I saw this topic in another forum and it's fun to do! Some of the posts were hilarious.

Which cliches can you not stand, or perhaps do you love in writing?

My pet hate is the orphaned kitchen boy, haha!

the strange relationships people have when they love some one no wait hate them love them then the next page hate them again

Tired of: European Medival style fantasy, the hotheaded hero.

LOVES: ANTIHEROES, and morally confused protagonists. Hero that don't want the desinty given to them. Insanely awesome powers balanced with logical disadvantages.

I'm starting to hate all of those fantasies where the hero's parents or family have been killed at the start (though this probably applies more to video games than books)

Also, i hate generally cliched lines. My particular pet hate is anything along the lines of "Are you thinking what i'm thinking?" HOW ANNOYING IS THAT LINE?!

Fantasy stories with a too bigger reliance on prophercies.

as above, huge prophecies that you get tired of reading halfway through and just give up on, hoping you'll get the drift when reading the rest of the book. I used to end up skipping the songs in Redwall books too >_>

Yeah, that's the worst one. Songs or poems. There's no need for them. That's like if someone wrote about someone writing a novel about someone who wrote a novel - completely unnecessary.

A short, mood-setting poem at the beginning can work quite well, but not through the book. And I did skip through most of the songs in The Lord of Rings...

Lots of maps can get annoying to, specially when they're full of landforms that are physically in the wrong place - I've spent too much time studying geography for incorrect maps! :lol:

Ah, but which is worse? Maps covered in locations and geographical features that aren't visited in the books (a la LOTR) or books that only have two or three main places marked so you don't know where everything else is (a la Robin Hobb)?

The maps of LotR are good because they have lots of random information in them (so I probably wouldn't like the Robin Hobb maps).

Its just annoying the way he has mountains forming a almost perfect square around Mordor - mountains just wouldn't for like that.

Its just me being a picky scientist :P

No, that's very true, that was ridiculous.

well duh, anything l-ike that is the work of MAGICKKKK sillies :P

See, I hate those books where magic is used as an excuse. True, there's very few of them, but it's cheesy. That's why magic in mine is always very very heavily limited.

haha, yes. magic needs boundaries. Even if it's just 'you can use as much as you want but may well die'. Best boundary, death.

True, but the boundary is ALWAYS death.

*starts thinking up another boundary, one worse than death*

insanity? But that is often fun. Or death of the mind.

extream pain? thats not good

or demonic possession!

I think you're on to something with the demonic possession!

*runs off to copyright office*

lol, its been done so many times TF, surely.

Haven't you read the Amulet of Samurkand? Tsk tsk.

Never even heard of it, but fear not for I have plans to expand my fantasy knowledge. Once i've finished my current Robin Hobb stuff, I'm going to try David Eddings and Robert Jordan, and maybe even a little SF

loosing youre mind and becoming demonic is not nice just watch Inuyasha

*dies*

*shakes TF* OH DEAR GOD YOU POOR BOY! POOR MISGUIDED DEPRIVED BOY!

seriously, it's the most engaging fantasy story I've read. It's by Jonathon Stroud. Now read it.