Writing cliches you hate

[VGmaster9]

I'm sure we all hate certain writing clichés used in various fictional media. What are some that you personally hate? Here's my list.

- When an important or intimate scene get's blatantly interrupted

- Characters with no backstory, development, or depth who are made to be unlikeable just for the sake of being unlikeable

- When an above character gets away with his unlikeableness for dumb writing reasons

- A misunderstanding whether it be with a friend or a mate, and eventually them getting back together

- When a character starts being a massive douche for little to no reason, and then later apologizes

- There being no resolution for the above two

- Cliffhanger fake outs, which are notorious in webcomics. It's when there's a cliffhanger at the end of a page, and people think something is going to happen. Then on the next page, it's totally different from what anyone was expecting and ends up being downright pretentious.

- The main character apologizing (or doing something of the like) to an unlikeable character when they have no reason to, yet the latter character doesn't accept it and still being a douche. It doesn't add any development to the character and makes them look even worse.

- When you have to feel sorry for a certain antagonist, even though he wasn't given any redeeming factor

- When a character has to keep a promise, then it leading to all sorts of dumb drama. A similar situation where the character has to make a choice whether to do this or that, either one creating drama.

- When the main character is trying to tell people something, and nobody believes them.

[Vae]

• Romance that becomes a central point of focus, but has no relevance or benefit to the plot.
• Unnecessary / pandering sex scenes or fanservice.
• Black and white morality / blatantly author-defined "heroes" and "villains."
• The "comic relief" character.
• The "kid appeal" character.
• Characters that won't sacrifice their "moral code" (read: ego) to kill someone who is causing a fuckload of harm or death as a result. Additionally, when no one calls them right out on this.
• Plots that hinge entirely on this kind of writing style.
• "Babies ever after" / "babies fix people" tropes.
• Female characters that act masculine only and entirely as a result of being "hurt."
• Plots that try to "fix" female characters that act masculine.

[MissFleece]

-two characters that could fix a major issue by talking it out with each other.

-a girl and two guys love triangle, where the two guys are just a different flavor of the same personality type.

-rape as a plot device, mostly in westerns

-animals being way more intelligent than feasible for no explained reason. 

[Dr. Doggo]

romantic subplots or sex scenes in war movies

fuck those

I'm here solely for man on man action

[MalletFace]

• The weak character faints, has heart problems, or gets too hot
• Romantic primitivism and the redeemable savage
• Anti-primitivism and the irredeemable savage
• Generic authoritarian/evil government
• Rain as a symbol for something bad
• Rain as foreshadowing for something bad
• Ignorance excuses everything
• Willful ignorance excuses everything
• History excuses everything

I'm okay with the first one in Chopin stuff. She uses that cliche well. I've not seen even tolerable examples of the others, though.

[Kosha]

Okay, it's rant time! One trope I REALLY hate is the whole Status Quo is God trope. No matter what happens in an episode, everything must return to normalcy. Characters will undergo events where a lesson is learned, only to shrug off said lesson in the next episode and keep being their old self. The writers gave them character development only to throw it out. Characters aren't allowed to have arcs or to change in any way, they must stay the same old tired stereotype from start to finish.

I will give credit where credit is due, though. When television started, any episode could be the first time you watched that show. If I was to watch something story-focused, I'd be lost because I wouldn't have any context. So writers always had to re-establish the status quo so as to not scare off new viewers. But with the invention of instant streaming, this way of writing is now irrelevant. I can watch a show from the very start so I know what is going on and I have full context for every episode. However, a lot of writers have not grasped this and continue to make TV shows where characters have no weight and don't take any of the lessons they learned to heart.

[Fossa]

So called 'Epic' fiction, with 10,000 tribes, empires, wars, eras, planets, species, and characters for anyone to possibly care enough to keep track of.

I'm looking at you, Game of Thrones, and all that you have spawned!

[Lopaw]

Characters who are built off stereotypical ideas of something unique about them.

Characters that are clearly polar opposites of the above that despite having something unique about them actively go against it so much it may as well have never been a trait the first place.

Characters who are blantently there to satisfy SJWs and don't do much else in terms of development. 

[Faust]

Ok my biggest bugbear I reckon is Hobson's Choice. "It's the only way!" one of the characters will say. Bollocks I generally reply. There is ALWAYS another way. Always. (See the Adventure Time episode 'My Way' for a good example of flaunting this cliche).

I am also coming to hate the scientific deus ex machine, or 'I can't think of a reasonable, clever way out of this situation so I'll invent a scientific law that conveniently gets me around it!' Star Trek and Doctor Who, both series I otherwise love, are nevertheless prime offenders in this front.

Oh, and the biggie: the Default Gruff American Hero. Come on guys, how about some ethnic diversity? At least pick a hero who has blonde hair, an ordinary voice or who at least doesn't have dramatic stubble once in a while, OK?

[MissFleece]

Here's another tired one:

Villian: "haha! I have captured friend, unless hero does this thing, I will kill friend."

Friend: "dont do it, my life isnt worth the literal millions of people defeating the villian will save"

Hero: "I'm gunna go do that thing."

[Vallium]

16 minutes ago, MissFleece said:

Here's another tired one:

Villian: "haha! I have captured friend, unless hero does this thing, I will kill friend."

Friend: "dont do it, my life isnt worth the literal millions of people defeating the villian will save"

Hero: "I'm gunna go do that thing."

Hero somehow manages to save friend AND millions of people. Hero is hero.

15 hours ago, Sir Gibby said:

romantic subplots or sex scenes in war movies

fuck those

I'm here solely for man on man action

Gay

[Vallium]

16 hours ago, MissFleece said:

 

-a girl and two guys love triangle, where the two guys are just a different flavor of the same personality type.

...which could all easily be resolved by polygamy instead of the common two-only relationship, everyone wins, no tense dramatic story.

[Faust]

Another one! The 'Scooby Doo Monster Grab'.

This is when a villain delays doing something horrible to a hero just long enough for the hero to do something to escape, like those bits in Scooby Doo cartoons where the monster is RIGHT THERE next to Shaggy and Scooby, roaring and gesticulating, but doesn't actually try and grab them until after they're already well-clear.

Classic examples include: monologuing Bond villains; goons who take half an hour to raise their guns and grin menacingly; bombs that get down to two or three seconds before being disarmed.

That last one's a bit tenuous; in a true SDMG there is no logical, compelling reason for the villain to wait.

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

The whole "big misunderstanding that the main character is too inept to say is a misunderstanding until the very end" shtick.

[Nova]

The power of friendship smmh

You can destroy something with friends but please dont scream power of friendship

 

 

 

 

[Fossa]

That  feature in horror films where the person knows there's some kind of psycho-killer/demon in the darkened house they happen to be in.

Do they ever just think, maybe I should leave? Get out? Go? Run? No. Instead, they open every door, peer into every cupboard, climb every staircase, exploring basements, attics, crawlspaces and closets, until they end up dead.

Could anyone really be that dense???

[Faust]

Kids' books and TV shows that (often due to the distributor or broadcasting company) are contractually obliged to end each episode with a moral message.

Sometimes it's OK to just tell a story, y'know? Trying to force a moral into every one just means that you soon run out of morals and it always feels forced.

[LadyRadarEars]

Incompetent military/police for the sake of plot or the sake of 'we have to have some of them get eaten by monsters' thing. So annoying and aggravating to watch. Not as much anymore, since I moved (both my original and my foster family had lots of military members :V) but it still irks me since I notice it now too.

movies and shows without proper trigger discipline push my angry fennec scream button

I also despise pacifist characters in action movies. What is even the point? You're either going to make some grandiose, pretentious thing about how 'violence doesn't solve anything' in an action movie that only sold tickets by its violence, sex, and explosion quota, or they're just there to be shown up by the action hero about how 'men of action > men of pacifism/inaction' or w/e. What's the point. Get back to the sex, violence, and explosions already. If I wanted to watch a movie with scenes about a rough and tumble warrior-type learning the ways of peace, only to have it turned on its head, I'd watch a samurai/kung-fu flick, not a movie with Stubble McHardbeef on the cover with an explosion in the background. I know it doesn't always happen, and sometimes when it does its like, a one-off scene, but it could be removed entirely in favor of more action scenes.

[Silo]

One thing that angers me is excess development of the setting without expressing its relevance or purpose ( even if it's only implied) then minimal character growth or lack of a reasonable backstory*. 

The characters can't just be static all of the time: they need to grow and adapt. Simply having the character just "react" to new conflicts gets boring. I want a reason to care about whoever I'm reading about.

*The backstory needs to be somewhat believable in the current setting and mingle with the events and actions of each character. It should also affect their perspective and, in a sense, destiny.

[Alexxx-Returns]

Out of character fan fiction

[Fossa]

26 minutes ago, Silo said:

One thing that angers me is excess development of the setting without expressing its relevance or purpose ( even if it's only implied) then minimal character growth or lack of a reasonable backstory*. 

The characters can't just be static all of the time: they need to grow and adapt. Simply having the character just "react" to new conflicts gets boring. I want a reason to care about whoever I'm reading about.

*The backstory needs to be somewhat believable in the current setting and mingle with the events and actions of each character. It should also affect their perspective and, in a sense, destiny.

This seems to describe about 99% of the films Hollywood currently pumps out! Mostly just a lot of flashy special effects or else 'period' films with over-detailed backgrounds, with flimsy plots, little character development, and little in the way to make you think about or examine life differently.

Plonk for the masses.

[Tsuujou]

"OH NO! I'M LATE!"

*runs out house with toast in mouth*

"My name is Stock Weeaboo Bait Mary Sue-kun and it's the first day at a new school. I'm just your average everyday guy. I hope everything goes well this year!"

*turns corner and crashes into obligatory jailbait love interest*

[#00Buck]

My character is immortal and likes to fight to the death. 

[Conker]

I hate it when villains are all, "yup time for me to explain my motive and everything about my backstory now" when that usually makes zero sense and always gives the hero room to escape anyways. Stoppit villains >:[

"I am your father" stuff played straight. Looking at you Dan Brown and Terry Goodkind, you fucking hacks. STAR WARS IS THE ONLY ONE THAT GOT TO DO IT. Well, that and whatever stories came before Star Wars

When people split up in horror movies. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?

Mostly just reading this thread to see which ones I'm guilty of. Answer is a couple. Like I got a token funny character in one book. Couldn't kill him off He was too fun to write.

[Troj]

--Excessive or unnecessary exposition

--Shoehorned-in physical character descriptions (e.g., "Blah blah blah," he said, blinking his bright blue eyes). The absolute worst is when characters describe their reflection in the mirror.

--Mary Sues and Gary Stus.

--Mary Sues and Gary Stus who are terrible human beings (e.g., Richard from the Sword of Truth series, Buck and Rayford from Left Behind.

--Whiny, passive, and/or excessively angsty characters who aren't meant to be funny.

--Characters who are impossibly and infuriatingly stupid, and not in a funny or endearing way.

--Boring characters, or characters who are all the same.

--Robotic, cardboard, or otherwise unrealistic- or inhuman-sounding dialogue.

--Obvious and anvilicious author tracts (e.g., every piece of fiction by Ayn Rand)

--Forced zaniness and whackity-shmackity-doo, eccentricity for the sake of eccentricity, and randomness for the sake of randomness. Basically, anything that screams, "I'm a 12-year-old who just discovered Terry Pratchett and Monty Python." Worst offender: JF Bibeau, "Felsic Current."

--Endless and distracting inside references and jokes.

--Inaccurate and/or excessively mean satire or parody.

--"Little did he know..."

--"It was only a dream."

--Deus ex machinas.

--"Hi! I'm 12 years old. My media consumption thus far has been limited only to Sword of Shannara, Piers Anthony, and Star Wars. Enjoy my dry and highly derivative high fantasy or space opera story!" (Example: Fucking Eragon, of course.)

--Bad sex scenes

--Plot-stalling sex scenes

--Unnecessary and plot-derailing love triangles

--Shoehorned-in romance.

--When the protagonist's love interest is a total dud or a complete monster (and not in the cool literal way).

[Kosha]

1 hour ago, Troj said:

--Shoehorned-in physical character descriptions (e.g., "Blah blah blah," he said, blinking his bright blue eyes). The absolute worst is when characters describe their reflection in the mirror.

I don't think I understand. The writer is helping you imagine a character in your head.

[Vallium]

1 hour ago, Conker said:

I hate it when villains are all, "yup time for me to explain my motive and everything about my backstory now" when that usually makes zero sense and always gives the hero room to escape anyways. Stoppit villains >:[

 

The derp cartoon phineas and ferb parodies this cliche because every single episode Dr. Doofenshmirtz repeats his super evil plan to the trapped hero

...along with several other catchphrases that parodies.

 

Idk man I really liked that show

[Vallium]

Also I think the first chapter of My Immortal has commited a ton of prime cliche offenses

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). [[I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

Just remember kids, no matter how bad you write you will never defeat the most infamous of written literature

[Falaffel]

When characters seemingly die, but then come back later. 

Fuck you

commit

let them die, you fucking pussy

(there are, of course, exceptions.)

[willow]

painfully average but slightly attractive girl pairs up with painfully average but slightly attractive guy to fight a dystopian government

[Troj]

1 hour ago, Kosha said:

I don't think I understand. The writer is helping you imagine a character in your head.

Shoehorned-in is the keyword here.  You get the impression that the author went, "Oh shit, I forgot I need to describe this character!" or that they take a simplistic or reductionist "bingo card" approach to describing characters' physical traits.

10 Tips for Writing Physical Descriptions

Great character descriptions

Sample character descriptions

There's more to a character than just their hair or eyes; vocal prosody, gait, posture, and clothes are important and revealing, too.

[Conker]

2 hours ago, WolfNightV4X1 said:

Also I think the first chapter of My Immortal has commited a ton of prime cliche offenses

 

 

Just remember kids, no matter how bad you write you will never defeat the most infamous of written literature

That gave me cancer. I'm dying now. You killed me by sharing that. I hope you're happy.

[Troj]

My Immortal and the Eye of Argon are fun, but my personal favorite is the (intentionally terrible) Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea, which was written by a group  of sci fi authors who set out to troll a vanity publishing company that had dissed their genre:

http://www.cs.du.edu/~aburt/StingManuscript.pdf

[Endless/Nameless]

character makes obviously stupid decision because lol drama

[Red Lion]

Recently saw some movies that made me think of this thread. This is probably my least favorite cliche. The Big Misunderstanding or as I sometimes think of it "Betrayal but not really". A character is thought to have done something terrible, or they lied about something for good reasons and when it's time for the big revelation everyone automatically assumes the worst and the character is left to prove he didn't do it or work out the misunderstanding in order to regain everyone's trust. What I hate about this is how easily it can be resolved, how seamlessly the broken relationships mend together because when something is a misunderstanding no one is actually at any kind of fault. No character has to take responsibility for anything, there was no intentional harm so forgiveness is easy. The whole drama can be wrapped up with simple communication. In particular I really hate when a character's significant other walks in and seemingly catches them cheating when in reality the character was actually trying to resist some kind of unwanted advances. That is infinitely shitty, character is experiencing what would be some kind of sexual harassment irl and their partner immediately jumps to "you're a liar and a cheat!" never once questioning that the person they loved and trusted has betrayed them.  

An example of the big misunderstanding that I can think of that really irked me.

The Lion King: This one falls more into "misunderstanding" than reveal of a lie.  In the third act scar tells everyone that Simba is responsible for Mufasa's death all the lionesses immediately seem to buy it and Simba's own mother is all "TELL ME IT'S NOT TRUE!". Considering that Simba was a small child at the time of Mufasa's death, Scar told everyone Simba was dead too, and they're probably aware that Mufasa was trampled to death by water buffalo stampeding (something no child could have predicted or controlled) that seems like the kind of thing you'd at least stop to question a little further or at bare minimum, consider to be a tragic accident. Especially given that Scar has proven himself to be untrustworthy, greedy and cruel, I don't think "OMG SIMBA IS THAT TRUE? HOW COULD YOU?!!!" is the appropriate reaction. Made worse by the fact that the whole thing barely takes up a minute or two of time. Simba's personal guilt is central to his character arc but the other characters reactions to it come out to maybe a moment of shock and betrayal before Scar is forced to confess that he's the villain here and the climax of the film proceeds, Simba's personal guilt is resolved because he's no longer at fault and no one ever doubts him again. His pride is totally cool, he's the king and all the build up to Simba confronting his past and learning to take responsibility and live with it never really feels like it paid off. It just kind of illustrates how lazy and weak this trope can be. When used badly it can actually undermine the resolution of what was a fairly compelling plot. Resolution of a misunderstanding absolves all characters of personal guilt and instantly heals broken relationships.