Writing Styles/Cliches You Don't Like?

quakeulf 2016-05-23 02:01:29 UTC #57

Clutter

Way too much going on at the same time. Busy pages with way too many panels, colours all over the place with no clear focus, speechbubbles with way too much text in them (characters don't have to be verbose, the overall flow of the comic is more important), also overlapping panels that are hard to follow.

Mediocrity

Ordinary stories about ordinary people doing ordinary things, saying ordinary things with ordinary outcomes. I have a life, so I don't read comics to remind me of it. I read comics to get away from it.

I know there are both more general but they are the main things I don't like when reading comics.

carloswebcomic 2016-05-23 03:22:51 UTC #58

Nothing gets on my tits like the introduction of the "mysterious" character. You know, the one that every kid that wants to draw manga does where you just see close ups and the face is always obscured by his hair or a hood. Then we have a close up of his mouth (on the side) and says something like "It's time...." or some other mysterious shit. Then, after going through that, we have the big 'reveal' of the main character where we see his/her face. Why is there a reveal of a character we've never seen before? Who knows?
Perhaps at that point we're supposed to exclaim "Oh my god! It's a guy I've never seen before! I was sure it was Mahatma Ghandi or queen Victoria, but I was totally wrong!".

TheVoidchildProject 2016-05-23 06:14:58 UTC #59

I dont know how much of a cliche it is by itself, but here's some of my biggest peeve:

Saturation:

Several of the examples mentioned above fit this. Kill characters too often, revive them too often, repeat patterns of any kind and I'll become desensitised. Modern superhero comics are obviously the worst offender her. Whenever someone dies in dc/marvel it has zero emotional impact on me. I feel more like "ugh, wonder how long befor they come back".

Everyone falls in love:

When groups of characters, typically with an equal male female ratio, all have to ducking fall in love with someone of the opposite gender. Is this the only way to portray relationships. Honestly, I'm so happy whenever I come across a story that doesn't revolve around a romantic situation at all because of this. There has to be more options to characters relationships than this.

Grimdark:

Talking about oversaturation again. I have a big problem with (especially main) characters who are meant to be "dark and kewl" and overdo this. I think it's absolutely possible to make a character with these traits but they can't be the only traits they have. But I want them to have more to them than just being quiet, grim, dark and violent. On an aside, when a character rarely speaks or gives you insight into their persona it feels to me like a writer is playing it safe or isn't really sure who their character is.

All the above said, I'll throw in my vote with "any cliche or trope" can be done well. Cliches doesn't mean a story is bad. I'll certainly have some in my comic. It's almost impossible to expand on every little thing so some aspects will appear more cliche than others. But give me an interesting spin on a trope and I'll be there to comb through your story.

TheVoidchildProject 2016-05-23 06:16:32 UTC #60

Oh and for the "damsel in distress"-trope I want to add in the "i can take care of myself"-sub trope. Generally a seemingly strong female character who utters these words only to five seconds later be kidnapped, killed or somesuch... No thank you!

Aspie_Gamer 2016-05-23 06:33:06 UTC #61

haha I like how you started your comment.

@Greg_Dickson That's alright.

On the subject of this thread, yeah I agree. Establish your character's personality traits and quirks organically.

ShrewdManeuver 2016-05-23 06:33:53 UTC #62

I don't like "chosen ones", I don't like some destined prophesied person, Being special and better than the rest, nope, let the average Joe get lucky or grow under his own power and time to be the hero.

ShrewdManeuver 2016-05-23 06:36:08 UTC #63

Lol, My prologue has a room filled with these guys

Aloredd 2016-05-23 06:50:30 UTC #64

honestly, i almost always have a character like that, but mostly because that's how i am. I have an odd mix of a boisterous personality while being almost extremely shy (I'll meet your eye and speak when spoken to and don't 'cower' from people, but wont initiate conversation very often). My silent characters are almost reflections of myself, but i characterize and personify them through their actions and the few words they say here and there (i'm trying to break the habit of having the silent character though)....

joannekwan 2016-05-23 06:55:39 UTC #65

I think it's also a matter of overall characterization and execution. You can have a character that doesn't talk much at all but still have lots of personality in how they do things. I have a friend who barely speaks unless spoken to and her movements are pretty slow and deliberate, but when she silently laughs or smiles at things, her whole face lights up.

TheVoidchildProject 2016-05-23 08:30:23 UTC #66

I'd say if you have a silent character whom still had a personality outside of "being silent", then you're not part of my peeve. I'm talking about those types of characters that I think become one dimensional because of their silence. They don't necessarily have to talk a lot and inner monologues work as well. Just don't have them be silent just to be mysterious or "kewl" or such. That's what makes such a character one-note to me.

quakeulf 2016-05-23 08:34:19 UTC #67

Imagine Gandhi revealing himself in a contemporary setting, only this time he brings nukes to get his points across.

ShrewdManeuver 2016-05-23 09:48:32 UTC #68

I would like to mention for fantasy and scifi set your world's rules, don't just let things run wild, One of the reason I hate macros plus and bleach a character finds a new way to evolve and gain strength through no reason, they gain new abilities in an instant, either through the power of love, friend of determination, devoid of training, later I learned Kubo Tite sometimes just draws with no script.

BlackMantaStudios 2016-05-23 10:20:49 UTC #69

Well, as TV Tropes has said like a billion times before, tropes are not bad. I think a sufficiently skilled writer can produce something new from old, trite ingredients. What drives me away from a work, however, is mostly sloppy execution, especially when the subject matter being written about is very sensitive. I hate it when writers use things like rape and the like for the sheer shock value of it--for the mere purpose of coming off as "edgy." This is one of the reasons I dropped Akame ga Kill, with all its grimdark bullshit tacked on to make it seem "deep." Deep, my foot.

Zanreo 2016-05-23 12:32:16 UTC #70

Similar to this, having the male and female main, or any male-female close friends, invariably get together by the end, even when there's barely any hinting to this earlier. A lot of these just seems so forced and it would have seemed more natural for them to just stay friends

Or the trope where you see the female character fighting off an enemy, clearly on their level (if not above it) and able to fight back herself... but the moment the male character enters the scene, she instantly curls up shivering into a corner to let him handle it by himself. Why not have her keep fighting alongside him? Would that hurt his Manly Pride? xD

TheVoidchildProject 2016-05-23 13:08:00 UTC #71

Mayhap are you thinking about this one as well:

Zanreo 2016-05-23 13:32:09 UTC #72

Had to open the link in another tab to make it show, but yeah, that's also pretty ridiculous.
(...and right after I had posted this it properly shows. well then)

jasperlizard 2016-05-23 14:45:55 UTC #73

Oh boy let me tell you I love to complain about bad writing!!

Amnesia. I've seen literally one story in my entire life that handled amnesia well, for the rest its been entirely predictable and unnecessary.
That main couple, usually het, that every single reader knows as soon as they interact that they're going to get together and stay together. As a reader of YA I encounter this one a looott and it gets boring so fast. Do something new and unexpected with the couple instead of doing exactly what anyone with two brain cells could predict from page 1.
Double death. When a character dies and we see them in the afterlife or as a ghost or etc. And then they get killed off AGAIN. If you have to do this to keep up the stakes in your story, you have probably written death badly and you need to back up and look at your life choices.
Black and white/clear cut morality. If there's no moral grey areas, its usually not interesting! I could almost say writers have a moral obligation to write about gray areas, as the message "there's only pure good and pure evil" is incredibly harmful, and the mindset of it effects things negatively from the president election to tumblr callout culture.

miseryhunting 2016-05-24 21:32:30 UTC #74

Girl can't choose between two guys (or any love triangles of that sort): you either love and are attracted to someone or you're not. I don't care for excuses, it's boring, unnecessary and nothing i care about.
Main character must do the saving, because they are meant to: aka, other characters have done most of the fighting and the hero shows in the end to sweep the glory.
She/he wants it: this is mostly concerning manga and boylove - STOP raping people and disguising it as love.
Romantic love is the most important thing: I don't think it is anymore valuable than family or real friendship, it infuriates me when characters are all "i must, because he's the one i love". and then they turn on their close ones. It's not even realistic.
So clueless about her appeal: yes, yes, i'm sure this mediocre girl had all the boys secretly in love with her until the hero shows up and suddenly all compete for her attention.
There are probably many more, but those are the ones that automatically come to mind.

apurviance 2016-05-24 22:52:13 UTC #75

Any trope or cliche that plays out exactly like you'd expect makes for poor writing, IMHO. Such a missed opportunity to use the reader's expectations against them.

But, the one that bugs me now is hitting someone over the head to temporally knock them out. In real life the longer someone stays unconscious from head trauma the more brain damaged they'll be and the higher the chance they'll never ever wake up. I know this is a handy tool to get obstacle characters out of the way for a bit (heck, I've used it!), but since I looked into it knockouts seem cruel.

^THIS. If I ever pull that crap there will be a twist, probably something really silly and dumb. A total 180.

There was a scene in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" where Spike the vampire returns to stalk Buffy in the dark, swearing darkly to get his revenge. During his monologue he gets tasered and captured by some mysterious agents. It was hilarious.

NickRowler 2016-05-26 04:25:32 UTC #76

The ones that sort of bug me the most are...

Teenagers being smart and capable while adults are dumb and useless. From my experience in real life, this is rarely the case. Though I feel that teens and young adults are maybe draw to this cliche.

Anyone over 35 is old and useless. This is sort of tied to my first point.

Token smart girl. Probably my biggest pet peeve is when people create flat female sidekick who is a "genius" who says random facts and rolls her eyes at how stupid the main male character is. I feel people use this trope because they believe "smart = empowering", but most of these character just come off as paper thin. I would rather have a girl who is a little foolish and learned from her "lack of knowledge" instead of one who is a walking Wiki page.

Stereotypical anime based Japanese high school as envisioned by a Western otaku. People should write what they know and if you don't know anything about Japan outside of anime, then don't make a story based in a Japanese high school.

I fully admit to being guilty of the dead parents trope. Even in my current comic, I rewrote it so that there were 4 less dead parents.