Patricia Abbott (pattinase): What are some of the topics/themes you have seen enough in novels?

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

What are some of the topics/themes you have seen enough in novels?

Sadly Alzheimers has been overdone for me. I know it is the scourge of our time, but boy, I am tired of it turning up as a plot or a subplot in novels. What else? What has been overdone of late?

15 comments:

Dana King said...: Alcoholic protagonists, especially in crime fiction. Too often the entire book or series becomes a sequence of "will he drink or won't he?" episodes. After a while, you just want him to get drunk and getn it over with so something else--anything else--can happen.; 2:03 PM
Rick Robinson said...: Zombies. Please, someone, stop the dang zombie books!

Next, and I'm sure many people won't agree with me, but I'm tired of serial killer plots. Seems like if you've read a couple, you've read them all.

I'm also - though I haven't read one in years - tired of talking dogs and/or cats, unless in children's books or maybe YA books.; 2:05 PM
Cap'n Bob said...: When I was doing MDM and getting a lot of books and catalogues from the publishers, I noticed that a hell of a lot of plots involved either serial killers, medical thrillers, or women in a new town trying to get their shattered lives in order.; 2:58 PM
Dan_Luft said...: Woody Allen/Charles Bukowski. There is way to much first person storytelling about how the world is crazy and the protagonist has to grit his teeth at everyone else's idiocy.

This is closely related to the bad relationship novel/memoir about how life sucks when you're a young, emplyed, city-dweller with a job that just isn't quite fulfilling.; 3:02 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Graphic stories about abused children. Let the reader imagine it rather than spell it out.; 3:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Definitely serial killers. I don't watch them on television and I don't want to read about them.

Also Jane Austen as a character. Enough already!

Jeff M.; 4:00 PM
YA Sleuth said...: Alcoholics, drug addicts, lone wolf detectives. To be fair though, I've seen them done well.

From a woman's perspective, I'm always a bit disappointed when I see crime fiction in that 'it's a man's world' light where women are secretaries or girls in the oldest profession.; 5:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Every bad thing a character does being blamed on them being abused as a child. It's such a cop out, almost as bad as "and then I woke up."

I'm also totally over the psycho who is smarter than everyone else and has a direct bee line into the mind of the cop/detective chasing him.

And finally (more a stylistic choice than anything else) the dual narrative book where alternate chapters are narrated by the detective and the villain--and the villain/psycho's narration is always in italics.

Deb; 6:47 PM
Al Tucher said...: Louisiana. It's a great setting, but I think it needs a rest.; 9:15 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: And so too, New York and LA.; 10:04 AM
Loren Eaton said...: Having the religious character always be bigoted, anti-intellectual, or insane.; 10:06 AM
J F Norris said...: Serial killers and the erotic vampire are my major pet peeves in genre fiction.

I've never understood vampires having sex with humans. They're dead. That makes it necrophilia, right?

I'm completely fed up twith the entire "urban fantasy" subgenre while we're talking about the overdone.; 11:08 AM
Charles Gramlich said...: crime scene investigation type stuff; 11:28 AM
Chris said...: Meth-addled "redneck" (a term I loathe) killers. Definitely a theme that's run its coarse for me.; 12:40 PM
Ron Scheer said...: As a plot device, the unfaithful spouse (usually the husband). Lazy writing.; 6:44 PM