Cliches That Should Die

I think we've all got certain things we find irritatingly over-used in stories. One of mine is "love canal" or "canal" in general. It always makes me picture Italian men in gondolas singing "When the moon hits your eye..." which is probably not the image the authors who use this term intend for me to have.

I've also just been reading a story in which a pair of breasts have been described as "creamy" not just once but repeatedly, and I'm beginning to suspect that the poor woman has some bizarre skin disease.

What are some of the awkward tropes and phrases that trip you up as a reader?

"Laundry list" descriptions of characters, usually female ones, esp. as the beginning of a story.

Numerical descriptions of character's bodies. I don't need to know her cup size or his dick's length and girth. Tell me what they make you feel instead, so I can feel it too.

Quote by Carnevil9

Numerical descriptions of character's bodies. I don't need to know her cup size or his dick's length and girth. Tell me what they make you feel instead, so I can feel it too.

Yes. Perhaps acceptable in a rare cases where it is actually relevant to the story, but generally unnecessary. "Soft plump tits" says more to me than "42D".

Quote by Seeker4

Yes. Perhaps acceptable in a rare cases where it is actually relevant to the story, but generally unnecessary. "Soft plump tits" says more to me than "42D".

"Tits: She had the regular amount - two."

I've been getting very lazy about my physical character descriptions, because let's face it - we all know what breasts and penises and vaginas and asses look like. I trust my readers do okay on their own, and don't really need much help with the visualization. Unless there's anything particularly remarkable about them, we can safely assume they exist and move on.

In Scott McCloud's book "Understanding Comics," he discusses the style used in Japanese comics where the backgrounds are very detailed, but the main characters are often extremely simplistic, and suggests that it helps the reader to project themselves into the character.

I try to take this to heart — if a particular bit of description for a character is plot relevant, I'll mention it. But broadly speaking, I try to avoid over-describing my characters so it's easier for the reader to embody.

Quote by Carnevil9

Numerical descriptions of character's bodies. I don't need to know her cup size or his dick's length and girth. Tell me what they make you feel instead, so I can feel it too.

Absolutely. I grow weary of seeing every female character's measurements written out in detail. How do you know she has a 24-inch waist? Did you bring a tape measure to the bedroom? Maybe she pigged out on ice cream last night and it's 24.4 inches right now. 🤣

Quote by Seeker4

Yes. Perhaps acceptable in a rare cases where it is actually relevant to the story, but generally unnecessary. "Soft plump tits" says more to me than "42D".

Exactly...

Her voluptuous breasts spilled out of the bodice of her dress and refused to be contained, even while cupped by her lover's sizeable hands. She grinned wickedly, hoping that the size of a man's hands being indicative of the size of his member wasn't just a myth.

How about “ropes of cum”. I know every man is different but I have personally never experienced that. Not saying it’s impossible but it seems every man cums that way in stories.

I think this sort of cliche speak is much less prevalent in lesbian stories, though I do admit I may simply be skipping past it as I read.

Okay. "Drinking her nectar" does come to mind and needs to go, now that I think about it.

Shopping/check list descriptions.

Quote by techgoddess

Exactly...

Her voluptuous breasts spilled out of the bodice of her dress and refused to be contained, even while cupped by her lover's sizeable hands. She grinned wickedly, hoping that the size of a man's hands being indicative of the size of his member wasn't just a myth.

And this, folks, is why she's a mod and repeat comp success. 😁

On topic:

Stories where every tit is huge and every cock is long and thick. How about some variety and diversity in body parts?

Quote by Seeker4

And this, folks, is why she's a mod and repeat comp success. 😁

On topic:

Stories where every tit is huge and every cock is long and thick. How about some variety and diversity in body parts?

Thanks for the lovely pat on the back. I appreciate it.

And yes, I am guilty of dwelling on voluptuous redheads. Might be time to shake things up a bit. 😘

I am not sure I should read this thread as it seems all the terms I use in my stories have come up in it! 🙄😨😊

Quote by techgoddess
And yes, I am guilty of dwelling on voluptuous redheads.

Nothing wrong with voluptuous redheads, though. 😋

Oh boy. Here we go.

1) Teens. Teens as a trope, particularly teens in sexual conjunction with 40+ year-old people, so the whole "older and younger" thing.

Have you, older person, met a teenager?? And not one of those you see in "Grease" and in 90s/00s high school-themed TV shows. Real, actual teenagers. Sixteen-year-olds. Those with attention spans the length of a tiktok video, who cannot hold half a conversation if you hand it to them in a bucket. They genuinely are not "good lover" material, y*all. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but every time I read a story featuring some 16yo who has a brain and is also a generous and pleasing bedsport partner to some dude who has been on this planet three times longer than she, my fingers are itching to put that shit into "Fantasy & SciFi" instead.

2) "OOOH OOOH FUCK YES YES OOOH BABY YES AHH OOOH MMMH MMM BABY FUCK YES FUCKKKKKK" etc.

Firstly, can we get rid of porn closed captions altogether? It's not even sexy in actual porn where it's accompanied by moving pictures. It doesn't work in written form. It just doesn't. Put in some proper dirty talk. Use your words.

Secondly, you cannot elongate plosives. It's physically impossible. Stoppppp itttttttt.

3) Exploding.

He exploded in her pussy.

She exploded into orgasm.

Everyone's constantly being torn to bits - which is weird because that's not at all what orgasms feel like most of the time - and it makes me think of Magawa, the Cambodian landmine-sniffing rat who died a national hero in 2022. RIP Magawa.

4) Husky.

"I want you to come for me," he said huskily.

His voice was so dark and husky.

Huskily, he growled, "Slowly."

Quote by cydia

Oh boy. Here we go.

1) Teens. Teens as a trope, particularly teens in sexual conjunction with 40+ year-old people, so the whole "older and younger" thing.

Have you, older person, met a teenager?? And not one of those you see in "Grease" and in 90s/00s high school-themed TV shows. Real, actual teenagers. Sixteen-year-olds. Those with attention spans the length of a tiktok video, who cannot hold half a conversation if you hand it to them in a bucket. They genuinely are not "good lover" material, y*all. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but every time I read a story featuring some 16yo who has a brain and is also a generous and pleasing bedsport partner to some dude who has been on this planet three times longer than she, my fingers are itching to put that shit into "Fantasy & SciFi" instead.

2) "OOOH OOOH FUCK YES YES OOOH BABY YES AHH OOOH MMMH MMM BABY FUCK YES FUCKKKKKK" etc.

Firstly, can we get rid of porn closed captions altogether? It's not even sexy in actual porn where it's accompanied by moving pictures. It doesn't work in written form. It just doesn't. Put in some proper dirty talk. Use your words.

Secondly, you cannot elongate plosives. It's physically impossible. Stoppppp itttttttt.

3) Exploding.

He exploded in her pussy.

She exploded into orgasm.

Everyone's constantly being torn to bits - which is weird because that's not at all what orgasms feel like most of the time - and it makes me think of Magawa, the Cambodian landmine-sniffing rat who died a national hero in 2022. RIP Magawa.

4) Husky.

"I want you to come for me," he said huskily.

His voice was so dark and husky.

Huskily, he growled, "Slowly."

Alright, no need to get personal, Cydia edits work 😘

Love tunnel (does it echo?) love muscle, love canal, love pocket.

My husband next to me is laughing... love length and love missile. 😳

Unless she is being fitted for a new brassiere in the story, 42DD conjures an image of a larger woman with backache to my husband. Yet in Europe (with the metric system), to me she is a stick and an anatomical freak.

A word I have seen and 'really gives me the ick' (my husband says this) is moist.

What the fuck is 'moist'? A cake.

I can say I have never been moist.

Quote by AmuseBouche

Love tunnel (does it echo?) love muscle, love canal, love pocket.

My husband next to me is laughing... love length and love missile. 😳

Unless she is being fitted for a new brassiere in the story, 42DD conjures an image of a larger woman with backache to my husband. Yet in Europe (with the metric system), to me she is a stick and an anatomical freak.

A word I have seen and 'really gives me the ick' (my husband says this) is moist.

What the fuck is 'moist'? A cake.

I can say I have never been moist.

I see yours, and raise the bet with love tunnel shivers

Another pet peeve is nectar (and honey, leave that to Winnie)

Quote by cydia
you cannot elongate plosives. It's physically impossible. Stoppppp itttttttt.

3) Exploding.

Sorry, but your spot-on comment on plosives elongation made me explode (in laughtttter)

Worrying too much about particular phrases, words etc.? Who has time for that? If you're putting thoughts down and enjoying doing so and someone might connect with it, that's the enjoyment part. Of course.the 'better'something is, the more chance there is that people connect with it, but as 'better' is subjective and might be different for those who read or write stuff, it's a question of taste.

If people use terms I don't connect with, that's just the way it is. I'd rather express myself my way and get enjoyment from it than over-analyse and compromise that. I'd rather know something is 'me' than using a tick box to check it has nothing that people say winds them up in it, but that's more about why you do something, not how.

Smirking. Invariably, characters with lustful thoughts are described as smirking: a "devilish smirk," a "mischievous smirk..." But any kind of "smirk" is annoying at this point. I'm also desperately weary of the "devilish grin". These are used so, so often I almost immediately lose my interest in a story when I run into it. Stop your characters from smirking and grinning like a bunch of idiots.

Smirking? grinning? It's a minefield out there, isn't it. Unless you're writing a bespoke story for someone you've known for decades, trying to please all of the people. all of the time isn't an achievable goal.

If putting a roof over your head depended on how many people connected with what you wrote, I can see why it might be worth having a 'red flag' list, but if it doesn't, a general awareness of certain things that seem to get people irritated should suffice.

There is nothing wrong in striving to be the best that you can be at something, but if you get to the point where you can't be spontaneous, write how you think and get pleasure from doing so, the reason for doing it is lost for me.

A template of popular style, focus and expression could well see someone put something together that connects with more people. There is nothing wrong with that at all, What I would be sad to see is a time when being yourself and writing what you feel is redundant. Yes, some of us like to write in a way that is true to how we feel and think, others are more formulaic. It would be ironic if others' pleasure in doing things differently was was frowned up somewhere like here, wouldn't it?

Quote by JustForYou
What I would be sad to see is a time when being yourself and writing what you feel is redundant.

You sound like a kindergarten teacher handing out participation trophies. Gold star for effort. If what you're saying is that there's no such thing as bad writing, you're wrong. There's plenty of evidence of it on this site and LS has higher quality standards than most others for what gets published.

The problem with overused cliches is that you're not 'being yourself,' you're being a million other hacks. It's not really self-expression, but the expression of the same boring, clumsy, sub-mediocre writing that's as common as dog shit on this site and others. Just because my dog had a 'creative expression' on the sidewalk doesn't mean I want to take it home and magnet it to the fridge door (let alone try to display it at the Louvre). This thread isn't about limiting writers to a particular style, but encouraging them to develop their own original style. Write something we haven't seen before, not stuff anyone who's spent much time reading this genre already knows isn't good or effective writing. If you're a developing writer, you could learn from this thread about what doesn't work and is likely to provoke a cringe response in your readers. That's valuable information if you ever want to get remotely skilled at what you do.

Being accused of sounding like a kindergarten teacher would, of course, matter a great deal more to those taking themselves, escapist fun and life too seriously. I'm fortunate there. It's a big world and things can mean different things in different parts of it. 'Encouragement' does mean something different where I'm from to the sentiments you attach to it here, but so be it. There are those who think sport outside the elite fraction is meaningless, however much those outside of it get out of it. I'm not surprised that it's a philosophy that creeps into other areas, or any less determined to do what I do, regardless of what experts ( self appointed, or otherwise ) think.

Quote by TouchOfGray

Smirking. Invariably, characters with lustful thoughts are described as smirking: a "devilish smirk," a "mischievous smirk..." But any kind of "smirk" is annoying at this point. I'm also desperately weary of the "devilish grin". These are used so, so often I almost immediately lose my interest in a story when I run into it. Stop your characters from smirking and grinning like a bunch of idiots.

What would be your alternative? In real life no-one goes around expressionless unless they're suffering some sort of stroke, bellspalsy or classic resting bitch face. I have found some of the alternatives I've heard much worse from those trying to not use 'overused' words, such as, "He exclaimed with his lips in the shape of an upside-down frown." To describe every smile as a smirk is clearly nonsensical so I can understand the ire if the entirety of the story only includes smirk/smirking but sometimes it's the only one that fits.

An ' upside down frown' of appreciation here for that response!

Every time you call a dirty asshole a winking star a star dies. Stop, please. ⭐️

😉

Might just be me but it’s that good old scene, right of the start of the story where a woman gets changed into her sexy underwear, gets carried away and masturbates in front of a mirror. It rarely seems to add anything to the story, it’s hugely overdone and usually really tacky.

Quote by MrWrite

Might just be me but it’s that good old scene, right of the start of the story where a woman gets changed into her sexy underwear, gets carried away and masturbates in front of a mirror. It rarely seems to add anything to the story, it’s hugely overdone and usually really tacky.

I agree it’s been done a lot. I think it only serves a purpose if it explains something about her character. It needs to convey an emotion, though. Not just be in there for no reason.

I might be alone in this, but why do we need clever names for sex parts or elongated, “I’m cummmmmmmmiinngg!”

I think if the characters are dynamic with an interesting storyline that evokes emotion (whether love or hate), then a simply stated, “She came,” is powerful. I’d prefer descriptive verbs in the sex scene, an interesting setting, uniquely described characters, or gripping dialogue. Then call a pussy a “pussy” instead of a “velvet love canal”. The second would take me out of the storyline for sure. I don’t think the body part names or what oozes from them should take the attention from the characters. If they do then I think the characters themselves are cliche and the author tried to make the story unique with clever wording.

I think we writers get wrapped up in the wrong things sometimes.