 Hello, governor. Sorry. I'm filming today's video live over on Twitch if you're watching this at a later date and you want to see videos that I'll be doing videos like this in future where I do them live so people can join in in the chat. Yeah, check me out on Twitch. It's cam underscore wolf. Today, I am doing something pretty fun. A little while ago, I sent a bit of a call out to you guys. I asked you what your least favorite like cliches tropes that kind of thing are in writing and you guys delivered you came back you gave me like I'm looking here at like 54 54 comments shit 54 comments. So what I'm going to be doing today on the stream or the video if you're watching this later is I'm going to be reading through these giving you my opinion and we'll go through it like that. The first comment I've got is from Keeney. Hopefully I've said that right. And they said sexual appeal written when describing underage kids often authors write women as extremely young and forced to want it like a girl who was very young. And because of politics, she needs to marry someone to save the family. I guess we're diving head first. Just going to go right into a right into a bit of an intense one there. That's obviously pretty concerning under any circumstances. I think I think what key is referring to here is a lot of times in more so like fantasy stories, they'll kind of dig into the medieval kind of archaic trope of children being married off basically or princesses or princes at a young age usually like around, you know, 16 to 17, hopefully not younger than that. In some instances, I guess it can get a little bit younger and they'll get married off to someone who is older. Depending on the story, it might be someone who's like kind of a young adult. That's where it usually goes into these romantic plotlines or in more concerning cases, quite older person. It is quite odd that in a lot of cases, a romantic relationship that in real life, like, let's say, you know, in real life, there's a 16 year old dating like a 25 year old. Most people would see that as pretty, I keep saying concerning, but that's the perfect word to describe that. I would be concerned. The next one is from Neil Cognito. It was all a dream or it's worth variation. It was all fake because of mental illness or something absolutely makes my blood boil. And you can always see it coming from a mile away. There has not been a single instance where they've done that it was all a dream thing and I haven't called it pretty early on. And as soon as you identify that that's the direction that the story is going in, you feel less invested in what's actually happening because you know that it's it's like fake, it's not real. Like, yes, it may very well contribute to that character's like character arc, how you meant to feel like any kind of emotional connection, even in retrospect, for a story that effectively didn't really happen, you know, Miss Edge 102 says a love angle. It's not even a love triangle like everyone calls it. It's one person having to choose between two people. So if you draw it out, then it's an angle and not a triangle. An actual love triangle would be interesting where all three people have a thing for each other, but love angles, no. Myself, no, you know, I'm not a fan of love triangles, but I don't think they're a bad story device. The only reason I'm not a fan of love triangles, at least anymore is just because we've seen it so many times and Miss Edge is right. It is in most cases two different characters opposing rivals going after one person. So yes, technically it's it's like a love V, if anything. That in itself is an interesting concept. The problem is that it's been overdone so much and not even just that it's been done so much, but it's been done so much in the exact same way. That's that's where this love triangle fatigue has come from. The whole love triangle thing is literally a meme now. It's so overused. It's so it's such a cliche. It's such an unpopular cliche that the love triangle thing is literally a meme. Next one is from greener side of Sam. This is for this sci-fi dystopian lovers out there. When I chose in Teenager, Save the World from Infinite Doom, you know what I was doing as a teenager, crushing on boys and playing Skyrim. I get being sick of it. I also get why it's a thing because that's that's the ultimate escapist fantasy for teenagers is being more special than they actually are, you know, and what could possibly be more special for a teenager than saving the world, you know. Tainted Crimson says, I love the trope as a teenager, but now I'm a jaded adult who is yeah, 100%. That's me too. I feel like I'm way too cynical for that now. When I was the age that like most of these teenagers are in these like, you know, books where they where they fight a corrupt government and save the world, I'm pretty sure that was my Yu-Gi-Oh phase. Particularly annoyed lately with what I call the glorified babysitter trope. Female badass is reduced to babysitting a man child in defense of that trope if I can just play devil's advocate for a minute. I think the reason that happens so much, let's say guardians of the galaxy, for example, is because one of the most quotation marks in dearing trait or personality for a male character, especially a male protagonist to keep the story interesting is for them to be like a kind of hopeless goofball, you know, like Peter Quill and all the time Gamora is the one sorting shit out and taking care of him. So I think that's how it how that trope keeps popping up anyway is because authors keep making their male protagonists goofballs, which I don't think is an issue so much, but I get what Rose in the library is trying to say. Aditya says, I face palm when the author shoehorns romance where it's mostly lust and no chemistry between characters who'd be better as friends. That's a really good point. Platonic friendships are underrated in fiction, especially between different sexes. That is an opinion I've had for so long now because it's so absolutely true. So many books, you'll see, you'll have two characters that have a lot of chemistry as friends rather than, you know, lovers. But there seems to be some kind of obligation in storytelling that if they happen to be, you know, romantically compatible being that, you know, if that is the case, generally the storyteller feels like they need to get together romantically just to tie it up as a loose end. But platonic friendships don't have to be a loose end. I feel like I want to say more on that because it's such a good point, but it's really as simple as that. A healthy dose of friend says the bury your gaze trope. Just the title itself is reason enough, but just seeing how little queer representation there is, and that bury your gaze is so prevalent within it is disappointing. We either are killed for entertainment or for shock. And in the case of Lexa from the 100 to get a new season. Don't think I've even read that many stories where gay people have died, but only because I read a lot of old books. And as we all know, the issue with a lot of old books is that gay people either weren't in them at all, or they were like they were and you know that the author intended them to be. But because of society, we live in a society because of society at the time, they were not allowed to explicitly point out that the character was in fact gay. Obviously, I don't think gay characters should be immune to death entirely. But if your book has like, let's say one gay person, maybe don't kill them off, you know, just for the hell of it, just to motivate another one of the characters. When clearly disturbed, abusive, obsessive, and violent men are portrayed as love interests that the female, female protagonists have to fix twice as infuriating if they are characterized as sympathetic and never suffer consequences for their actions because their daddy was mean to them once and their jawline is sharp. Yeah, good point as well. Here, if I can like throw just the tiniest bit of bit of shade here, not at anyone in particular, but this is something I've kind of noticed on book two quite a lot is that there are a lot of people who will get very heated over a protagonist who has even one character flaw that makes them like morally questionable. I kind of like when characters are morally questionable because it's it makes sense. That's human beings. We are, we all have flaws. No one is perfect. Anyway, I think it's funny when there's booktubers who will say something like, you know, this, this protagonist has a minor flaw. So they are in fact not a good character and the author is bad for writing them. However, that same person will go and read a romance book where there's a guy being extremely controlling to an abusive degree and they'll be like, yes, daddy. And they'll like romanticize the shit out of them. Or they're like, or it's a straight up villain, like someone who literally kills people and kidnaps kidnaps the female interest of the story or whatever. Just a bad guy. And they get like super hyped up as well. Like, yeah, they're they're a villain. That's what they're meant to do. And it's okay if you hype them up. But if you're doing that, maybe don't get, you know, all heated over a protagonist who has a few minor flaws themselves. What we're talking about here mostly, I think is like trashy romance books. And I don't mean trashy and like a mean way. I just mean, that's kind of what they're known as, you know, trashy romance, because the plotline is not really anything that's going to stick with you for a long time. It's just meant to make you horny. Sophia Sophia says, when the main character falls for the bat, oh, we were just talking about this. When the main character falls for the bad guy while also having a friend who has a crush on her as the backup. That's just like what we were talking about before with the love triangles. Next one is from Kira Gill. The whole I'm so ugly, but I have a perfect button nose and beautiful blonde hair and every Eurocentric character esteem knowing the man. I don't really have anything to say on this, except yeah, I agree. I feel like everyone that's ever put picked up a book in their life at this point is completely over the plain Jane Trope, you know, a character who thinks they're very plain and ordinary. And dare I say, even ugly. And then for whatever reason, every single other character in the world is romantically obsessed with them. It's boring and it's bad. It's just straight up bad storytelling. Redemption equals death. Not only is it overdone, but it robs the chance of future storytelling opportunities for characters, i.e. showing said character dealing with the consequences of their past actions and growing from them. That's a really interesting one, actually. What do you guys think about that one? Because I'm a little bit conflicted, if I'm being honest, because I love the whole death redemption thing. I love when a character who either being a villain or a questionable character in a split moment decides to be good and sacrifices themselves for the hero. I kind of love that, although I do get what Lucy is saying here that it is also kind of cheap. I'm getting deja vu. I feel like I feel like I've spoken about this in a video before. I think I have. I made a whole last video about villain redemptions. I'm just remembering that. Obviously you want to leave like breadcrumb trail of them changing from a bad character or a questionable character to a good character. Sekhmet McFly says one good deed can't erase all of the bad ones. Absolutely agree. So next one we'll move on a bit. Next one is a violent caveman being the love interest. Then the main character female tries to fix them and make them well adjusted. Caveman? I thought you meant like a literal caveman. Okay, I get it. You mean like a big dumb man? I get it. I feel like that harkens back to what we were saying before about the trashy romances. It's a bit cheap. In theory, that is an interesting story device, but again, like love triangles, it's done so insanely often that it's boring now. Alright, retent says flashbacks because they throw off the timeline, especially when done too many times. You know what the funny thing is here? Like the ironic part about this. If you're watching this retent, thank you so much for, you know, the support and for buying my book. I really do appreciate that. The funny thing though is that the cliche or the trope that you hate is flashbacks. And then you follow up by saying you got my book. The thing is, my book happens to have quite a lot of flashbacks because the story is about the guy's past. Well, not a trope or cliche that I found to be all that common, but maybe that's just not in the stuff that I've been reading or watching, I guess. Leslie Carl says long-winded exposition dumps from a main character. Yeah, here that as you know, Bob Trope. So what it is is basically when you have, by the way, I'm not, I'm not like, I'm not like five foot one. Like I probably look like in this webcam pic right here. I just have to have it really high up so that I can have this bar at the bottom here so you can see the comments. Anyway, the point is that as you know, Bob Trope is basically in stories when you have two characters talking to each other that both of them should effectively know what's going on. But because the reader doesn't know what's going on, one of the characters will explain it to the other one in a really obvious way. And it's just so annoying. It happens a lot on television. Characters constantly seeing the ghosts of dead relatives and having entire conversations with them happens in movies and shows as well. All the effin time yet, it's extremely rare that it happens in real life. It's a cliche and a lazy way to deal with grief. That's a really interesting one. Alright, I agree. I thought about it and yes, that is like they've said here. It's a really lazy way to deal with grief. I agree. See that the reason it is like so devastating in at least in these fictional stories when a character dies, in my opinion or at least for me, my experience as the reader, the reason it's so devastating is because when that character dies, they're gone. They're cut off. You can't say anything more to them. You can't say goodbye. You can't tell them you're sorry for the argument you had last week. It's they're just gone. You know, that's why it hurts so much because there's so much left unsaid. So when they come back as a ghost, I know a lot of people would see that as emotional closure for the character for the protagonist or whoever, like that's almost a reward for them. I feel like it would be so much more pleasing or satisfying for me as a reader. If that protagonist rather than getting to talk to that dead relative again, maybe if they just managed to like accept it, you know, like come to terms with the fact that that person that they cared about or loved is gone. A male love interests abusive controlling behavior shown as romantic hard pass. Yeah, we chatted about that one before when the main character falls in love with the villain abuser because they have reasons for that. That's the same. Well, we've talked about that one too. Nothing. There is nothing. I fall in love with everything I read. I know a lot of authors that would love to get in touch with you, Storyteller. Chicky Scaes You says when the author forces a romantic subplot just to have a romantic subplot, yeah, that's kind of like what we were talking about before with platonic friendships. Plot holes are the worst. Sometimes when I write, I also want to spin off which sometimes creates a plot hole dreaming about a story and barely remembering it or not being able to describe it. So the first books I ever put out were like a fantasy series and there was going to be four books in it. I only finished like two of them and I stopped after that because because I was so inexperienced and I thought I knew what I was doing and I thought I was like, I assumed I was a great writer. That's that was my whole issue because also inexperienced, I wrote myself into a corner and I had a ton of plot holes to the point where I literally couldn't write my way out of it and I ended up having to kill the series. The trope of easy love, it's so rampant in YA and in most adult fiction nowadays. I think what Jan is saying here is they're not a fan of the love at first sight cliche. Think about it practically love at first sight isn't, I mean it really can't be a thing. All it is is attraction. You're physically attracted to someone. McFly says love at first sight is lust. Yeah, I agree. MC Thomas says describing the setting in too much detail. Yes, I want to be immersed in the environment but I also want to move along with the story. I don't want to read three to four pages every single sensory detail in this scene. Incidentally, MC Thomas would not be a fan of Jay Kristoff's writing. Like I'm not saying he's a bad writer, it's just his style and it's okay. Sometimes it gets a little bit frustrating but Jay Kristoff, author of like Nevernight and Illuminay and all that has some of the just the most flowery language and not only will he like go out of his way to extravagantly describe like everything but he will also leave like footnotes that give you like a literal whole mini side story like flash fiction about the history of like a jug that was on a table that the character walked past. It was just I don't like the good guy never dies. It destroys the suspense when you know that failure is not an option. I get what Bryce talks is saying like plot armor around the protagonist but at the same time especially if we're talking about a series. I think we all just kind of accept the fact that character is not going to die because the series can't continue if they do. On the flip side you've got you know like survival horror that kind of stuff where they all change main characters. They'll uh switch off constantly. Hey Sikta writes nice to see you thanks for the follow. Eleni Juroric says the female you know you know damn well it's mostly females here lead written to have an amazing personality while she has very obnoxious flaws and instead of leaning on them to make an interesting character the narrator just slips those under the carpet and every surrounding character keeps parroting how awesome female main character is while ignoring all those flaws. Yeah that's like what we were talking about before when we were talking about you know like villain redemptions we were talking I was talking about uh protagonists having flaws and being hated for that despite the fact that having flaws is what makes us so quintessentially human. The femme fatale spy this one was good the first time now it's just annoying and serves as a convenient way to sex up the story. That's something I've never really thought about that much. Charlie's Angels is probably a way better example but female action heroes that use sex appeal to trick or manipulate the enemy. James Bond did the same thing you know like the dude version some of the stuff that old James Bond did in those old films was like borderline sexual assault I'll just leave it at that. Sierra says definitely the messianic archetype as well as religious overtones that you see in a lot of fantasy stories especially within the classics. I gotta tell you that is something I have never even thought about not even once because that just would have gone straight over my head the religious overtones I mean. I saw that with like Gandalf coming back as Gandalf the White I was like okay obviously that's like that's like an allegory for Jesus Christ obviously but I'm not like a religious guy so I'm not gonna dig my heels too much into that one. I don't know if it has an actual name but the introvert goes on a quest and when they get back they're not introverted anymore. Being introverted isn't something that can be like just cured you know like going on an adventure yeah you you probably will get more confident obviously like taking classes in public speaking that kind of thing does help a lot of people but I don't think it's going to change your personality entirely. So Amy says when the hook of a story is a woman trying to overcome her struggles but it turns into a cliched romance and she realizes what she needed all along was the perfect man and her struggles magically vanished. We've talked a lot in this video already about pretty much the entire idea of a woman being damsel in distress and pretty much every form or shape it can possibly take. Theo says crime thrillers with the unforeshadowed multiple personality trope where the protagonist is revealed as the culprit all along. It feels lazy just to flip a switch on a narrator suddenly being cunningly manipulative sadistic mastermind. I get why that's a popular or interesting story device because it is it's super interesting thinking about the twist being that the protagonist was a split personality villain the entire time however that's the kind of thing you can only really read about once. The next one is from Bricka Brack. They say when the description is purple just to be purple. I imagine they're talking about like purple pros which is like what we were talking about before with very flowery or poetic language just to overly describe stuff like you know rather than just saying the character walked into the room they'll describe how every step was like stepping onto a cloud or something. I don't know I'm not Jay Kristoff I can't I can't just flip it off the tongue you know. Next one is Jarrett Mutton says teenage outcast bad boy quotes classic literature it's just very few people do that takes me right out of the story yet. You know what that is in stories where there's like the the young kind of a bad boy if you want to call him that who who like reads classic literature and quotes it and they listen to like you know old school music like I feel like I kind of listen to old school music but you get my point usually the author in these instances is like a middle-aged dude you can tell they've just injected themselves into this protagonist like it's kind of like a fantasy they're writing themselves as a young bad boy who's like into classic literature and stuff and what it ends up doing is it just creates the I'm not like other girls boy version and it's just like it's just cringe you know like cringe cringelord cringe dream sequences that's another good one that's like yeah like we were talking about before with the it was all a dream when a girl's call to adventure is to follow a boy that they've broken up with uh recently met with to win their heart like no one is seriously that desperate to be romantic right especially if it's a life or death I'd run from that boy no matter how hot he is I just once I would like to read a book where there's like a romantic relationship but danger appears and one of them's just like yo fuck this dude I don't want to die like you're cool and everything hell I might even love you but I'm not I'm not fucking with that Philip Hawkins says anything where the problem is solved enemy is defeated with positive thought especially if it's group positive thought do you mean like the heroes all like hold hands and just like I don't know I don't know what no examples come to mind for this one I'm not really sure the nihilist geek says dreams either as a start or in the middle or as a twist in the end it is yeah okay all right we talked about that one too come on Tyler Buche says more of a sci-fi trope but uh unified planetary governments one of my pet hates when I read about like sci-fi is in like planetary intergalactic sci-fi whatever is when there's like a president of an entire planet that that itself is such an alien concept to us as humans that it's just not realistic especially when it's like the president of the human race and it's always an American keep in mind back into a bit of a darker topic I noticed how the r-word is getting more and more popular as a plot device and I think it is really danger dangerous especially if it is to motivate the male main character while the victim and her arc gets left behind don't take this as me like defending it I'm going to say I get why it's prevalent in fantasy but at the same time I agree that it's not necessary I feel like the reason that the authors of fantasy are writing so much like you know women getting I'm not going to say the word that are worded in those stories is because they're like oh you know in old European times the women were the most vulnerable because that's just how the class structure was built the best way for that author in their opinion mind you the best way for that author to make you hate the villain is to make them do the worst thing possible which in a lot of cases is the r-word again I'm not defending it I'm just saying that seems to be why they do it the whole normal person is introduced into a fantasy world but doesn't believe at first trope I understand it's realistic but it's so boring to read again and again especially when the author stretches it out over 50 plus pages we don't we don't want to spend forever reading about a character that's you know been dropped in a fantasy world and is just refusing to accept it chosen one I'm surprised it took this long for the chosen one to pop up I can't it's kind of a guilty pleasure for me I hate that I would hate it if I read like two fantasy books in a row and that was the plot device in both of them I would be like oh god damn it but I do enjoy a good chosen one story every now and then I'll admit next one I don't hate zombie and alien tropes but I don't super love it I don't know if it's a trope but just want to add I don't like love tropes and love stories in general except in a fantasy or a horror love tropes and love stories obviously not for everyone using sexual assault or near sexual assault as a romantic plot device yeah we were just talking about this one as well um no one wants to no one wants to bang after after escaping a pulp fiction dungeon in reality they don't want to bang after you've saved the day they just want to go home they want to they want to get home to safety I hate the implication that having bad decisions and actions characters makes a book bad get this people do bad things some books are written explicitly to display bad behavior in people and a large portion of readers don't seem to understand that's that doesn't make a book a bad book that is exactly what I was talking about before when I was talking about morally ambiguous characters I hate the falling underwater epiphany seeing dead loved one slow marati pretentious plot device they don't feel that effective and frankly a little bit over the top yeah that's like we were talking about before um you know with seeing the ghosts of your dead relatives it's kind of like a lazy way for the character to um find closure in grief rather than having to just accept it uh accept accept reality for what it is that they are gone so that's it that's all of the comments that you guys gave me in regards to writing cliches that you hate not necessarily me although I agree I agreed with you uh for most of those I'll be doing this more often uh obviously I get a lot of audience input for my videos as it is but in the future when I do videos like this where I get you to give me suggestions and stuff I think I'm gonna just film it live so I can chat with people in the actual chat here like I have been doing here as well I just think that's a lot more fun a lot more interactive much love