Most Annoying Story Cliches (list)

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by hedda, Nov 20, 2016.

  1. Kerilum

    Kerilum Active Member

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    I've been wondering the name of that title for a few years now... thank you
     
  2. Kerilum

    Kerilum Active Member

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    -This has to do with something new and local. I feel as if every writer on these forums are making a main character gay or lesbian. It's really annoying.
    -"The One" must sacrifice his life in order to triumph
    -The antagonist being objectively evil and we have no clue what his viewpoint is, only the protagonist's.
    -Closest friend being a spy/traitor--sure there are going to be those, but why the hell is it always the close friends that are usually the most trusted.
    -The only reason a protagonist is fighting is for either
    a. justice
    b. parents were killed by x force and they want revenge
    -MC is shy and misunderstood by world
    -(Movies) Weak and characters with no muscle tone knocking out crowds of bad guys with a simple kung-fu kick or swipe
    -"We had to keep this secret from you until you were old enough to understand the past of your family; your destiny... blah blah blah shut up
     
  3. hedda

    hedda New Member

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    - MC (teenager, ya) loses both parents in a car crash, MC meets love interest, MC also has trouble finding themselves.
    - vampire loves stories...'nuff said
    -sparkling vampires...lmfao
     
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  4. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Can you imagine how annoying it must be for the rest of us that every character in every story is expected to be straight unless the author "justifies" writing about the rest of humanity?

    Speaking of which:

    For a few brief and shining hours, Beverly Hills Cop was one of my favorite comedies of all time because it didn't force a random "be straight" angle from out of nowhere.

    Finding out why they weren't a couple was more of a letdown than finding out as a kid that Jurassic Park wasn't real :(
     
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  5. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Aliens (or dwarves or whatever) that are unconcerned for themselves or their fellows. One of the things I hated about Lord of the Rings was the orc suicide bomber at Helm's Deep. Conversely, I loved Predator (2?) for having the Predator need, and have, a first aid kit, and when he (?) used it, it was obvious that the antibiotics stung, and stung hard. Similarly, in Battle: Los Angeles, when the Marines capture an alien and start basically torturing it in an attempt to find a vulnerable point, the other aliens launch a rescue mission to try and get it back. (Side note: Crew served weapons FTW!) Finn in the new Star Wars turns into a good guy, but when I first saw it, I liked that a Storm Trooper was upset that one of his comrades had died.
     
  6. Megs33

    Megs33 Active Member

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    when the main character suddenly becomes the uber hero with almost no notice, explanation, or logic.

    I love me a good "badass MC realizes they're awesome and becomes a hero" story, but give me a little meat and bones to make it worth reading. i've read entirely too many self-published novels that are glorified fantasies played out by the author.
     
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  7. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    A character acting strangely out of character/doing something stupid to advance the plot or to write them off because the person playing them can't/won't continue to play them anymore (TWD is notorious for doing this.)
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2016
  8. ddavidv

    ddavidv Senior Member

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    Fights between two characters that aren't professional boxers, wrestlers or karate black belts that go on for what seems like hours.

    The goal of any fight is to take down your opponent as quickly as possible. The only long, drawn out fight scenes I can tolerate are the ones where they become a parody of themselves (like the fight around--and through--the Rolls-Royce in Banshee).

    Heroes who have never held a gun that can shoot with deadly accuracy. My MC is a good shot...except under pressure. Then she is as erratic as any normal human in a stressful situation. Maybe one or two out of a clip will hit its mark.

    Cars that explode after a crash. If you're writing that into a book and the trunk wasn't filled with 50 year old dynamite you are an idiot. Doesn't happen.
     
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  9. PilotMobius

    PilotMobius Active Member

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    Characters who get shot wearing a "bulletproof" vest and don't experience internal bleeding and broken ribs from the trauma.
     
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  10. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Gods yes. Battle Royale was horrible for this. No spoilers, but the characters are all Japanese high school students who are being forced to each other to the death with a random selection of weapons. I'm a gun guy, and I remember struggling to figure out how to load, safe, and unload a few of the more unusual weapons I own, but BR has them reloading and delivering accurate fire from one moving vehicle to another. On a dirt road.
     
  11. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    This should just be here: www.tvtropes.org
     
  12. ToBeInspired

    ToBeInspired Senior Member

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    1) Character has a superpower, say super strength, and somehow everything just works out. No broken bones from simple physics, not just immediately shot, and no accidental deaths while learning how to control the new power.
    2) "I'm the biggest badass there is because I say so," Mr. Perfect.
    3) Character is suppose to be a genious, but written poorly. Well... that's being nice. If you're not a genious, don't try to go into detail on a character that is suppose to be.
    4) Boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love. Willingly risks life for someone knew less than a week. Love of the century.
    5) "Oh no, non-suspenseful danger everybody. Quick, get the author to write us out of it. Good guy always has to win."
    6) Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, and Orcs. Perfect humans with pointy ears, short bearded humans, small humanoid monster, large humanoid monster. Creativity is for the weak. Just recycle over-used material.
    7) Happily ever after. Yeah... that's how real life works.
    8) The Chosen One.
    9) Using old time speech (ye, thou, etc.) just to sound more intelligent.
    10) "Strong" leading or supporting characters that are obviously written by someone with limited social experience.
     
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  13. taariya

    taariya Member

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    • Demons, gods, aliens, or other non-human creatures who have humanoid bodies and abide by human genders and pronouns...for some boring reason.
    • Immortals who don't act their age, i.e. a 270 year old creature being needlessly petty or falling in love with a special-snowflake teenager who is surely no different than any other teenager they've encountered in their long, long existence
    • Demons being abjectly evil creatures lacking nuanced personalities, subtlety, or long-term goals that don't involve the destruction of the human race.
    • Main character who supposedly had a tough life but exhibits no discernible physical or mental trauma, and their past traumas are really just weak personality substitutes or plot devices.
    • Asshole male character is an asshole and the strong independent female mc who don't need no man dislikes him until she realizes he's really not that bad even though he acted like an asshole and they fall in love or something like that
     
  14. ToBeInspired

    ToBeInspired Senior Member

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    By the humanoid gendergenders/pronouns do you mean lack of diversity in general or the conceptual idea? Most animals fall under male and female.

    Forgot about your #2, I'm a 1,000 year old vampire and am in love with a moody 16 year old... it's not creepy at all.

    Liked your list. I hate it when an author tells you something without actually bothering to spend time developing it.

    12) Any villain who wants to destroy the world. Makes absolutely no sense.
     
  15. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I dunno, suicide isn't enough for everyone. Take a look at, say, Jim Jones and the People's Temple. He convinced ~900 people to kill themselves (yes, not all the deaths were voluntary), but don't you think that someone like him might actually try to destroy* the world?

    *ranging from human extinction to creation of an asteroid belt located between Venus and Mars
     
  16. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Counter Point! :D

    Tropes are Tools (which a section about Tropes Are Not Good, yes, but also a section earlier about Tropes Are Not Bad)
    The Tropeless Tale (and why it's axiomatically impossible for such a thing to exist)
     
  17. taariya

    taariya Member

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    I mean the conceptual idea. Sex is separate from gender, which is a more nebulous concept. What if there were a species which either did not reproduce at all or reproduced through non-sexual/non-biological means? Why would these beings have any concept of gender (or even of sex) since these distinctions wouldn't matter for their survival?

    It's one thing if these beings were formerly human and became part of a different species whose reproduction was independent of biological sex (i.e. vampires, werewolves, zombies, and so on) in which case they would retain their original idea of gender. But for completely non-human species...why?
     
  18. ToBeInspired

    ToBeInspired Senior Member

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    It depends, if the race you've developed followed similar development as humans it would make sense. Hunter gatherers turned less nomadic by agriculture and animal domestication. Gender was created as a way to designate conformity of roles and duties. Man provide, woman nurture. Also, not like we really know how to ask any other animals if they have any concept of gender.

    Though I do agree I find a lack of creativity to be off putting.
     
  19. QualityPen

    QualityPen Member

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    That really depends on the kind of vest and what they get shot with though. A .45 ACP shot from an SMG is going to do some serious damage to the wearer of a NIJ Level II kevlar vest, even though it will fail to penetrate. But a 9mm from a pistol against a steel trauma plate in a plate carrier with NIJ Level IIIA kevlar will not do any damage to the wearer, and may not even be felt during a high speed engagement.

    The National Institute of Justice assigns rating based on blunt force trauma in addition to bullet penetration. If a vest is shot with a round its rating is explicitly intended to stop, the wearer will almost certainly survive despite any blunt force trauma. In most cases, they will be relatively uninjured. For example, most of the time when cops in NIJ II or NIJ IIIA armor are shot with handguns in their vest they are still able to immediately respond to the threat, even pursue them. Situations when people are rendered unable to fight back despite their vest stopping the threat are extremely rare.

    Sorry, but I have to disagree that characters who get shot in body armor should be expected to be injured, unless they are being shot by some odd round their vest was not intended for.
     
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  20. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Nice. Could we then swap that out for "Characters who are shot and like they are D-E-D spells "dead", only to get up five minutes later, revealing that they were wearing a bulletproof vest"? I mean, I know it's possible to take a knockout body blow, but I don't think it's terribly common or likely.
     
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  21. Neural

    Neural Member

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    Someone mentioned movie cliches...
    grrr.

    -People are running from monster/bad-guy/evil/thing and.. someone. ALWAYS. trips.
    -Bad guys are attacking the village! Quick! Create drama! Show a woman cowering over a crying baby!
    -"Reach! take my hand!" "I can't! I'm falling!" "reaaach!" :fingers barely touching and...SUDDENLY, FIREMAN'S GRIP!:
     
  22. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    - the obligatory misunderstanding that leads to the break up of a couple in a romance
    - related to the above, the obligatory "I won't tell him/her about this or why I'm doing this because, because!"
    - arbitrary and clearly trivial things keeping a couple apart for the sake of making sure they're kept apart right till the end
    - I love you but I can't be with you!
     
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  23. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    I wanted that movie to JUST be about Finn. Even though I saw all the trailers, I HOPED it would just stay focused on him.
     
  24. Hwaigon

    Hwaigon Senior Member

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    Is it even possible to stay in the genre of fantasy without these much-hated tropes? I mean they serve as a kind of skeleton, right?
     
  25. Hwaigon

    Hwaigon Senior Member

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    Agreed. The trailer shed all the focus on him.
     

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