Book Cliches

Falling in love

Books have a few main ways of getting their characters to fall dramatically in love. The first is for the unexpected love. The second is the traditional damsel in distress. Third is the bestie S.O. And finally there's the random pick. Enjoy!

So, the unexpected love is always - and I mean ALWAYS - exactly the same. The girl is dating a popular jock but he's a jerk (go figure). She doesn't realize that he is terrible until she's forced into a situation with a nerd. He has to literally tell her that she is being treated wrong for her to understand. Then they fall in love and get married or whatever. Blah blah blah. We are ALL tired of this one.

The damsel in distress cliche is also quite popular. It's basically Bella from Twilight. In other words, the girl is all clumsy and can hardly walk to the kitchen without breaking her jaw. Somehow this is cute so some handsome guy falls in love with her. He is constantly having to pick them up and carry her to the emergency room and stuff like that. The author just likes to use these situations to help end the awkward or stressful conversations. These also help show that the guy still loves her after a fight because he kept her from dying... AGAIN.

Another cliche of falling in love is the bestie S.O. This is the one when two people have been best friends since they were born. Their moms even did parenting class together. They probably lived next door to each other and had thousands of inside jokes from when they were kids. They grow up to be teenagers and somehow fall in love. O-M-G I didn't expect that - note my sarcasm. Anyway this relationship always seems to move way too fast. They are friends for eternity, then one night when they are eating potato salad out by the cliff, they look into each other's eyes and suddenly realize that they are meant to be together. Then they slowly and romantically kiss each other. Then by the next day they have moved in together and had five kids.

Another is the random pick. This always seems to be a popular guy that has seen this girl being picked on by the popular gals, (who have endless cliches). The writer always has to focus on the empathetic look on the guy's face, to show that he isn't your average mean popular football player. One day while the girl is shyly walking by she stumbles into the guy. She is constantly apologizing and fumbling with her words as she frantically picks up all of her papers that somehow spilled out of her binder. Apparently in this world nobody bothers to clip any papers into their binders; that would really prevent most of this annoying scene. As they both stand up he always has to say, "It's fine, really." Then after that they look into each other's eyes and have a moment. At some point later he confesses his love for her and she's all surprised because of high school social classes. A few days later there's some issue between them. The next day he will do some grand gesture and win her back. "And they lived happily ever after. The End." *Eye roll*

Stay tuned for the next chapter coming soon about male cliches.