This might not be quite what you’re looking for, Jim, but “He cut his eyes toward/over” drives me crazy.
Have a great weekend and a Happy Easter!
His eyes slid down her dress…
Happy Easter to you, Joe.
The one that readily comes to mind is the person who “didn’t realize the breath [she/he] had been holding.”
“Neat as a pin.” And that’s in large part because I’m not.
The gazzilionare crime fighter. He (almost always a he or Dallas in a JD Rob book) who has access to a yacht, jet, villa, crime lab at a moment’s notice.
And his alter ego. The drunk, divorced, ex-cop with one good deed left in him.
Fantasy characters with unpronounceable names.
Princess B’rxgevilftz is perfectly pronounceable if you know about things like glottal stops and tongue clicks. And silent L. And . . .
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Huh??
Often attributed to Einstein (he never said this) it is untrue/nonsensical.
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” may be misguided or demonstrate a learning/intelligence issue but it definitely does not define insanity.
Besides, I reboot my laptop several times and get a different result each time.
“Turned on his/her heel.”
Who does that?
Yeah, if I tried it, I’d do a face plant for sure. 🙂
Ditto to rocking Bach on his heels. What does that even mean?
ROTC students.
I was in the Air Force. We were toe people.
This is one I’ve become heartily sick of, in books, on TV, on the news, you name it. To me, it’s meaningless.
It is what it is.
Please. What else what it be? 🙂
The mainstay of the post-game interview: “He gave 110 percent.”
Or “They came here to play football!”
Sports have their own cliches. Ask Crash Davis
It’s gone out of style now, thank goodness, but I hated the one female badass in the story with all the other women either being good mothers with a thousand children or stuck up beauty queens with no spine. Please.
We’ve gone beyond the madonna/whore duality and the girl child/mother/hag trinity but not by much, sadly. One of the standard tropes in noir fiction is still the madonna/whore of the good woman vs. the femme fatale.
It’s challenging to write noir fiction while avoiding the femme fatale and the drunk ex cop turned private investigator tropes.
Superheroes, as a class. They’re a just a form of deus ex machina.
“At the end of the day, it is what it is, and our hearts go out to them.” Three disliked cliches for the price of one.
Probably my most disliked thriller-cliche is that of “the lone man who knows the truth, while the conspiracy that runs everything seeks to kill/silence him.” Especially when this is applied to science or history, since neither work that way–both are group efforts.
I’m proud of everyone. I was expecting a bunch of tropes to be mentioned.
After so many years of working with students and reading first works, I’ve gone numb to over-used cliches and barely notice them. A misused cliche spelling that still annoys me is “reign” when “rein” is the correct word.
The hooker with a heart of gold.
Female urban fantasy characters who wear leather all the time, or at least on book covers, especially when they’re contorted into positions that leather doesn’t stretch.
The alcoholic/drug abuser PI/detective/sleuth.
The MC getting the bejesus beat out of him/her, but is still able to perform more or less as normal.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Catfriend,
Your comment about characters who get pulverized but still function normally reminds of cops/detectives on TV shows who have major damage to their cars and magically the next day the car is fixed or they’re driving another one immediately. I’m always thinking “Man those cops/detectives must be loaded to fix/buy so quickly!” 😎
Late to the party, I know. But I pull eye muscles from rolling them so hard anytime I see a coward or scaredy-cat “take a stand”. At least give me hints of courage or a desire to be more courageous before you turn Woody Allen into Spartacus.
Absolutely great point, Dave. You have to show the capacity or at least desire early.
This might not be quite what you’re looking for, Jim, but “He cut his eyes toward/over” drives me crazy.
Have a great weekend and a Happy Easter!
His eyes slid down her dress…
Happy Easter to you, Joe.
The one that readily comes to mind is the person who “didn’t realize the breath [she/he] had been holding.”
“Neat as a pin.” And that’s in large part because I’m not.
The gazzilionare crime fighter. He (almost always a he or Dallas in a JD Rob book) who has access to a yacht, jet, villa, crime lab at a moment’s notice.
And his alter ego. The drunk, divorced, ex-cop with one good deed left in him.
Fantasy characters with unpronounceable names.
Princess B’rxgevilftz is perfectly pronounceable if you know about things like glottal stops and tongue clicks. And silent L. And . . .
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Huh??
Often attributed to Einstein (he never said this) it is untrue/nonsensical.
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” may be misguided or demonstrate a learning/intelligence issue but it definitely does not define insanity.
Besides, I reboot my laptop several times and get a different result each time.
“Turned on his/her heel.”
Who does that?
Yeah, if I tried it, I’d do a face plant for sure. 🙂
Ditto to rocking Bach on his heels. What does that even mean?
ROTC students.
I was in the Air Force. We were toe people.
This is one I’ve become heartily sick of, in books, on TV, on the news, you name it. To me, it’s meaningless.
It is what it is.
Please. What else what it be? 🙂
The mainstay of the post-game interview: “He gave 110 percent.”
Or “They came here to play football!”
Sports have their own cliches. Ask Crash Davis
It’s gone out of style now, thank goodness, but I hated the one female badass in the story with all the other women either being good mothers with a thousand children or stuck up beauty queens with no spine. Please.
We’ve gone beyond the madonna/whore duality and the girl child/mother/hag trinity but not by much, sadly. One of the standard tropes in noir fiction is still the madonna/whore of the good woman vs. the femme fatale.
It’s challenging to write noir fiction while avoiding the femme fatale and the drunk ex cop turned private investigator tropes.
Superheroes, as a class. They’re a just a form of deus ex machina.
“At the end of the day, it is what it is, and our hearts go out to them.” Three disliked cliches for the price of one.
Probably my most disliked thriller-cliche is that of “the lone man who knows the truth, while the conspiracy that runs everything seeks to kill/silence him.” Especially when this is applied to science or history, since neither work that way–both are group efforts.
I’m proud of everyone. I was expecting a bunch of tropes to be mentioned.
After so many years of working with students and reading first works, I’ve gone numb to over-used cliches and barely notice them. A misused cliche spelling that still annoys me is “reign” when “rein” is the correct word.
The hooker with a heart of gold.
Female urban fantasy characters who wear leather all the time, or at least on book covers, especially when they’re contorted into positions that leather doesn’t stretch.
The alcoholic/drug abuser PI/detective/sleuth.
The MC getting the bejesus beat out of him/her, but is still able to perform more or less as normal.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Catfriend,
Your comment about characters who get pulverized but still function normally reminds of cops/detectives on TV shows who have major damage to their cars and magically the next day the car is fixed or they’re driving another one immediately. I’m always thinking “Man those cops/detectives must be loaded to fix/buy so quickly!” 😎
Late to the party, I know. But I pull eye muscles from rolling them so hard anytime I see a coward or scaredy-cat “take a stand”. At least give me hints of courage or a desire to be more courageous before you turn Woody Allen into Spartacus.
Absolutely great point, Dave. You have to show the capacity or at least desire early.