Nenia Campbell's Blog - Posts Tagged "cliches"
10 Literary Trends that Need to Stop Right NOW
1. Cheating, womanizing slutty, tattooed manwhore boy falls in love with and corrupts virgin girl.
I'm really not comfortable with the idea that it's perfectly acceptable, even desirable, for boys and men to have ridiculously high numbers of partners, because one day they will settle down and fall in love with a nice virgin girl. I also don't like the message that those other girls deserve this treatment for being "loose." Especially since they are frequently relentlessly and viciously slut-shamed by our so-called 'nice girl' protagonist.
2. BDSM-lite erotica knock-offs of FSoG.
This. Seriously. Needs. To. Stop. So do all the parodies, the homages, the satires, the copiers, and the hangers-on who put in their summaries "fans of FSoG will LOVE..."
Slap yo'self.
3. Spoiled teenage bitches having first world problems.
"Mommy bought me a Dolce and Gabanna prom dress when I ASKED her for Louis Vuitton. I'm going to go clubbing and cheat on my boyfriend with the bad-boy who wears leather pants made by Armani, because he is SUCH a bad-ass counterculture rebel with those Swarvoski gauges."
4. Ordinary girl finds out she is the last of her kind and all these men want to sleep with her/marry her/steal her powers/fall in love with her.
In all fairness, some of these can be quite good. But many of them come off as Twiclones. OR, they end up pushing annoying gender roles, slut-shaming, double-standards, instalove, love triangles, and ridiculous storylines.
If your story in particular is about angels, shape-shifters, vampires, or fae, you should probably just stop right there.
5. OMG YOU GUYS I'M DATING A BOY WHO'S IN A BAND.
Because being famous gives a man permission to be a licentious, drug-using, excessive drinking, foul-mouthed, abusive, womanizing, callous, unfeeling, fiscally irresponsible asshole. Okay, then.
6. Dystopian societies that forbid love for whatever reason.
Romeo and Juliet wasn't all that great the FIRST time around you guys--and that was five hundred years ago.
7. 'Trendy' devotionals.
I'm secular, but I get really irritated when I'm going through the giveaways and see things like 'Fifty Shades of Grace' and instructional manuals for girls on how to protect their V-cards and not be whores. Especially when these things are not labeled as Christian fiction/nonfiction; I've been suckered in to everything from 'Christian' housekeeping to 'Christian' medicine.
8. Shape-shifter/vampire forcibly takes/abducts/rapes his (soul)mate.
Most of these tend to be excuses for blatant misogyny and really disturbing border-line non-con. Of course, the woman falls in love with them immediately and once he gets his way, the man gives her his balls to keep in the expensive purse he buys her. These books are ALL the same, and most of them tend to be horrible.
9. Let's abandon all our problems by taking a road trip!
Not only does this say, "Hey! Running away from our problems is the best solution!" (A very selfish and irresponsible mindset, if you ask me), it also is very rarely about the trip itself and more about having frequent and often irresponsible sex with a boy.
The girl almost never tells anyone where she's going, or who she's going with. The boy is usually involved in something bad, and since this girl also wants to do something bad on the trip he seems like an ideal partner in crime.
Now if these 'road trip' books were actually about the places they see and explore, instead of being totally lame, I would be all over this genre like white on rice. The way it is now, though? No.
10. Trashy Tudor England novels.
That wasn't the only point in European history guys. Neither was the Regency period or the French Revolution. Seriously, what about the Italian Renaissance? The Gothic period in Germany? William the Conqueror? Charlemagne? The Jacobite rebellion? Celtic druids? The Enlightenment? Is Tudor England seriously all you remember from World History?
Coming up next: Ten Literary Trends that Need to Respawn
I'm really not comfortable with the idea that it's perfectly acceptable, even desirable, for boys and men to have ridiculously high numbers of partners, because one day they will settle down and fall in love with a nice virgin girl. I also don't like the message that those other girls deserve this treatment for being "loose." Especially since they are frequently relentlessly and viciously slut-shamed by our so-called 'nice girl' protagonist.
2. BDSM-lite erotica knock-offs of FSoG.
This. Seriously. Needs. To. Stop. So do all the parodies, the homages, the satires, the copiers, and the hangers-on who put in their summaries "fans of FSoG will LOVE..."
Slap yo'self.
3. Spoiled teenage bitches having first world problems.
"Mommy bought me a Dolce and Gabanna prom dress when I ASKED her for Louis Vuitton. I'm going to go clubbing and cheat on my boyfriend with the bad-boy who wears leather pants made by Armani, because he is SUCH a bad-ass counterculture rebel with those Swarvoski gauges."
4. Ordinary girl finds out she is the last of her kind and all these men want to sleep with her/marry her/steal her powers/fall in love with her.
In all fairness, some of these can be quite good. But many of them come off as Twiclones. OR, they end up pushing annoying gender roles, slut-shaming, double-standards, instalove, love triangles, and ridiculous storylines.
If your story in particular is about angels, shape-shifters, vampires, or fae, you should probably just stop right there.
5. OMG YOU GUYS I'M DATING A BOY WHO'S IN A BAND.
Because being famous gives a man permission to be a licentious, drug-using, excessive drinking, foul-mouthed, abusive, womanizing, callous, unfeeling, fiscally irresponsible asshole. Okay, then.
6. Dystopian societies that forbid love for whatever reason.
Romeo and Juliet wasn't all that great the FIRST time around you guys--and that was five hundred years ago.
7. 'Trendy' devotionals.
I'm secular, but I get really irritated when I'm going through the giveaways and see things like 'Fifty Shades of Grace' and instructional manuals for girls on how to protect their V-cards and not be whores. Especially when these things are not labeled as Christian fiction/nonfiction; I've been suckered in to everything from 'Christian' housekeeping to 'Christian' medicine.
8. Shape-shifter/vampire forcibly takes/abducts/rapes his (soul)mate.
Most of these tend to be excuses for blatant misogyny and really disturbing border-line non-con. Of course, the woman falls in love with them immediately and once he gets his way, the man gives her his balls to keep in the expensive purse he buys her. These books are ALL the same, and most of them tend to be horrible.
9. Let's abandon all our problems by taking a road trip!
Not only does this say, "Hey! Running away from our problems is the best solution!" (A very selfish and irresponsible mindset, if you ask me), it also is very rarely about the trip itself and more about having frequent and often irresponsible sex with a boy.
The girl almost never tells anyone where she's going, or who she's going with. The boy is usually involved in something bad, and since this girl also wants to do something bad on the trip he seems like an ideal partner in crime.
Now if these 'road trip' books were actually about the places they see and explore, instead of being totally lame, I would be all over this genre like white on rice. The way it is now, though? No.
10. Trashy Tudor England novels.
That wasn't the only point in European history guys. Neither was the Regency period or the French Revolution. Seriously, what about the Italian Renaissance? The Gothic period in Germany? William the Conqueror? Charlemagne? The Jacobite rebellion? Celtic druids? The Enlightenment? Is Tudor England seriously all you remember from World History?
Coming up next: Ten Literary Trends that Need to Respawn
