Overused and Tired Out!

J.K Rowling did a good job with this in Harry Potter, because ultimately Harry’s cleverness saved him from Voldemort and a crazy blunder on Voldemort’s part with the accidental horcrux, but I never want to read another story where love saves the day. This one is getting old people. Love can play a critical part. Love can drive the character to do something drastic that saves the day, but love better not save the day for its own sake. Love better not cause the villain to have a change of heart either. Otherwise, I call it cheating.

Listen, this worked in Star Wars and even though all stories are allowed to have their “Luke, I am your father!” moments, and when I say that I mean utter shocking revelations in stories, the finding out you’re related to the villain or finding out you have a long lost family member period is getting old. It happens in real life, I’m aware, and I pull it in one of my novels. But the dramatic flairs that usually go around this and the fact that it’s usually so obvious makes it get on my nerve. In Eragon, everyone saw Eragon being Brom’s son coming two miles away. There was fanfiction on it after the first book came out. So no more thinking that you’re being clever with the secret long lost relative, because you’re not being clever. You’re just not, unless you make is totally unlikely for anyone to figure out.

I hate this. I really do. Not just the woman suddenly having her water break and going into labor, but the whole darn pregnancy thing in general. Later I’ll be writing a post about the biggest cliché’s in writing and pregnancy, although common in real life, certainly makes the cut. Why is it that every time I watch a TV show mostly, everyone assumes the woman faints from sheer exhaustion when she first gets pregnant and doesn’t know? Why do people assume that a woman’s water breaks as the first sign of labor and labor is this elaborate, silly and dramatic affair where the baby comes in an hour? The list goes on and on… Books are general better about this and so I have to applaud my fellow writers seeking to become professionals at least trying to do their research and get it right. And I understand television networks need drama and flair but please. The pregnancy and labor and something always going wrong is getting old.

Romance is the other thing that’s going be on the list of the biggest cliché’s in writing…. I just don’t believe it. Romance doesn’t work that way people. Love doesn’t happen in the span of a few hours. I’m sorry. I’ll admit. I love a good story where the characters fall in love and in a day it seems like they know each other better than anyone else in the world does, but does that kind of romance really realistic? Give me one of those romances that build up. Give me one of those romances that have their troubles along the way and not petty misunderstandings, but real troubles and issues. Give me love based on more than just a wild night of passionate sex. Love and romance is about more than just the passion. It’s about the little moments, the- You know what? I’ll just do a post on romance later this week. Moving on…

Now I’m all for a good bad guy redeems himself story and let’s face it, Star Wars was about the redemption of Anakin Skywalker. But if it doesn’t fit, don’t try it. Can someone please write a good guy who goes bad and stays a damn bad guy, particularly in fantasy? It’ riddled with people who go bad and then see the error of their ways to help out. And since we’re on the subject of villains give me another Joker! Someone bad for the sake of being bad, but with some personality! A good recent one that I’ve seen is Azula! That was a villain with some personality, a villain I loved to hate. These villains nowadays are lacking personality and they’re so bland. The evil cackle and ten minute explanation of the plan where neither the villain nor the hero do anything even though they’re both open is so old. Give me a villain with some style, who gets the job done first and worries about talking never. You know why this happens? Because writers forget they have to put thought and detail into their villains too. You can’t just say, “he’s evil” and that makes the villain. No! No! No! See. There’s a process where-(NTS: Do a post on villains).

Well that’s it and I have now been inspired to do a follow up on this being the biggest clichés of romance and the things in romance I’m tired off. Anyway, nothing really helpful here today or maybe it was. If I’m tired of this, no doubt some other readers are tired of it too. And maybe I can force some writers to think outside the box or put a new spin on this stuff.