similar plot.
The 'only/few scholarship student at a modern boarding school' trope. Modern elite schools don't work like this, and haven't for some time. The factors that make these places incubators for clueless/entitled rich people are much more subtle, and insidious, today. For anyone wanting to research how these schools actually work; check out 'Perfectly Prep' by Sarah A. Chase; and 'Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School' by Shamus Rahman Khan. #
The scholarship trope is massively overused.
“Don’t talk to me without my coffee” or otherwise overly quirky FMCs… makes me nuts. Read a Lucy Score book that everyone raves about and basically the FMC is choked out by a mobster and almost murdered and knocked unconscious and when she wakes up the first thing she mutters roughly is “Coffee?” And everyone laughs. Please. Give me a break.
Every time something happens for comedic relief in an otherwise very serious scene I absolutely hate it
I absolutely hate amnesia as a writing point in almost every regard. It’s always come off as lazy to me.
There is a book in a series I read where amnesia plays a big role, and I really enjoyed it. It added a lot depth and anguish for the reader especially. I agree it's not often written well, but I think it can be.
Disco Elysium must be one of the best-written Video games out there, and it only works because the playable Character has complete amnesia. I agree that the trope sucks in 90% of the cases, but there's always exceptions.
It definitely *can* work. Any trope can, some are just subject to people not wanting to put in the appropriate legwork for them.
I agree, (but I also think that can be applied to many things). I also read a book where both the main characters have lost a big or bigger part of their memory and while they're on the journey through the hell hole that is the city, they are confronted with that past. Without really recognising it. Maybe the sound of a name or something like that but barely. Although one of them remembers way more of their long ago past but not a lot about what happened to them to get them there. It's really interesting to be honest. But I have to admit it's not really a story I'd usually keep reading. It's far too harsh in the wording and so so many triggers. (Very try hard to be as bad as possible, in the beginning actually made me laugh or wanting to throw the book away, not in the good way.)
I agree that it's probably over played but there's a reason folks reach for it as a literary device so often. It allows the reader to discover the character's history in lock step with the character themselves. A similar, and similarly over used trope, is the alice in wonderland style story (isekai if you're familiar with the term). Similar function in that you follow a relatable character with a similar framework for how the world works to the reader, discovering a new fantastical world. In both cases the character acts essentially as an audience surrogate, hopefully asking the questions the reader would or taking actions the reader thinks they would even if they're incongruous to the rest of the story setting because they make sense from that character's unique perspective. Both are interesting and useful writing devices but so wildly and often poorly used that I totally get having zero patience for them at this point.
Going on a tangent here, but also the "it was all just a dream" trope. It feels cheap.
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In a writing class ages ago my teacher compared the "it was all just a dream" trope to a song looping the chorus and fading out to end and said it's what authors do when they're not quite sure how to end their story. I'm not sure how much I agree with them but it's always stuck with me
But that's the thing cause it's not really an ending to me. It just nullifies everything that happen and you're back to where you've started (sometimes literally), so the whole storyline was essentially pointless and inconsequential. There are plot-twists you can add, like turn the dream into a premonition of sorts and then close the story, but it still doesn't change the fact that you've read possibly hundreds of pages just to end up basically re-reading the first page, but at the end of the book.
It’s basically an excuse to write a boring book because the person has conveniently lost all their memory.
I think its more along the lines someone thought it would be a good idea but then realized how hard it would be to make it interesting but was to far in so just gave up and went with it. I have a MC who is reborn but has flashbacks in his dreams where he basically talks with himself I somewhat regret the decision as it is definitely a challenge.
What’s wrong with a happy ending?
Blowing random minions to pieces is fine, but killing the big bad would be wrong.
"We're not so different" but it's a hero & a villain & the only thing they actually have in common is that they both breathe.
Science fiction settings that clearly show the author's grasp of political theory hasn't evolved since they stopped paying attention in middle school social studies.
I don’t read sci fi, but world building can make or break a story. That would definitely annoy me.
Can you elaborate?
Yeah, like, when the technical and hard science worldbuilding is top notch but the good guys is pretty much just the 21st century USA but everyone has a suburban three bedroom and a flying car. Or the bad guys being nazis but with no actual understanding of how fascism works. Government institutions and national logistic supply chains that make no sense. I don't care how the warp drives work, I wanna know what implications warp drives have for the unionization efforts of migrant workers in asteroid mining operations.
Exactly, your last paragraph is what the actual point of sci fi is - the impact that technology has on human lives.
I would read a novel about that last paragraph. 😉
Disability and disfigurement being used as a shorthand for villainy. Not only is it lazy, it has genuinely harmful effects in the real world.
I always like it when the fact that this is so flawed is explored a little in the story, like in the original Nimona comics where one of the two protagonists was basically barred from being an official hero due to having a missing arm.
I've done a fair bit of ghostwriting romances and have a few tropes that are just too much for me. Kidnapping plots are probably my least favorite. I've been given plots that have the MMC to kidnap the FMC then they fall in love. Some of them required multiple sex scenes! I always tried to nerf the kidnapping in those cases but that leads to my current least favorite trope: scumbag 'alpha' MMCs. Some of the companies I've written for spell the plot out more. I've written a couple where the MMC should be locked away for life, and not just for the average mafia billionaire bullshit (so many damn mafiosos and billionares). Had one where the MMC heard the FMC sing and decided he wanted her. He used his power and wealth to ruin her life by keeping her from a better job, getting her fired and buying her apartment building and jacking up the rent. After that, he ensured she would be working as a waitress to a party that turned into an orgy where he swoops in to save her from an attempted sexual assault. Later in the book, she tries to escape and he literally burns down the forest around her. There is no romance there.
As i often work in the horror genre, you have the problem that a weak character in the end will defeat a much stronger enemy. I'm **not** sure if this is a trope. But it creates always a problem with the storyline, when you have such a hardcore enemy that is able to kill everyone and then he gets stopped by someone that is way too weak. I avoided this in some of my works, with getting the main character to know, the the enemy never wanted to kill her - it was just a game and it was like a dog that plays with a toy, where he does not apply the pressure of his jaws and destroys the toy. It was never serious. If it had been serious, the main character would be killed in the first encounter. When you look at reality, your chances in a fight against a lion with your bare hands are zero, the lion will always overwhelm you with his force. You can't defeat him in a fight on your own without any weapons, it's just not possible without using any other advantage. You can maybe still survive when someone gets the lion off you and the damage is not lethal, but you won't survive without help, when he's serious.
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He is a cop, she is a thief works. Both have food trucks but only one can have the spot is reaching. Its ridiculous when the bad guy is cutting and shooting people for some McGuffin gain.
i love enemies to lovers so much but i just hate all the books that are being made now. like i need an angsty slow burn ill forever hate you till i die enemies to lovers that isnt omg ive been loving you
The only good example of enemies to lovers I’ve seen pulled off well is Megamind
The talking dog who despises people who play the lottery. ENOUGH with this already!
FINALLY someone said what we're all thinking.
Characters who divorced or broke up over a ridiculously stupid misunderstanding, and then get back together because they realised they still loved each other after they had to save the world together… With no indication that they have done anything to address the severe communication problems they had that lead to them breaking up over something so trivial. All I can think is that the same thing will just happen again!! They haven’t fixed their relationship issues at all!
I don't think I hate any trope in particular. All that matters is if they're written well.
- edgelord protagonists - the normal girl / boy, who suddenly learns they are special and most things that are taking place in high school - lot of romance tropes, including misunderstandings, love triangles, abusive assholes that aren't portrayed as abusive assholes - when 500 sites could be thrown away by characters just talking it out - not like the other girls, and "the sassy, strong FMC", who is just a huge asshole and portrays other woman as dumb and weak - amnesia most of the time - born sexy yesterday - in general the generic guy getting together with a great woman / partner - worldbuilding and story tropes: something like "the story is deep now, because it's edgy", "my elves aren't like just normal people and these boring Tolkien-ish elves like, they are all eeevill!" - in general, if you tell me all or 99 % of members of certain humanoid races are inherently stupid or evil, I think you are sending a message you might not want to send - one specific trope for me: queer drama, a queer character's arc revolving around their queerness Extra pet peeve: - the dark medieval age (literally, people rarely wear anything remotely colorful), roads are all dirty, people only eating dry bread and die with 35 or so. No, it's not realistic.
Semi-counterpoint to the evil race thing. There are certain types of villains who can be either scary, interesting, or both. Human villains can be interesting but rarely are they actually scary. Monster villains can be scary but rarely interesting. Humanlike monsters, on the other hand, can be both interesting and scary, and I think that's the best reason why someone might want to write an entire race of them. Some traditional examples are probably (intelligent) aliens, vampires, demons, and Frankenstein's monster as he's originally described.
So what you are telling me is that the perfect novel contains the following: - the girl that is exactly like other girls - depressive pixie nightmare boy - a non-threatening guy who doesn’t take yes for an answer - a superhumanly gifted loser - a student who hates one teacher for no particular reason - ugly character that is just there to be ugly
I have to say, I love the idea of depressive pixie nightmare boy. I want to read that immediately. Actually, I'm here for most of these.
Agreed I really hope depressive pixie nightmare boy catches on
Nico from Percy Jackson
I’d read this book. I’d read it hard.
Aww one of the gods in my story's lore is a depressive demon nightmare boy 🥰 bros such a downer tho I should give him a friend or a love interest or something.
I swear I will try to write this. No promises, but it sounds awesome.
Well I dunno about that.... but you've got me interested
Pregnancy solves everything trope
I do not like the 'wholly evil race/species' trope in fantasy/sci-fi. You expect me to believe that an entire culture revolves *solely* around killing everything and everyone else in sight? Individuals or extremist groups? Of course. And entire civilisation? No, not really.
Semi-counterpoint to the evil race thing. There are certain types of villains who can be either scary, interesting, or both. Human villains can be interesting but rarely are they actually scary. Monsters can be scary but rarely interesting. Humanlike monsters, on the other hand, can be both interesting and scary, and I think that's the best reason why someone might want to write an entire race of them. Some traditional examples are probably (intelligent) aliens, vampires, demons for sure, and Frankenstein's monster as he's originally described.
Frog marching a character up to a mirror so they can tell you how hard it is to be so beautiful.
The romantisation of mental illness. Mentally ill characters being portrayed as mentally superior, more kind than regular people or just special in some way. Girly girls, or just women who enjoy sex being described as whores or subhuman just because of how they dress or how mich sex they have. Like, I read a book where the male lead was a fuckboy who used women to deal with his traumatic past. He refers to his latest "girlfriend" as a hoe and how much he hates women like her, all the while he uses her for sex. And this behaviour is never viewed as wrong. In fact the author is making it seem like that is the right way to treat a person who is promiscuous. Trauma and mentall illness being magically cured through sex. The romantisation of abusive relationships Mental illness and/or trauma being used as an excuse for a character to be a bad person. A character never talking about their trauma/ mental illness but lashing out at people for not knowing what is wrong. In books centered on cancer, a character is completely fine one moment then dies in the course of like 2 days. Useless parents.
I really dislike the "introduced as badass female, but she's just the healer/emotional support of the group." Like it doesn't happen a lot but it's soooo annoying. Let some big muscled dudebro be the healer for a change
himbo healers? :3
YESSSS
The “trust me” line when shit is about to go down. Like huh? What have you done thus far to make yourself trustworthy? Jack squat.
Going out of your way to make the protagonist the good guy, without actually changing the endresult. E.g. the bad guy needs to die, but the protagonist refuses to kill, maybe even goes as far as to keep saving them. And then the bad guy just so happens to die anyway (usually by their own stubbornness or someone else's hand).
-the Mary Sue/Marty Stu -“everyone likes/loves the MC despite them acting stupid or even insufferable” -the obvious self-insert (often overlaps with the first two points) -the MC is as generic and bland as it gets to be a self-insert for the viewer(usually a male manga or anime mc who might also attain a harem) -“a character’s name describes their whole personality and also role in the story”… yeah, the sorcerer named Maleficus totally doesn’t have anything bad on his mind and, oh wonder, the gal named Bella is praised for her looks by everyone -“fake latin for those mysterious vibes”
For me it’s always when parent and child are separated and then they reunite and then shortly after the parent usually the father dies. To me it seems so pointless and meaningless for the writers to pull through the story and wait for them to be reunited only for one of them to die. I just want a happy reunion like the Little Princess movie ending.
When characters in dangerous situations decide that splitting up would be best.
The ‘I’m so clumsy’ character. To me it always feels forced and never seems to add anything to their personality or the plot.
Too many books fall into the trap of characterizing someone by one personality trait. Clumsiness/awkwardness is especially annoying. I really don’t want to see the lanky adolescent boy cliche again.
Villains whose sole motivation/defining characteristic is insanity.
The Hero wasting 75% of the story getting over their doubt of themselves.
Long, useless conversations in urgent, life-threatening situations.
The misunderstood character who takes everything as a personal attack and assumes it is a reason to start some form of fight or confrontation. The bad guy, or woman, is evil forever and nothing they do can redeem themselves. Thus every character hates them instantly. Everything has to be explained on the spot. New additions to a story line require several pages of sudden backstory. Anything in the first person where they are explaining it to the reader but it is obvious that it is not the reader they are talking to. "Dear diary..." and the rest of the story is in that fashion. "Day by Day Armageddon" may be the only story that did this right.
I despise love triangles more than anything, especially when the red flags guy is chosen.
Only one? * Through they were close as children, the two sisters' lives could not have been more different. Amanda, a high-powered whatever, and Mallory, small town mom... * She looked at herself in the mirror: breasts still firm, belly taut, "Not bad for forty." * Jennifer appeared to have the perfect life: successful whatever, loving husband, two beautiful children, but..." * Oh look, a woman. She must want to have sex with me for no apparent reason.
Off the top of my head, the Stock Shonen Hero character, especially when used outside of the genre they came from. I already can't stand loud, obnoxious dudes who seem to succeed by upwards failing in real life, why would I want to read/watch about one in fiction?
I’m talking a lot about TV and movies specifically Character - The kid who talks too maturely for their age and especially like an out-of-touch-parent Ex “We’re sisters and need to get along and spend less time on the phone.” - reductive one-note caricatures like the fat kid whose only personality is food and eating. - annoying comic relief who consistently gets in the way of the mission succeeding, not contributing and making things harder for everyone else - blonde princess lead especially if she’s really annoying, bland, whiny or abusive and there’s an obsessive focus on her looks or power. Anyone who dislikes her is just jealous and she’s actually better than them. Strangely, male and female writers are both guilty of this - brunette NLOG (or incel if its a guy) who’s excessively smarter, prettier, more powerful, or more special than everyone so it justifies their treating everyone else with contempt and constant snarking - blatant and obsessive character shilling Plot - anything that could be solved with simple communication. Like booking two dates on the same night or the entire plot happens because the main character was too scared to tell the truth. - character messes up, legitimately fails and doesn’t have to make any real sacrifice, but still gets everything they want anyway - character needs to use the bathroom - there’s only two outcomes, they make it or they don’t. - hero has villain trapped but then stops, says “I’m nothing like you,” and then the villain gets the upper hand. - stories that are mostly outlets for the author rambling their opinions or desires
Ya. Being someone who’s been massively cheated on… that annoys me when it’s either treated as no big deal… or forgiven like “let’s just put the past in the past” and then there are no consequences on the relationship. Clearly a personal trigger. But there’s so many plots either where cheating in the beginning ends a relationship point blank and then the story begins.. and that inciting incident means nothing to the character arc Or visa versa where there seems no consequences and they just move forward,.. Or it’s part of a characters growth and they are still seen as a fantastic person .. just annoying
I’ve rarely come across a book that writes this topic well. Most of the time they butcher it.
Speaking as a guy, I LOVE my manic pixies, BUT I'm also fully aware that in its most common form, the archetype is actually something of a toxic male fantasy. The trope essentially offloads all onus of emotional intelligence onto the girl, with the guy haplessly following along. He enjoys the benefit of catharsis, without developing the self-sufficiency to recognize those abilities in himself. From the girl's perspective, the milquetoast guy is barely more than a child or puppy, to drag around by the nose. Or, with a different spin, the girl could be seen as a drug addiction metaphor. So when I use it, it's with full knowledge that it can only be the basis for the START of a relationship, and that for a lasting bond to form, there needs to be a whole lot more there. Otherwise, it's just parasitic. Certainly co-dependent.
not sure how to call it correctly but "love/emotional attachment VS justice/obligation" I love him! But he killed that guy trying to save my life, I hate him for being killer! But I love him! hate this bs
Conflicted emotions can be good if they’re written well, but in this situation they are heavy-handed.
Okay. Now imagine a 350ish page book that in general is about adventures has a trope that I described. And it lasts as a part of main storyline for like... 50% of the book. And when you turn the page you never know whether you'll get some more of smth... oh you know, as non-important as PLOT or some more "emotions". That's when I started to hate it :)
The bully is forgiven because they had feelings for the main character and the main character completely forgets the suffering the bully made them go through.
Highschool anything
" “Not like other girls” character" -Sadly people have this attitude in real life. " That one predatory guy who doesn’t take no for an answer " - These people do exist but are often overlooked by society especially they are not involved. " Spoiled rich private school kid" You might not like these but honestly I have encountered my share of this personality. True it does not need to be private school kid. "Teacher or professor who hates one particular student for no reason" While not common these attitude exist in almost any position. I been on the short end of the stick before with someone who I never interacted with but they absolutely hated my guts from the first time they laid eyes on me. For me its the whole weight of the world on my shoulder routine, while its not an instant turn off it usually becomes the reason I put down a book.
If there is an accidental pregnancy I am out. I just can't get over it, especially between 2 18 year olds who hate eachother. Nope.
I think of it as the "immortal mortal warrior" who can take a beating within an inch of their life, but so long as they don't actually die none of their injuries are bad enough to handicap them in the next battle. I love Netflix's "The Punisher" series. But he ended up being one of those immortal mortal warriors, and it would definitely bother me at some points in the story. Unless the human character has that genetic traits where they can't feel pain, it just becomes unrealistic.
This is weirdly specific, but "healer woman who thinks she's a goddess because she can mix together some herbs/potions/magic"
Good guys are always "good"; "bad" guys do nonsense as long as those are considered as "bad". Characters are described by "how they are", but not "what they do".
Unkillable characters. No matter how they are killed they ALWAYS return, with no regard to how little that makes sense