Fantasy Aficionados discussion

Yesterday I was reading a blurb for a book, and I thought that, while sort of generic, it sounded vaguely up my alley...

That was until I came across the part about the protagonist being part of a 4000 year old prophecy, or something to that effect.

So I was curious as to what other common plot-elements others might see in blurbs which are sort of instant turn offs.

For me there's the person of prophecy/destiny*. Also, any inference of a love triangle generally turns me off... and, really, any book with a female protagonist that goes something like "but then she met X bad-boy type person". Similarly any time when someone who feels like an outsider finds out that, hey, they're actually from another realm/planet/whatever. (Have you ever noticed in books that no one can just be weird without having some sort of alternate bloodline excuse for it?)

Which isn't to say I always pass on those books. Sometimes there are elements of the story/blurb, which grab my attention despite having some kiss of death aspect to them (and I do have a weakness for things fae)... but they do make me wary.

So, share. What plot elements are turn-offs for you, as a reader?


* I am aware of the irony of the fact that while I am weary of chosen one type stories, especially with orphans, my favorite series of all time is mostly just that. 


(Apologies to anyone in SFFBC for the cross-post, but since not everyone is in both groups, I wanted to spread it around.)

I am really turned off by "dark and gritty." Like you, I also hate love triangles and any hint of "not being able to reach full potential w/o love." Gah.

I'd have to say that any mention of a character as being 'the chosen one' mentioned in prophecy pretty much kills my interest. Usually the moment that happens I'm pretty sure how the rest of the story is going to go.
Another thing that irks me is when an author drops so many clues, hints, suggestions, prophecies, foreshadowings and casual asides into the story that the readers have figured out exactly how the characters in the story could solve their problems, but the characters themselves remain resolutely clueless and determinedly incurious even as Doom approaches

heh Erikson and Martin do it masterfully in a way that you get a lot of foreshadowing, you THINK you know what is going to happen, you think you got it all figured out, and then they screw you up all holes :D... which is why I like em :)

I am on the anti-love-triangle boat. If I know ahead of time, I will most likely not read the book.

I'd suggest a visit to www.tvtropes.org for an exhaustive and sometimes humorous listing of just about every plot device used in stories.

MrsJoseph wrote: "I am really turned off by "dark and gritty." Like you, I also hate love triangles and any hint of "not being able to reach full potential w/o love." Gah."

I'm with you on the dark and gritty. Sometimes even when it says "realistic" I get wary, 'cause a lot of times it seems realism turns into miserable and depressing.

Not that I mind a good anti-hero or anything like that, but I like to have some glimmer of hope in my fantasies.

I'm the opposite. I like dark and gritty. In horror, I'm getting tired of the hillbilly doing Jesus voodoo, doing weird dark things, incest, etc. A book like that is this month's HA's read. While it's really well done, I'm bored with that trope.

I'm also tired of the hero/ine being the dark horse, the different one, the outcast. How about a nice person who had a really great childhood all of sudden being propelled into fantastic situations? I guess it doesn't sound as interesting. Outcasts and bad boys make more interesting characters.

I'm sure I'll find more. Some books, I can read the ending before it happens because it's so predictable.

± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "I'm with you on the dark and gritty. Sometimes even when it says "realistic" I get wary, 'cause a lot of times it seems realism turns into miserable and depressing.

Not that I mind a good anti-hero or anything like that, but I like to have some glimmer of hope in my fantasies. "


exactly!


@Aloha - I agree with you there. I get a little tired of the outcast hero. I would love a nice person getting to be the hero. But not a Mary/Gary Sue/Stu.

One thing that has annoyed me greatly in the past is enjoying a good, spooky tale, either in print or on the silver screen, where more-or-less ordinary people are trying to figure out strange goings-on and eerie occurrences when, all of a sudden, ALIENS! are revealed to be the source of it all. Ta-Da!

What's the matter with a Mary/Gary/Sue/Stu? Are you a nameist? There's a Buffy that's a heroine. You can't get sappier than Buffy.

The character makes the name. The name does not make the character. Mary Sue/Gary Stu refers to a character type, usually a trope or a cliche, regardless of the character's name, much as 'red herring' refers to a tactic or ploy, and not an actual crimson fish.

Another cultural thing flew by my head.

It's best to duck if you see them coming. www.tvtropes.org is great for identifying those things. It's also a fun and educational read.

That site is great. I looked at it last year for YA tropes.

Aloha wrote: "What's the matter with a Mary/Gary/Sue/Stu? Are you a nameist? There's a Buffy that's a heroine. You can't get sappier than Buffy."

Namist. I like that, lol.

A Mary/Gary/Sue/Stu is a character who's only fault is that they are "too attractive, too nice, too smart" for all of the people around them. Only the bad guys have any problems with them. Depending on the (sub) genre they are sometimes really great fighters (with little to no training) really quickly.

Any time a man is described as “sexy” and a lot of detail is given to his appearance in the very beginning of the story I feel like the book is going to be a romance and I get turned off. I decided the Anita Blake series was not going to be my cup of tea when she started on about how the "sexy" the male vampire had a French accent! I hate this clishee a lot of North Americans have about French men!

I like outcasts as long as they are believable - chiefly cos I can kinda relate to those... it wouldnt be fun if a char had it too easy, right? :P

I like outcasts too. I am starting to get tired of books with elves and dwarfs, i blame Terry Brooks for that. They might be elf or dwarf like but they should atleast call them something else and do their own version instead of copy pasting Tolkien.

I always figured that vampires should sound either like Bela Lugosi or Richard Burton. I can see where giving one a cockney or hillbilly accent might make it difficult to regard them as sexy, but a French accent, while perhaps a bit hackneyed, could work.

MrsJoseph wrote: "A Mary/Gary/Sue/Stu is a character who's only fault is that they are "too attractive, too nice, too smart" for all of the people around them. Only the bad guys have any problems with them. Depending on the (sub) genre they are sometimes really great fighters (with little to no training) really quickly. "

More importantly, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is supposed to be an author avatar who's awesomeness is supposed to reflect upon the writer.

I like outcasts in a general kind of way... but I'm kind of tired of it being a character's defining trait. I'm not sure that that makes sense, but I don't know how to explain it.

Cliches weren't always cliches. At one time they worked to help create an interesting story, but they fell into overuse, or as shorthand for unambitious writers, and suffered accordingly. I personally don't care for tales about crack military special forces units that have one character who is careless, reckless and undisciplined.

Agreed, S.J., I always feel like that character would have long ago been punished for his insubordination or reckless behaviour!

The chosen one is definitely an overused trope, but for me it's the moody, broody outcast who secretly has a heart of gold. Just once I'd like an anti-hero remain sullen and moody and not melt into gooey goodness. Just once!

Sean wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "More importantly, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is supposed to be an author avatar who's awesomeness is supposed to reflect upon the writer. "

^This

I rather like the person who may be different but they haven't been stomped into the ground by life. Just...a regular person.

I've read a lot of bad stories over the years, and I have to agree with you there, Alice. As an aside, any time I see a sentence which has 'that which', anywhere within it, I feel a sense of dread.
I have a term for clumsy or awkward prose: It rings like a cracked bell.

my particular problem is the were/vamp triangle setup. A love triangle is bad enough, but one between these two overused character types will guarantee that I will not only put the book back on the shelf, I will put it back with more force than necessary.

The private investigator/bounty hunter character has also worn off on me, but only in Urban Fantasy.

I hate love triangles. I have gotten where I think twice about starting a book/series with a love triangle.

The super-duper tough and bad tempered heroine. I think it can be done well, but I'm pretty much at saturation point with this motif.

Tropes become overused because at one time books that had them sold well. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it's still just imitation. For my own part, I'm thoroughly sick and tired of anything that has a werewolf/vampire conflict in it, whether it includes a love triangle or not. But if other people keep buying it, it will continue to be produced until too many folks stop buying it.

Sophie wrote: "The private investigator/bounty hunter character has also worn off on me, but only in Urban Fantasy. "

I'm with you on this one, too. I don't read nearly as much UF as I used to 'cause I'm pretty tired of the magical detective thing.

I may come back 'round to it, though, as I get burned out on whatever other trend I'm following at any given time.

I don't mind any of these tropes if handles skillfully and done well. I do feel a sense of hesitation when I see some of them coming, though, because so often they're poorly handled.

I haven't read a book blurb in probably three years, so I can't say there is a point in a blurb that keeps me from buying a book. I got sick of all the spoilers in them.

Urban fantasy where the city contains more vampires than people of color.

That's a very good point, and until you brought it up I'd never even thought of it.
But if there are a lot of vampires in a city, might they not prey on the lawyers and politicians? Just to eliminate the competition, I mean.

now I'm curious, how many Urban Fantasies have Vampires of color?

Gotta admit, the idea of a "minority" vampire makes me smile =]

Well, in 'Rise: Blood Hunter' Lucy Liu's character is turned into a vampire...

Read Fledgling by Octavia Butler. She was a great writer, and this is not your usual vampire story. The MC is a "young" black vampire.

I'm not sure I could put it any better than posters before me when it comes to prophecies, special farm boys becoming saviours of the world but with the snarky female companion who eventually falls for him because 'OMG you saved the world!!' and the minute the word 'prophecy' or any of it's variations makes me put it down and pick up a different book. Ugh, just keep the predictable books away from me and I'm happy!

Regarding all this, a while back I wrote a fantasy novel (which I'm still trying to get published) and I made some deliberate efforts to avoid most tropes. The main character is an older man, a veteran warrior and mercenary captain who does not think of himself as special in any way. His advantage lies in his sharp mind and extensive experience in war, and in the trust his men have in him, based on the reputation he earned over the years.
Two beta readers gave me two very different evaluations of the finished story, though neither panned the book. One saw this character as nothing special, and indeed was mildly irritated that so many of the problems he faced were solved without much drama through the plans that he developed for dealing with them. The other commented that she thought he was not an ordinary character, and deserved a wife who was not ordinary. (backstory that I won't go into here.)
I must confess that I did have to resort to one trope in order to make the story work properly. There was just no way around it.

It is hard to be original when everything is marketing and catering to what is instant and hot. In my Brain Pain group, we're reading difficult books that are now considered literature, but are not successful when they first come out. The problem with being original is that it takes a while for people to get used to the difference. Since most people read a book for relaxation and comfort, they want something that is like a comfortable blanket to snuggle to at night, so they will grab for the tropes that will give them the same feeling that they had when they enjoyed a book.

Aloha wrote: "It is hard to be original when everything is marketing and catering to what is instant and hot. In my Brain Pain group, we're reading difficult books that are now considered literature, but are no..."

I like to work a bit when reading, but in a way that I enjoy... I like quarrying the book for ideas, for beautiful quotes and such, having joy both of discovery and the journey to it

I'm the same way. I like to be stimulated by a book, not bored by it. That's why I don't get people who like to read basically the same thing over and over again, but there are a lot of people who do that. When a book gets my brain going, it's a high I don't want to let go.

or ppl who say omg I work so much and I dont want to work when reading :)

I work as well... but when I read I want to work in a way so I get something from the book... while my job doesnt enrich me that much, I am looking for that in books I read... I usually dont like easy readers... I like those that will yield something useful and meaningful to me... books that wont just make time pass, but those that make the time worthwhile

Basically, everything on this list makes me look right past a book:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/s...


"Mysterious stranger" lines, unexpected love triangle (I am against romance as a general rule) and "turned in to A, B or C creature."

Oh, and vampires. Vampires and zombies have been done to death.

Dead Island is a game with great zombies lol

Jesse wrote: "Basically, everything on this list makes me look right past a book:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/s..."

Can't view it 'cause I'm not a member.

I hate hate hate the "if only we had an honest conversation sooner" trope! I hate it! If I have a SNIFF that the book's major plots might even think about revolving around "Lack of information" being held by another character...


:-(

MrsJoseph wrote: "I hate hate hate the "if only we had an honest conversation sooner" trope! I hate it! If I have a SNIFF that the book's major plots might even think about revolving around "Lack of information" b..."

Ditto, MrsJ. That is absolutely one of my most hated pet peeves. "Oh, I can't explain right now." or "I don't want to talk about it." or "I don't want to hear what you have to say." It drives me bonkers when characters do that!

I try to remind myself, especially in YA books, that people - teenagers especially - DO act that way sometimes (a lot?).

But, yeah... it still annoys the ever loving crap outta me. Heh.

± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "I try to remind myself, especially in YA books, that people - teenagers especially - DO act that way sometimes (a lot?).

But, yeah... it still annoys the ever loving crap outta me. Heh."

See, that's the thing that puts me off YA books in general - teenagers and the way they act... or just teenagers in general - been there, done that and they put me off books if they're in them ;D