One's Gotta Go: A Game

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

XD

Melanie recently yelled at me with her teacher voice and told me these were really mean.
I feel quite successful.

[Anna]

Cliffhangers, please.

[Gabi]

:D I readily admit that I really like the first 3. No problem to read them ad nauseam.

So that's easy: 4 goes.

[Anna]

But #4 is basically all of Connie Willis!

[Gabi]

Anna wrote: "But #4 is basically all of Connie Willis!"

LOL! You're right, Anna!

[Margaret]

Nevertheless, I'll ditch #4 happily!

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon]

I hate them all with deep, burning passions... but I think I hate #4 just a little bit more than the others, so that one can go.

[HeyT]

I think I'm going to be a combo breaker and say deus ex machina. I am kind of peeved by hand of god writing in general and I want to know something happening in the moment not like oop we survived here's how. The only time I have ever thought deus ex machina was good was in the Stand and that was because it was OTT and made me lol. (It's been a long while since I read it though so it's possible I'm misremembering it)

[Melissa]

Ok - I just ran into this chain and have loved reading it so here is all mine:

Harry Potter
Game of Thrones
Mistborn Trilogy
Farseer Trilogy

GOT

-Time travel
-Portal worlds
-Body hopping
-Telepathy/ESP

Body Hopping

Frank Herbert
Isaac Asimov
Ray Bradbury
Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut - Asimov was a staple in our house and he has written in so many genres

Daemons (a la His Dark Materials)
Spren (a la Stormlight Archive)
Pets (a la Harry Potter)
Dragons & fire lizards (a la Pern)

Daemons - I don't want my soul to manifest into an animal

1. The chosen one
2. The little guy/rebellion taking on the evil empire
3. The intimate relationship between protagonist and antagonist
4. The all-powerful McGuffin weapon/tool needed for victory

The weapon but I must say I am sick of the chosen one

1. Third person omniscient progressive
(He is tripping down the road when he sees her. She is smiling, she is waving, she is planning his doom.)
2. Third person omniscient, past tense (They walked onwards, neither knowing what the other was about to do.)
3. First person past tense (I had no idea what she was thinking.)
4. First person present tense (I smile at him and he turns to stone.)

2 - just annoying

1. Clowns
2. Axe murderers
3. Poltergeists
4. Teenage girls with grudges

I go with the husband - Axe Murderers

-The Millennium Falcon
-Starship Enterprise
-Serenity
-The T.A.R.D.I.S.

You are cruel - I can't choose. Having grown up in a Sci-Fi family each has impacted my life too much

1. R2D2, the plucky droid that could, would, and did, thankyouverymuch
2. WALL-E, the environmentally friendly robot who dreams of holding hands with a lady robot
3. Murderbot, the socially awkward killing machine who just wants to watch tv and have friends
4. Mars Curiosity Rover, who sings itself happy birthday every year.

Murderbot - are most killing humans social awkward, having a robot that way is just blah

1. Middle-earth
2. Narnia
3. Hogwarts
4. Oz
5. Westeros

Westeros

Reading on the beach
-Reading in a comfy warm chair while it snows or rains
-Reading in bed on a lazy weekend morning
-Reading in a cozy public place like a park, library, or bookshop/café

Beach

Standalones
Anthologies/collections
Short series (2-4 books)
Long series (5 or more books)

Too many times in a short series I am left wanting more, so that. Plus authors who always write in trilogies get too damn predictable as to the overall plot outline

1. Pikachu
2. Wall-E
3. Baby Groot
4. Baby Yoda (aka Merch)

Pikachu

Flashbacks
Time jumps forward
Dream Sequences
Non-linear narrative

Dream Sequence - rarely really moves the story forward

1. Dust jackets
2. Prologues in books
3. Dramatis Personae in books
4. Maps in books

Dust Jackets

1. Complete silence
2. Page formatting (space at margins for the spine, justified print, paragraph indentations, etc)
3. Reading time without interruptions
4. The ability to change pages yourself (i.e. your Kindle is on a timer, or your audiobook only plays at one speed)

I live in complete silence most of the time and rarely have interruptions
I don't have any idea what a book would look like without formatting
If I could not read at whatever pace I wanted I would go mad


1. Period marks/full stops
2. Commas
3. Quotation marks
4. Capital letters for anything other than proper nouns

Capital letters could go. The rest would change the whole meaning if they were not there

1. Movies
2. TV shows
3. Books
4. Video games

Video games
Books are essential for life - how dare you state otherwise
Movies and TV can bring a book to life even the book is almost always better

1. damaged vet
2. adorable child
3. quirky sidekick
4. relatable villain

I am torn between 1 & 2 as they are both often done in a way that can stop you from reading

1. Time Travel
2. Faster Than Light Travel
3. Teleporters
4. Robots

I really like all 4 but the one that is the lowest on the list is time travel. And I have read time travel books that I really like.

- Viewports
- Emergency escape pods
- Passwords on ship critical systems
- Self destruct... buttons/protocols

Escape pods - I mean where do they go?

1. cliffhanger endings
2. First-book-as-prologue
3. flashbacks as deus ex machina (i.e. we learn how the MC got out of a scrape with a flashback instead of set up)
4. Secrecy as a plot device (aka the "this book would have been 5 pages long if they'd had a conversation)

Secrecy

Can't wait for the next one.

[YouKneeK]

Allison wrote: "4. Secrecy as plot device (aka the "this book would have been 5 pages long if they'd had a conversation)"

#4 – GOODBYE!!!!!

(This justifies the use of both caps and enough exclamation marks to call into doubt my sanity.)

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

The first two are easy to live with if you wait until a series is finished before starting it. To hell with their marketing strategy.

More push back on flash backs please.

[Nicol]

I’m going with Secrecy too. I recently read a 7 book long series where if any of the characters had just spoken to each other about what they saw it would have been solved in book two. So frustrating. Or having that trope in romantic comedies too where literally just being honest would save everyone so much grief. And these secrets I’m referring to are nothing profound or worth keeping secret if that make sense; they’re not secrets you need to keep to survive etc.
Although, I guess I do like how secrets can be used in thrillers or mysteries.

[Max]

I'm going to mark the ones I would take out and perhaps add notes as to why, and I only responded to the prompts where I knew of all four items


--Time travel
Portal worlds
Body hopping
Telepathy/ESP

--The chosen one
The little guy/rebellion taking on the evil empire
The intimate relationship between protagonist and antagonist
The all-powerful McGuffin weapon/tool needed for victory

--Third person omniscient progressive
(He is tripping down the road when he sees her. She is smiling, she is waving, she is planning his doom.)
Third person omniscient, past tense (They walked onwards, neither knowing what the other was about to do.)
First person past tense (I had no idea what she was thinking.)
First person present tense (I smile at him and he turns to stone.)

Clowns
--Axe murderers
Poltergeists
Teenage girls with grudges

Middle-earth
--Narnia
Hogwarts
Oz

--Reading on the beach
Reading in a comfy warm chair while it snows or rains
Reading in bed on a lazy weekend morning
Reading in a cozy public place like a park, library, or bookshop/café

--Pikachu
Wall-E
Baby Groot
Baby Yoda (aka Merch)

Flashbacks
--Time jumps forward
Dream Sequences
Non-linear narrative

Complete silence
Page formatting (space at margins for the spine, justified print, paragraph indentations, etc)
Reading time without interruptions
--The ability to change pages yourself (i.e. your Kindle is on a timer, or your audiobook only plays at one speed)

I understand why it happens when you change the font size, but can't they put in the page numbers so we can all turn to the particular page?

damaged vet
adorable child
--quirky sidekick
relatable villain

if they are so quirky why aren't they the main character

Time Travel
Faster Than Light Travel
Teleporters
--Robots

Viewports
Emergency escape pods
Passwords on ship critical systems
--Self destruct... buttons/protocols

there has to be a way to have it start up even when they are being forced to self-destruct under duress and have it malfunction in some way that it's not obvious to the antagonists. This always infuriates me

--cliffhanger endings
First-book-as-prologue
flashbacks as deus ex machina (i.e. we learn how the MC got out of a scrape with a flashback instead of set up)
--Secrecy as a plot device (aka the "this book would have been 5 pages long if they'd had a conversation)

I'm between these two because I like a good ending, but dramatic irony can only used to many times before I get upset at the characters for their lack of communication

[Ergative]

I HATE secrecy as a plot device. 'You wouldn't have understood if I'd told you!' 'It was for your own good that we not tell you!' 'I had no idea you wanted to know!' Ugh.

If the only thing keeping a plot alive is manufactured contrivances preventing people from having an adult conversation, I throw it across the room.

The only time this worked was in Connie Willis's Blackout/All Clear, and in that case it was because (view spoiler)[ the universe was responsible for arranging the contrivances, because only if people were left in the dark about certain crucial events would they be in the right place at the right time to save the course of history. (hide spoiler)]. But if you're not doing that, and instead relying on, 'oh, you wouldn't have understood!' then I'm out. Argh--even after this rant I still hate this plot device so much!

[Leticia]

1. cliffhanger endings
2. First-book-as-prologue
3. flashbacks as deus ex machina (i.e. we learn how the MC got out of a scrape with a flashback instead of set up)
4. Secrecy as plot device (aka the "this book would have been 5 pages long if they'd had a conversation)

They are all very bad, but done masterfully well in a book they can still keep me reading. If badly done tough than I would drop the book\series.

[V.M.]

Agree, CBRetriever, but if I had to remove only one it would be Flashbacks as deus ex machina.

[DivaDiane]

I’m on the “secrecy as plot device” bandwagon.

[Phillip]

1. Dragons
2. Demons
3. Secret societies running the world
4. Thieves guild

[DivaDiane]

Demons, definitely!

[Michelle]

Demons!

[Anna]

I definitely want to keep demons, because I couldn't do without Penric's Demon. I'm not super into them in general, but this one is close to my heart <3

Thieves have to stay!

Dragons are OK, there are probably a couple of books that would suffer without them.

Secret societies don't need to run the world, they'd still exist but have less power.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

good bye secret societies! The dragon robbers and demons and I will have a pleasant life together.

[Phillip]

I also would drop secret societies. They’re usually just Deus ex machina with a charter.

[Kristin B.]

I would also like to drop the secret societies running the world. I think that people as a rule are not as organized or as good at keeping secrets as those stories would have us believe.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Secret as in we don't know who they are or as in they withhold information from us to maintain their position of power? Cause you may be ruining my favourite book here.

[CBRetriever]

1. Dragons - Pern books would have to go
2. Demons - Harry Dresden books would have to go
3. Secret societies running the world - ditto for the Dresden books
4. Thieves guild - Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books would have to go

I can't pick one

[Michelle]

Abstain! Abstain!

[CBRetriever]

I am
I am

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

I could do without the thieves guild. Sorry Pratchett!

[Michelle]

But as CBR noted, there'd be no more Vlad Taltos, not to mention Eugenides, Locke & Jean, or Hadrian & Royce!

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Those are a lot of names that I'm thankful I won't have to forget, because I'll never remember them :)

[Michelle]

:)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

idk, i don't think Dresden has a secret society...

[Anna]

Thieves can exist without a guild! I still want to keep the guilds.

[Michelle]

I can't remember his name, Allison, but the dude with the creepy receptionists and the Valkyrie, who was supposed to be Odin. He ran a huge organization.

[Michelle]

And the White Council, now that I think about it.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

they ain't secret anymore tho!

[CBRetriever]

and Marcone and then there's the Grey and the Black councils

[Phillip]

1. Happily Ever After (For all important characters who don't have it coming)
2. To Be Continued (Promise of many books with your favorite characters)
3. Spinoff (Same world with a minor character thrust to the front)
4. Book "reimagined" in a different medium (LOTR book vs movie vs show)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

to be continued! as long as that means cliffhanger. if it means no sequels... then spin offs

[YouKneeK]

#4 for me. Even though there are some adaptations I’ve enjoyed, I prefer something that’s completely new so that there’s no baggage. You can always hold out hope for things to happen the way you want if there’s no “it has to happen this way because that’s what happened in the original version”.

[Daniel]

If the promise of “To be continued” is made but not met, it definitely goes. Otherwise I can live without reimaginings - I don’t need to see how somebody else got it all wrong… 🤣

[Michelle]

To be continued!

[DivaDiane]

To be continued, especially if it’s a cliffhanger.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

I want more standalone novels, especially if they're 1000+ page tombs so it's to be discontinued for me.

[Leticia]

3. Spinoff, a main character is there because that's the most interesting character. Side characters as MCs get rarely done well.

[Andres]

1. Happily ever after.

Seriously, how can Snow White's prince be happy forever.
"Look at the gems my friends brought me. My friends that watched me, the only woman in their house while I slept peacefully. Oh you don't know about medicine, Doc does. What you can't build me a cabin in the woods? I'll ask my friends. Oh we're going on a trip, I'll ask my friends to come!"

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

@Leticia, I don't think that's always true. For example, in The Goblin Emperor we're stuck in the POV of the King (view spoiler)[who does little instead of the man who successfully investigates the murders of all the Kings family. (hide spoiler)]

[Margaret]

Ryan wrote: "@Leticia, I don't think that's always true. For example, in The Goblin Emperor we're stuck in the POV of the King [spoilers removed]"

And I found the spinoff/sequel, The Witness for the Dead, which is about the later adventures of the investigator character (and told from his POV) very good!

[Phillip]

1. Getting the band back together for one last battle (e.g. Kings of the Wyld)
2. Tick names off a revenge list one at a time (e.g. Best Served Cold)
3. Years of school before big battle (e.g. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
4. Escape from a prison (e.g. Along the Razor's Edge)

I find the school thing way overused and wouldn't feel bad about losing it. Sorry, Harry.