Book Tropes I Hate

"Trope" is one of those words used in the book (or academic) community, but not much anywhere else. One definition of a trope is a common or overused theme or device, a cliche. The most commonly criticized trope in book world is the love triangle: thank you Twilight. And Hunger Games. And ... well, you can probably name a few of your own. Of course, it was never really a triangle; wasn't it really a love "V" since almost never was there a third side to the triangle? For a triangle, Alyn has to love Bryn who loves Crys who loves Alyn. Now you have a love triangle! Write that (which is basically the plot of the movie Carrington with Emma Thompson). And isn't a love triangle actually either two people you're interested in, or you're cheating on someone?

But love triangles aren't what I'm here to talk about today. My most hated book trope is ... dreams. No, not your hopes and aspirations, that dream you have to lose 15 pounds. No, I'm talking about those odd pictures in your head while you're sleeping. Because authors use dreams in book after book after book. It's getting old. One of my issues is that half the time I don't get why the author put the dream into the story. What does it mean? Of course ever since Freud folks have been coming up with ideas, but if there's going to be a paragraph's worth of dreams in the book (or two or three pages!), then it should be significant to the plot. My other problem with writing a dream into the story is that it seems a cheap and easy plot device. A way to get weird, to put in some psychedelia, some wild writing. Or a way to sneak in some plot points without having to work them logically into the story.

So here's my challenge. In your reading, see how many books include a character dreaming about something. Then ask yourself: why is that dream in there? What's the author trying to do with that dream? And see if the author made as good use of the space devoted to that dream, as Van Gogh did.