SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
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Least favorite tropes/cliches in sci-fi and fantasy?
A person/persons try to take over the world/galaxy with a thing. Our hero/heroes get it together after early difficulty to stop person/persons from getting that thing in a large mindless action battle.(every superhero movie of the past 15 years)
Made-up words. If it's a fork, call it a fork, not a sjfwejfke. Even worse when the words kind of sound like they're supposed to (phorque)? I've lost track of how many fantasy and sci-fi books I've put down because the author was trying be clever with his fake language.Unless you're Tolkien, knock it off.
Peggy wrote: "Made-up words. If it's a fork, call it a fork, not a sjfwejfke. Even worse when the words kind of sound like they're supposed to (phorque)? I've lost track of how many fantasy and sci-fi books I've..."I think you mean a sjf'wejk'e.
Peggy wrote: "Made-up words. If it's a fork, call it a fork, not a sjfwejfke."Worst I saw of that was someone calling it a "tabe" instead of a "table." What was the point of that?
To me, there needs to be at least some commonalities (tropes) in a fantasy story for it to be a fantasy story. You would expect a metal band to wear denim and black leather, not tuxedos. The trick as an author is to write your story in a way where the stuff that makes it a fantasy novel (and not a vampire romance) are there but aren't written in a way that makes them obvious.In other words, if your writing sounds like you bought the words for 10 cents each on the last day of a garage sale, it won't matter if you utilize common tropes or not; the reader won't like it.
Having said all that, I am very appreciative of this thread because it helps me identify areas to avoid in my writings. I admit I used apostrophes in some of my character and race names, but made a conscious effort to create names that can be easily pronounced based on the spelling. I hate it when an author insists a word be pronounced differently than how it's spelled ("Ryria" comes to mind -- Michael J. Sullivan says it's pronounced 'rye-ear-uh' not the phonetic 'rye-ree-uh').
Peggy wrote: "Made-up words. If it's a fork, call it a fork, not a sjfwejfke. ."I think you mean dinglehopper (Little Mermaid). I am afraid to read Anathem for this exact reason.
Aaron wrote: "Super Genius Main characters: A character can only be as smart at the author, so unless you are a super genius(very unlikely) or put in excessive amount of research please...please don't do this."Agreed. I don't mind the idea of a Super Genius character, but so few authors manage to pull it off. I've even said of Doyle that Watson seems so stupid because that was the only way he could make Sherlock seem super smart.
Also are books where the characters aren't super geniuses, but just meant to be really clever, and yet they end up doing really stupid things, and I'm like, "Where's this cleverness of which you speak?"
I also read a book where one of the characters was supposed to be this amazing author which ran into the same problem, because the excerpts of this amazing author could only be as good as the actual author... which wasn't really all that amazing. ô_o
I think the Super-Genius trope is easier to pull off in Fantasy than SciFi, because in Fantasy, no one expects them to invent warp drives or solve the theory of relativity. A "super genius" character in Fantasy can just be one that solves mysteries without all the clues, has sort of a precognitive ability to see things coming, etc.
Well! If you want a good list of hack fantasy tropes, go and get your hands on THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND by Diana Wynn Jones. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...It is an alphabetical listing of all possible fantasy cliches. The way all villains have black hair? Horses can be parked like bicycles? Everything.
What about happy endings? The certainty that everything will be all right in the end... On the other hand, I have seen (quite) many people complain when the book has a sad end or a melancholic tone.
Steven wrote: "To me, there needs to be at least some commonalities (tropes) in a fantasy story for it to be a fantasy story. You would expect a metal band to wear denim and black leather, not tuxedos. The trick ..."Excellent comment. That's exactly what I (and many authors, I suppose) try to do.
I do love a happy ending... But honestly they're only satisfying when there was actually some doubt about whether the ending would be happy, and some real cost to the characters to get there.
Chapter heading excerpts - the mini-chapters, blurbs, and (worst of all) poetry that is supposed to place the story in some sort of larger context or artificially give it atmosphere. Some authors use this like a Wikipedia for their story, and that can sometimes work except that often too much unintended information is usually revealed that spoils the suspense of the ongoing story. Others use it as an outlet for their cringe-worthy artistic output. Actually, leave the epic poetry out altogether. Create an addendum to your book with your verse so that any who enjoy that sort of thing can indulge but those of us who scream at the sight of metered lines can skip it altogether without feeling the need to read. A little of it goes a long way and declaiming around the campfire is rarely necessary for anything else than to tack on leaves in the book.
Of course all tropes exist because they worked somewhere, one or more authors used these devices well and create an iconic character or story, one that caught the public's imagination - LOTR, Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice etc.
I think everyone here pretty much said what I was thinking. Kudos to you all! :D
It is pretty annoying when people inject modern speech patterns, attitudes, and colloquialisms into historical or alternate reality settings. Having your quasi-medieval shadowmancer knight talk about having the "feels" just ruins the story for me.
Sandi wrote: "Chapter heading excerpts - the mini-chapters, blurbs, and (worst of all) poetry that is supposed to place the story in some sort of larger context or artificially give it atmosphere. Some authors use this like a Wikipedia for their story, and that can sometimes work except that often too much unintended information is usually revealed that spoils the suspense of the ongoing story. Others use it as an outlet for their cringe-worthy artistic output."Sorry to name names or point fingers, but Eragon and Eldest drove me a bit crazy because the chapter titles often told you exactly what was going to happen in the chapter.
I don't mind that if its done well (Chapter 11, in which bill finds a cat) as long as the information doesn't give away the plot. Bill finds a lion in his bedroom that has eaten his wife...
I once read a book that was supposed to be a retelling of a bible story, and they used verses from the story at the start of each chapter... Except that the verses were edited to be really vague, out of order and actually had no relation to what was going on in each chapter, which I found extremely annoying.
Chapter heading can indeed be tiresome. I tend to skip them at first, but my OCD tendency makes me read them eventually so it's really tiring. Like City of Stairs novel, I really like it but the chapter heading drove me nuts sometimes since it does not elevate the story that already has sufficient backstory. Wish Kindle has automatic omission for chapter heading.
colleen the fabulous fabulaphile wrote: "Also are books where the characters aren't super geniuses, but just meant to be really clever, and yet they end up doing really stupid things, and I'm like, "Where's this cleverness of which you speak?""
This is basically the problem, more often than not I find myself outsmarting the "genius" especially when the area overlaps with something I have some knowledge in. I tend to find the most successful super genius characters have a viewpoint character that is the Watson, someone you are smarter than but since you don't see the Sherlocks inner thoughts on a matter and only their external ones it often makes them seem smarter and lets me stomach it easier.
I guess in some ways this flows into the larger problem of don't tell me a character has X traits, show me. If you have to keep reminding me though narration that means you aren't convincing me though the dialog and actions.
Aaron wrote: "I guess in some ways this flows into the larger problem of don't tell me a character has X traits, show me. If you have to keep reminding me though narration that means you aren't convincing me though the dialog and actions."Exactly! I don't think that the "show, don't tell" maxim should be taken to exclude narrative shortcuts, but I don't like being told how I should judge a main character. It's like someone telling you in a dating profile how they are hardworking, kind, creative, beautiful, etc.
I'm not sure if there's a better thread, but since the OP asked for "fashions" I think it's ok to go beyond tropes. And I want to complain about foreshadowing. It's not just in SFF of course, but I came here because I just encountered it in Klara and the Sun and it was *very* intrusive. If I'm enjoying the book, I'm going to keep reading. If I'm not, you hinting that something awful is going to happen is not going to encourage me to go on. In fact, if I'm threatened with something awful, I may dnf a book that actually didn't have anything so awful after all.
And besides which, it seems spoilery, and I know a lot of readers despise spoilers.
So, why is foreshadowing so common?
There are degrees of foreshadowing. There's "little did she know that her village would be destroyed and she'd be fleeing into the Spiny Forest" and then there's a more gradual buildup where there's rumors of the lizardmen losing part of their habitat to the werewolves and expanding into other human settlements, etc. Without any foreshadowing, events in a story can feel episodic or contextless, imo.
One of the tropes that bothers me the most is the death of a spouse in order to advance the plot. When two characters are happily married in the beginning of the book, I almost expect it now.
Similar to Michelle's dislike, I'm tired of the "[single event] causes trauma that dominates/explains Character's life", i.e. the use of the Traumatic Event. It's not so much that this can't or doesn't happen but it's three things. First, the execution is cliched most of the time. If Character is female, the traumatic event is very often a rape. Not, say, the death of a child in an accident or something else. Second, readers don't necessarily need to know what the event was for it be be believable that a character has a traumatic past. Finally, trauma isn't always a single event. Imagine growing up in a war zone or extreme poverty (or both). You'd be a very different person than if you grew up in a peaceful, middle class area even if there was no single Traumatic Event.
I'm watching The Expanse for the first time and the writing has made it very clear that Amos has had a lot of bad things happen to him in the past and that those experiences have made him who he is. But, at least through the middle of S3, I don't really have any details on that. At all. He just made an off-hand comment to Prax that "you and I had very different childhoods..." and again, it lets us know that Amos had some bad stuff happen. But what? We don't know and it's not really important that we don't.
Silvana wrote: "Little miss perfect assassin/warrior/sorceress/whathaveyou with angsty, annoying attitude. And love triangle. And difficult names to remember/pronounce, especially the ones involving apostrophes."With you on love triangles and difficult names, though I think that apostrophes are the least problematic of all the things authors can put above, below, or between letters.
Steven wrote: "To me, there needs to be at least some commonalities (tropes) in a fantasy story for it to be a fantasy story."I would go--and have gone, in other contexts--further than Steven did over six years ago: without tropes, "story" wouldn't exist.
We can certainly drag the tropes that drive us up a wall, though. :D
Silvana has a valid point about difficult names. And I now avoid any and all books if love triangles are involved :)
Can computers/robots/artificial life forms be sentient? Data won me over because it was dealt with playfully and the mysterious positronic brain wasn’t well understood. But I don’t need more of the same or stories with no new ideas.
Michelle wrote: "Silvana has a valid point about difficult names. And I now avoid any and all books if love triangles are involved :)"Agreed! No more love triangles--so overused!!!
It's a lot easier if you make names phonetic in English even if you make them look exotic.
And don't spell common names some brand new way you make up--this is very disconcerting. I have met a Sharlotte IRL who is not happy that her mother did that, and many times it looks wrong.
That said, some names have a long history of alternative spelling.
But if you want to make up names, make them simple to pronounce so people can remember them!
It's the latest tropey trend, Daniel! It'll probably stick around for a while.
Michelle wrote: "It's the latest tropey trend, Daniel! It'll probably stick around for a while."Oy vey!
I hate 'Deus Ex Machina' ploys used to modify the outcome of a story, like using some hidden, previously unannounced 'power' possessed by the MC to win a fight, or a sudden burst of idiocy on the part of a protagonist that then changes what should be a defeat into a victory for the MC, or for the foe. I gave up in disgust at David Weber's Honorverse series because of such frequent use of Deus Ex Machina plots, some of which ended in the massacre of millions of people, and this only to create some 'shock effect' on the readers.
I hate plot armor. I understand the POV character(s) need it. That doesn't mean every cool character to speak with them should get it too. I find myself especially annoyed by it in space opera stories. Speaking of space opera, why must every ragtag crew have both the most amazing person in every position (captain, pilot, mechanic, gunner, etc) and simultaneously have no money to keep the loveable hunk of junk they call a ship in working order? Shouldn't one preclude the other?
The overpowered (OP) or impervious main character is one of my least favorites, too.I'm always amused by main characters who sustain several injuries in every book over the course of a series. Even a twenty-something-year-old would get gnarled with scar tissue after a while.
Phillip wrote: "I hate plot armor. I understand the POV character(s) need it. That doesn't mean every cool character to speak with them should get it too. I find myself especially annoyed by it in space opera stor..."I think that it makes it more fun for some people. I am sure I've read some where that's not the case, but I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.
Ragtag crews with stolen ships makes more sense than those with ones they own, or else where someone had a lot of money once and they keep it together piecemeal, etc. Scifi often conveniently forgets just how expensive these ships would be.
I have problems with really large structures--what planet would have enough resources to build it? At least in the Red Mars series, which I didn't love, they used an asteroid to build the space elevator with.
However, Seveneves ends up with a habitable ring around earth which is one of the reasons it wasn't a 5 star book for me. It's just far too large for me to suspend my disbelief.
Or to go along with Beth's comment, when the character has a life-threatening injury yet is up and at 'em a few pages later.
Michelle wrote: "Or to go along with Beth's comment, when the character has a life-threatening injury yet is up and at 'em a few pages later."A lot of times I feel authors overestimate how much punishment a person can take. If you get knocked out for longer than five minutes, you have a concussion and likely brain damage. Yet, how many times is this used so the hero doesn't have to kill or be killed to make a capture? Even when they use drugs, it doesn't make sense. You have to adjust dose based on size.
Karin wrote: "Phillip wrote: "I hate plot armor. I understand the POV character(s) need it. That doesn't mean every cool character to speak with them should get it too. I find myself especially annoyed by it in ..."I haven't read Seveneves but you mention a habitable ring around the Earth. I would think that would be gravitationally unstable in the same way Larry Niven's Ringworld would be. Or did this one start with the correctional jets that Niven put in his sequel to address the problem?
I am currently really annoyed by the unpronounceable names in the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini. I’m reading it aloud to my son and the names/places are alternately really simple or unpronounceable. And it’s not just the dwarves that have hard names. It’s completely nonsensical.
Rick wrote: "Similar to Michelle's dislike, I'm tired of the "[single event] causes trauma that dominates/explains Character's life", i.e. the use of the Traumatic Event. It's not so much that this can't or doe..."What I really dislike about it is that one trauma can produce all SORTS of results.
Phillip wrote: "Michelle wrote: "Or to go along with Beth's comment, when the character has a life-threatening injury yet is up and at 'em a few pages later."A lot of times I feel authors overestimate how much p..."
Well, one ER doctor observed that his job amazes him with how little it takes to kill -- and how much.
Though fiction does have to be more plausible.
Mary wrote: "Phillip wrote: "Michelle wrote: "Or to go along with Beth's comment, when the character has a life-threatening injury yet is up and at 'em a few pages later."
A lot of times I feel authors overest..."
A lot of people (and authors) don't seem to understand the amount and kind of damage to a human body a bullet or an explosion can cause. One just needs to look at the proportion of American war veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan who were wounded and now suffer life-long sequels. I agree that too many authors downplay how serious and lasting combat wounds can be. As an ex-military, such lack of realism in writing irks me a lot, as it would tend to downplay how terrible wars are.
A lot of times I feel authors overest..."
A lot of people (and authors) don't seem to understand the amount and kind of damage to a human body a bullet or an explosion can cause. One just needs to look at the proportion of American war veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan who were wounded and now suffer life-long sequels. I agree that too many authors downplay how serious and lasting combat wounds can be. As an ex-military, such lack of realism in writing irks me a lot, as it would tend to downplay how terrible wars are.
My least favorite trope is likely the 'chosen one', especially if the world bends over backwards in order to keep the story going (which I guess could also be attributed to plot armor).Another device I dislike is a supposedly all-powerful antagonist who just happens to make one tiny mistake near the story's end which ends up facilitating her/his downfall.
I consider some traits like: there is a profecy and the chosen one is a teen who in the end of the book will overpower the evil antagonist with a made up explanation. Or even the classic one "the power of friendship while the antagonist has no people to love" I consider it over used. To me these represent The Lazy Writing
The antagonist monologue trope drives me nuts, too.
Gah! 27% into Sword-Sworn and the MC just released the breath he hadn't realized that he was holding.Just when you least expect it, there it is.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Once We Were Kings (other topics)Ready Player One (other topics)
Boys in the Valley (other topics)
Shadow and Bone (other topics)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (other topics)
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Simon R. Green (other topics)Martin Walker (other topics)
Ken Liu (other topics)
Tad Williams (other topics)
aaaaahhhhh
Then again a well written story survives anyway. I am a re reader and some stupid tropes are still part of my collection because the story is well written