forum Things You Want LESS Of In Books

Started January 21, 2019 by @GoodThingGoing group

tune

u my friend are correct, im trying to stop myself from doing the second, because i feel like i might do it too often

Not that there's anything wrong with that on it's own, but when you're tearing other characters down for the sake of splooge, then it's bad.

that makes sense. i definitely have favorites, but all my characters are my babies and i try to show that

• Hunger Games style fights to the death. Like, competitions where the winner gets to live but the loser(s) die.

I feel like the Hunger Games really popularized this trope (I know that it wasn't the first book with this kind of plot but there's definitely been a surge in these kinds of stories since the success of THG). The problem now is that books with these stories all follow the same formula almost to the point where you can predict the ending as soon as you read the first page. Like they all boil down to character A needing to kill character B so that they can win something, but through some loophole both characters survive.

• "I'm a strong female character who is tough and doesn't need a man…. but I'm going to fall hopelessly in love with one anyways!"

I'll stop vague posting about Sarah J Maas now. But before I do, I must mention that Kristin Cashore is also guilty of this as well. We can have strong female characters who are in relationships without their whole story revolving around said relationship.

Don't worry I'll keep vagueposting unintentionally

• Super-hot bad-boy monsters
• Love Vs. A true love triangle would be really interesting, but Love Vs are bland
• Love Triangles where it's 'I've been in love with X my whole life, he's my best friend and I've always been in lo-oooh, hey super-hot bad-boy I've never met or even seen before, how're you doing??'

~barely concealed paedophilia
~toxic relationships that are glossed over
~insane possessiveness?

• Student-teacher romance
• The 'cool teacher who does against the school district' trope
• DOGS DYING!
• THE BURY YOUR GAYS TROPE!

writing about homophobia and racism when youve never faced it, especially when its clear you havent

AnD dOn'T eVeN gEt Me StArTeD aBoUt HoW mALeS aNd FeMaLeS CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITHOUT ROMANCE.

IKR!?!? Like, this one book that I absolutely LOVE has a bunch of male and female characters, and literally the main characters best friends are an android, and a dude that is a criminal "mastermind." lol. Like, everyone ends up with someone at the end, but they all are friends still. It's not like each couple goes off and does their own thing. They're STILL FRIENDS!!!

AnD dOn'T eVeN gEt Me StArTeD aBoUt HoW mALeS aNd FeMaLeS CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITHOUT ROMANCE.

IKR!?!? Like, this one book that I absolutely LOVE has a bunch of male and female characters, and literally the main characters best friends are an android, and a dude that is a criminal "mastermind." lol. Like, everyone ends up with someone at the end, but they all are friends still. It's not like each couple goes off and does their own thing. They're STILL FRIENDS!!!

I love that series……..

writing about homophobia and racism when youve never faced it, especially when its clear you havent

YES!
My feelings are that you should definitely have LGBTQIA+ and POC protags, just don't write about what it's like to be in those groups if you're straight and white. In one of my realistic fiction stories I have Vietnamese and African-American characters, but I don't try to tell a story about what it's like to be Vietnamese or African-American in modern America.

AnD dOn'T eVeN gEt Me StArTeD aBoUt HoW mALeS aNd FeMaLeS CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITHOUT ROMANCE.

IKR!?!? Like, this one book that I absolutely LOVE has a bunch of male and female characters, and literally the main characters best friends are an android, and a dude that is a criminal "mastermind." lol. Like, everyone ends up with someone at the end, but they all are friends still. It's not like each couple goes off and does their own thing. They're STILL FRIENDS!!!

I love that series……..

The Lunar Chronicles are in fact amazing

AnD dOn'T eVeN gEt Me StArTeD aBoUt HoW mALeS aNd FeMaLeS CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITHOUT ROMANCE.

IKR!?!? Like, this one book that I absolutely LOVE has a bunch of male and female characters, and literally the main characters best friends are an android, and a dude that is a criminal "mastermind." lol. Like, everyone ends up with someone at the end, but they all are friends still. It's not like each couple goes off and does their own thing. They're STILL FRIENDS!!!

I love that series……..

The Lunar Chronicles are in fact amazing

I love how y'all just know what book I was referencing to. 😂

AnD dOn'T eVeN gEt Me StArTeD aBoUt HoW mALeS aNd FeMaLeS CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITHOUT ROMANCE.

IKR!?!? Like, this one book that I absolutely LOVE has a bunch of male and female characters, and literally the main characters best friends are an android, and a dude that is a criminal "mastermind." lol. Like, everyone ends up with someone at the end, but they all are friends still. It's not like each couple goes off and does their own thing. They're STILL FRIENDS!!!

I love that series……..

The Lunar Chronicles are in fact amazing

I love how y'all just know what book I was referencing to. 😂

LUNAR CHRONICLES IS SO HECKING GOOD OMG but yeah, like some authors just need to understand that friendship can just as important as romance - or even more so

The Lunar Chronicles doesn't get the praise it deserves

TRUTH!

AnD dOn'T eVeN gEt Me StArTeD aBoUt HoW mALeS aNd FeMaLeS CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITHOUT ROMANCE.

IKR!?!? Like, this one book that I absolutely LOVE has a bunch of male and female characters, and literally the main characters best friends are an android, and a dude that is a criminal "mastermind." lol. Like, everyone ends up with someone at the end, but they all are friends still. It's not like each couple goes off and does their own thing. They're STILL FRIENDS!!!

I love that series……..

The Lunar Chronicles are in fact amazing

I love how y'all just know what book I was referencing to. 😂

I could tell from android, and my suspicions were solidified by "criminal 'mastermind'" lol

Back on topic…..

• Characters who have really weirdly colored hair/eyes in a setting where they shouldn't
• Characters with pets that we don't ever see them taking care of
• Characters who hate school with an irrational passion
• Characters who are in NO extra curriculars. Everyone I know is in some form of extra curricular activity, so Mary Sue should be too
• Sports games that play out like this: 'It was the bottom of the ninth with 2 outs, bases loaded, and we're four runs away from winning. Mary Sue is up and she's never hit the ball in the whole seaso-OH MY GOSH! SHE HIT A GRAND SLAM! WE WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP YAAAAAAY!!!!!'

ANOTHER THING!
I know that a few people may be fans of this, but having the main character be a sort of 'blank slate' has gotten stale for me. I like my main characters with some ZEST and SPICE, where their personalities are clearly evident and affect the story drastically. If the MC just follows other characters without once thinking for themselves, or just plain old doesn't have their own personality, I'm not that huge of a fan. I get that it's a way for readers to project themselves onto the protagonist, but it just doesn't work for me.

YES! That's why I loved Katniss so much, she wasn't totally bland. She knew what she wanted and while she did listen to others, it was because she knew they knew what they were doing more than her in situations like how to survive the Games and the rebellion.

I know that a few people may be fans of this, but having the main character be a sort of 'blank slate' has gotten stale for me. I like my main characters with some ZEST and SPICE…

I'm completely in agreement to this! I've been watching a lot of booktube videos lately and one channel that I've really been enjoying brought this up and to paraphrase, basically said that a lot of author do this so that a wider range of people can relate to the main character. It's interesting, because after I watched that video I went on to goodreads and read some reviews of Maximum Ride. A lot of the really negative reviews stated that they didn't like Max (the main character)'s narration. If you've never read the series, Max has a very distinct voice, and lots of personality, and that was one thing that I really liked about that series.

Also characters where the storyline is basically 'look how many powers I have!! And no flaws yay!!!'

Plot armor, just, plot armor…
Those protagonists that always have that one quality that makes them ‘better’ then everyone else.
The undeveloped villains that’s never given enough attention
Cheesiness.
Killing off all the good characters and the crappy protagonist gets with some dumb ass that no one likes.
When a character has no plot relevance.
When a protagonist has no development.
When the writer milks their series.
When the writer completely drops the series on a cliff hanger.
Badly written cliffhangers that lead to a crappy sequel.
When a writer writes a sequel for no reason what so ever.
When there’s a random prequel.
Too many books in the series.
Not stopping the series when the main character is killed off.
When a character dies for the dUMBEST REASON EVER.
When a character dies for no reason.
When a character kills off your favorite character out of no where.
RESURRECTING CHARACTERS THAT SHOULD STAY DEAD!

y'kno i knew someone who was writing like an 18 book series

Within the romantic plots, I really really hate it when a romance is made out to be "the best and the only and the one and all other romantic relationships are trash which justifies anything this couple does"
when in reality it's just two hormonal teenagers who can barely have a civil conversation without groping each other
_{the mortal instruments}