100 Most Annoying Writing Cliches [game; humor]

DanielaTorre said:

16) People getting knocked out and then waking up hours later with a minor headache. (For the love of god, if a real person were actually knocked out, even a minute can signal irreversible brain damage!)

Click to expand...

Yes, yes, yes!

39. And the one Jane Austen made fun of: The young woman, all alone, who ventures into a scary spot without backup, often in nightclothes. What! Not when Dorothy has given you to understand that there is a secret subterraneous communication between your apartment and the chapel of St. Anthony, scarcely two miles off? Could you shrink from so simple an adventure?

40. Straight, white male/female MC.

*be careful, some people find Dyke offensive!

41. Quotation marks? I don't use those. McCarthy glared at his new editor.

42. Apostrophetic abuse in science fiction: On the planet W'ym'e, the O'C'mon'ow tribe was at war with the W'tsa'matta'U tribe.

ShadowyEclipse said:

31) That in all adventuryishlike books, there is ALWAYS a TRIO of heroes. Usually the Main character, and one guy, one girl.

Click to expand...

Bahahaha! I'm totally guilty of the cliche as is 70% of MG Fantasy writers. LOL.

I like to think that the 4th character in my book (who is linked to the main character in a big way) puts that cliche to rest, but who am I kidding?

You can blame this on the necessity for the MG to have a reliable best friend, and the girl who must be there to balance it all out and identify with female readers.

43. All of the contentious characters uniting to face the sudden onset of natural disaster, during which the good guy saves the bad guy's life.

Guardian said:

37) Love is never justified. Girl sees boy (or opposite way around) one time, and it's usually something that would make a bad impression (like the guy farts in her mouth). Instant TRUE LOVE! Even if they hate each other, they are drawn together by magnets hidden in their lips and genitals.

Click to expand...

Haha! I was beginning to wonder if I was expecting too much out of my real life romances if true love was based on so little.

44. The MC and his buxom love interest are completely immune to whatever plague is killing off 99.5% of the world's population.

45. Fantasy races in which all members have names starting with the same letter.

Dwarves - Boron, Borax, Brillo
Elves - Espadrille, Euphorbia, Eglantine, Eggplant
"Wee ones" - Trilly, Trunk, Teagasc

46) Girl pretends to be a boy so she can do 'boy' things. Join the military, act in a Shakesperian era play, blah blah blah.

CatharsisChild said:

15) Bad cell phone reception in horror stories.

Click to expand...

Which brings to mind.

47) Cars that won't start right away when something dangerous is coming (monster, train, natural disaster).

48) Keys that shake and rattle, drop to the floor, can't find the right one. Ahh the monster is getting closer!

49) The neverending closing sequence, where the monster, person, whatever never seems to make any actual progress towards the victim, while constantly moving forward (lampooned in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail).

50) Treasure maps.

51) Subterranean passages with thousand year old traps involving swinging pendulums, darts and pit-traps that somehow were so well engineered they still work today. (I'm looking at you Indiana Jones)

52) Secret passages that are triggered at comedic moments, or in comedic ways. Or for that matter, any kind of secret passage really.

53) Bratty kid who learns the error of his/her ways during the course of the book and becomes nice by the end.

54) The character who, venturing upon a murder scene, immediately picks up the gun, knife or blunt instrument (leaving his/her prints on it) before summoning help.

55) The obligatory downer ending in a horror story (i.e. Killer murders protagonist, gets away, identity unrevealed) that renders the entire conflict pointless.

56) The survivors of any apocalypse somehow contain all the knowledge needed to continue a more-or-less normal society; a doctor, a carpenter, an engineer, a mechanic, but strangely never an agronomist although a sustainable food supply would be the weakest link of any such scenario.

ETA: methinks we are going to well surpass 100.

57) Boy and girl meet. Instantly hate eachother and do everything possible to make the other's life miserable. By the end of the story they are in love and either married or on their way to being married.

58) Magical swords

mscelina said:

--The first line of a manuscript that reads any variation of "It was dark/late/early/light/scary/funny/heart-warming/ridiculous/what the hell ever."

Click to expand...

Aww.

(59) No one has mentioned emerald eyes yet? Violet eyes? Golden eyes? Eyes that change color? My goodness.

Confession: I have a character with (subtly) color-changing eyes, but there's a good reason for it; his inner dragon peeks out

60. Everything that appears on screen/paper when I am in charge of the keyboard/screen.

Even that statement was so obvious that I am now going to have to go down to the bottom of the garden and eat worms.*

*Just great. **

**Hackneyed cab for Harry!

61. Strong female main character is strong long enough only to establish this as her character. Then she is broken by some trauma into a sobbing, quivering, useless mess of tears. Male MC must take care of her and teach her not to be afraid of her own shadow, via use of his MAGICAL HEALING PENIS! He penises the tears away, but the female MC is rendered into a clingy love interest and is never again the strong character she was originally.

Note that I see this a lot with M/M fiction.

62) Talking animals

63. Flashbacks

64. good twin/bad twin

65. sparkly vampires.... oh wait, wrong thread

66. Super controlling / protective parents except when anything interesting happens and then they are conveniently at work or out of town.

67. Use of the 'Hey' or 'Alright' in historicals.

68. A heroine (or hero) who does something really dumb for the sole logical reason of moving the plot forward and then thinks to themselves, "wow, that was really dumb. Why did I do that?"

69) Bad-guy who captures the hero, but insists on explaining his plans before subjecting the hero to a slow death instead of just shooting him in the head.

DanielaTorre said:

Bahahaha! I'm totally guilty of the cliche as is 70% of MG Fantasy writers. LOL.

I like to think that the 4th character in my book (who is linked to the main character in a big way) puts that cliche to rest, but who am I kidding?

You can blame this on the necessity for the MG to have a reliable best friend, and the girl who must be there to balance it all out and identify with female readers.

Click to expand...

Nah, blame it on the necessity for the main character to have a friend, and a boy who must be there to balance it out. (The one I've been working on has two girls and the brother of one of them.)