Miss Literacy breaks out her Bics
I worry about my approach to mysteries lately. Perhaps too many hours spent watching forensics programs on TV have jaded me, but my tolerance for plot contrivances and ham-handed foreshadowing is rapidly decreasing. Poor Ellen Paul and her debut mystery, Corpse de Ballet - she hit me right at the wrong moment. If I were charitable, I would give her a "Romance Writer Switches to Mystery" pass that would allow her a higher-than-normal maximum on cliched writing, but today's just not her day. However, she did inspire me to break out My Little Red Pen, wherein I intend to catalog some of the more egregious instances of a writer moving the plot forward through the clumsy use of cliches and all-too-convenient "coincidences" that drive me to Office Depot for a 12-pack of the classic editor's tool. Someone's got to do it.
1. Instances of vomiting and/or queasiness for a female character between the ages of 15 and 50 are not a subtle sign that said character is pregnant. To anyone that has ever read a book or watched TV before, this is as flagrant as the fakeness of Tara Reid's chest pontoons. Prior offenders for this include Ken Follett and even my beloved Jasper Fforde. And no, male writers do not get an exemption. Clues to pregnancy are many and varied - let's try using some of the other, hmm?
2. May I never again read a mystery wherein the heroine's yeast infection leads her to the crime's solution. Crotch itch as deus ex machina? Delightful. Unfortunately, the creativity of the contrivance doesn't cover the bad plotting that made it necessary.
3. Repeatedly describing a character's consumption of a beverage as a clue to a poisoning isn't so much foreshadowing as beating me over the head with the clue stick. I am reading your words, you know. Mentioning it twice is fine. Pointing it out 6 times in 4 pages makes me wonder if you think I'm a little slow. Or maybe it makes me think you're a little slow.
These little mark-ups are great fun - I smell returning feature!
1. Instances of vomiting and/or queasiness for a female character between the ages of 15 and 50 are not a subtle sign that said character is pregnant. To anyone that has ever read a book or watched TV before, this is as flagrant as the fakeness of Tara Reid's chest pontoons. Prior offenders for this include Ken Follett and even my beloved Jasper Fforde. And no, male writers do not get an exemption. Clues to pregnancy are many and varied - let's try using some of the other, hmm?
2. May I never again read a mystery wherein the heroine's yeast infection leads her to the crime's solution. Crotch itch as deus ex machina? Delightful. Unfortunately, the creativity of the contrivance doesn't cover the bad plotting that made it necessary.
3. Repeatedly describing a character's consumption of a beverage as a clue to a poisoning isn't so much foreshadowing as beating me over the head with the clue stick. I am reading your words, you know. Mentioning it twice is fine. Pointing it out 6 times in 4 pages makes me wonder if you think I'm a little slow. Or maybe it makes me think you're a little slow.
These little mark-ups are great fun - I smell returning feature!
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