individual author cliches

[Wabbit]

Reading the Koontz thread got me thinking about the phrases and words that certain authors use far too much! I'll start the ball rolling...

Koontz: Stucato, and twilight.

David Gemmell: Admitted, "big man."

The "admitted" one really annoys me a lot because apparently David Gemmell has no idea what the word actually means because not only does he use it constantly he uses it inappropriately!

He uses the same description constantly "big man" for just about every large warrior character throughout the whole of a book and through about every book he has ever written.

So what words and phrases have you noticed an author relying far too much on?

 

[funes]

It doesn't really count (in the sense that you meant), but having just finished The Rule of Four, I can tell you that the authors use the title "Hypnerotomachia" way too often. Wouldn't four guys who have spent four years together reach a point when they could just say "the book"?
I noticed something similar in The Da Vinci Code, too. I mean, the mindless, almost mantra-esque, repetition of stock phrases. It's probably why both books reminded me of a term paper that has to be 15 pages long with 8 pages worth of material.

 

[Stewart]

Koontz: Stucato, and twilight.?

Not having read Koontz for years upon years there are two phrases that I remember him using. The streetlights were always either sodium or sulphur yellow (can't remember which) and when someone was shot it was typically described as sudden roses.

It doesn't really count (in the sense that you meant), but having just finished The Rule of Four,

Please tell me you thought it was a heap of crap, too.

I noticed something similar in The Da Vinci Code, too. I mean, the mindless, almost mantra-esque, repetition of stock phrases.

• Robert Langdon was always suprised how few people knew that he was a cock.
• Robert Langdon smiled when he thought about how few people knew the book was really crap.
• Robert Langdon enjoyed seeing the look on others' faces when he told them he was going to die soon.

 

[Wabbit]

Not having read Koontz for years upon years there are two phrases that I remember him using. The streetlights were always either sodium or sulphur yellow :

Ah yes! I remember! You are right. The street lamps are always sodium.

 

[G4G]

Paul Auster:

"little by little" and "bit by bit"

anyone else noticed this? Flower - how about you?

It's kind of endearing, more than anything else.

 

[namedujour]

My personal pet peeve is the misuse of the word "which."

I've been reading 1984, by George Orwell, and by the time I reached Page 36 was ready to scream. Just out of curiosity, I took a yellow highlighter and went on a Which Hunt. In one paragraph, the one that begins, "What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led..." there are 10 occurrences of the word "which." In only TWO of these instances, did Orwell use the word properly. In the remaining eight, he should have used "that," or - better yet - simply rephrased the sentence more effectively in order to remove the word altogether.

Clue: "Which" is almost always preceded by a comma. There are exceptions (like "to which"), but not many. If a comma isn't appropriate, neither is "which." Use "that" instead.

Furthermore: It is lazy writing to rely too much on "which" sentence structures to describe something.

"The girl wore a dress which was red, walked to the store which was on the corner, bought a paper which was on the counter, and paid with change which she received during an earlier shopping trip."

Orwell was irritatingly addicted to that form of desciptive phrasing.

 

[Jemima Aslana]

R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books come to mind.

"600 lbs of panther"(about Guen)
"violet orbs"(about Drizzt's eyes
"deadly dance"(about Drizzt's swordplay)

There are many more because Salvatore generally does not boast a very impressive language, but I can't be arsed to find more right now.

 

[namedujour]

R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books come to mind.

"600 lbs of panther"(about Guen)
"violet orbs"(about Drizzt's eyes
"deadly dance"(about Drizzt's swordplay)

There are many more because Salvatore generally does not boast a very impressive language, but I can't be arsed to find more right now.

"Violet orbs" would send me up a tree as well. I have no respect for authors who make women's eyes either "violet" or "emerald green." Those are cartoon eyes, created by bad writers.

Has anyone EVER seen a pair of eyes (tinted contacts aside) that looked remotely "emerald green?" It just screams Bad Romance Novel.

 

[clueless]

Has anyone EVER seen a pair of eyes (tinted contacts aside) that looked remotely "emerald green?"

Yes, my mother's. No, I am not joking and she was born long before contact lenses were invented.

 

[namedujour]

Yes, my mother's. No, I am not joking and she was born long before contact lenses were invented.

I'd like to see a picture.

 

[clueless]

You were right. I got the wrong stone.

 

[funes]

Please tell me you thought it was a heap of crap, too.

I'd say that it wasn't quite as bad as The Da Vinci Code, but then what is?
I found it very annoying (and relentlessly boring) that the authors of Rule of Four spent the first two hundred pages of the book making sure that everyone knew one of them went to Princeton and that the experience was wonderfully Ivy League.
I could go on.

 

[Jemima Aslana]

"Violet orbs" would send me up a tree as well. I have no respect for authors who make women's eyes either "violet" or "emerald green." Those are cartoon eyes, created by bad writers.

Has anyone EVER seen a pair of eyes (tinted contacts aside) that looked remotely "emerald green?" It just screams Bad Romance Novel.

Generally any author who feels the need to continuous point out that a person's eyes are emerald green, amber gold, sea blue or some similar comparison. whatever happened to having grey, or hazel eyes? why does it have to be something that can be compared to something else?

Everytime I run into it I think of Shakespear's Sonnet 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white.
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
...

And I'm gonna stop now. But this sonnet is really a perfect description of my peeve with authors describing their heroes and heroines to have supernaturally good looks.