I’m technically supposed to be studying right now, but in order to stop myself from freaking out, I decided to rant a bit more about book tropes that I’m tired of seeing. Side note: Is it weird that I stop myself from studying out of fear that I’m “over studying?” Does anyone else do that? Anyways, back to my rant, I’m going to share a few more tropes I can’t stand and I would love to hear your feedback.

Overly-Possessive Relationships – This trope tends to pop up more in the fantasy genre more often but this fictional couple just needs each other. They can’t be apart from each other for whatever nonsense reason that the author gives them. Jealousy may be a natural part of a relationship but it turns into abuse when taken to the extremes. We shouldn’t be seeing relationships bound together with too much love. Examples of this are Bella and Edward from Twilight, Catherine and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and Ana and Christian from Fifty Shades of Grey. 

The Snark Master – Listen, I’m a very sarcastic person and I love sarcastic characters but their personality can’t be solely that they are the sarcastic one. I want to see character traits outside of quips and one liners. It’s the worst when this character cracks jokes even during dire moments. At a certain point, it even gets cringey so please use sarcasm respectfully.

Overly Metaphorical – Metaphors can make your book or break your book. We’ve all seen the memes from The Fault in Our Stars about the cigarette as a metaphor. You know, that’s fine but what I hate is when a writer tries to shoehorn in as many metaphors as they can. Most books are set around one over-arcing metaphor or have several running metaphors throughout but it’s just bad writing if every other person, object, or situation is a metaphor of some kind.

A Whole Lot of Exposition – World building is a wonderful thing for writers. In fact, I admire writers who create entire fantasy worlds. But, what I don’t like is when a novel has to stop to give you a history lesson about the world. You can weave in the backstories without taking away from the ongoing narrative.

The Awkward Virgin – This character knows nothing about sex. Their parents never gave them the “birds and the bees” talk. They must have slept through high school sex ed or even just biology because they are just so shocked by any sort intimacy. Female characters like this are typically supposed to be “cute” because of this while male characters like this are laughed at. How about we don’t shame people for being virgins as much as we shouldn’t shame them for being sexually active?

Hip with the Kids – I may be only 21 but I struggle with learning the newest slang. Adults authors may feel the same way and you shouldn’t use modern slang if you don’t know what it means. Urban Dictionary is a great reference, honestly. If you want to write convincing teen characters, don’t try too hard. Teenagers aren’t completely stupid or self-centered and they don”t speak a different language.

The Wimp – This character is the complete opposite of “The Punching Bag” that I mentioned in my other book trope rant. A cold breeze blows and this character is all of a sudden in a coma, or something. This character is taken down with one hit and is somehow saved by the other characters. We don’t all have to be good fighters but don’t make your character completely useless if you’re going to put them in a combat situation.

The Romantic Weakness – This character is written as strong and stoic until their true love rolls around. Then, just like magic, this character melts into some kind of romantic mess from a completely different story. This sudden personality shift is so lame and takes the reader out of the moment.

I realize that this is more of a writing ranting as opposed to a book trope rant but I still hope some of you share my thoughts and feelings. I’ll link you to my previous book trope rant. I would love to hear some of your most hated book tropes. Maybe we can even make this into a tag. Book Tropes I Absolutely Hate