Let us continue the long line of clichés that I have somehow missed.
THAT ONE SEXUAL ASSAULT AT A PARTY SCENE
Ahahaha. Ha. Ha.
⬆ (Oh dear)
Okay. So, I'm not sure if you've seen this, but practically every single teen fiction book I've read that involved a nerd going to a party involves this one scene where Tessa is almost raped but is saved by Tyler.
First of all, SCREW YOU! Why would you even put this scene in your book? Like, legit, this happens in soooo many books that by this point, it's a must if you want to write a cliché teen fiction about a good girl and bad boy. Popular books have done it, and thus they created a formula where every single teen fic about good girls and bad boys involve this one scene where the girl has to be saved by the boy before she's brutally raped by a drunk guy.
Like, come on! You cannot be serious right now. To top it off, these authors have no idea how psychology works because Tessa is smooching off Tyler in the very next scene. Like, if you were almost raped, I'd think it'd take months for you to get over it. Wouldn't you feel so disgusted and want to scrape off all the skin your almost-rapist touched?
But no. Since Tyler saved Tessa, she's perfectly fine with doing the dirty with him. She must be incredibly apathetic or too aroused to care, which then begs a question why she refused a guy advancing on her. Just no! This is way too messed up. When this stuff happens you don't just go running into the arms of a guy you've been love-hating.
Being a teenager and shocked by this assault, especially since a) it's your first party experience ever or b) you've never had anything sexual before so a guy coming onto you forcefully would be incredibly traumatic, wouldn't you want to just go to the safety of your home and do something that comforts you? Like you would just retreat into your safe space where nothing can harm you instead of staying with Tyler, who is very experienced with manipulating girls.
I just don't even know how to feel about this scene. To top it off, why does Tessa ALWAYS need Tyler to save her? The scene to lead up to her getting assaulted is so contrived and forced that you wonder why it needed to be included in the first place.
Most of the time, she goes off on her own to find the bathroom or something like that, but even so, her getting separated from her friends come off as so forced and unnecessary.
Why does she go to the party again? Oh, yeah. Because most of the time, her friend forces her to go. This is also when she has a magical transformation where she wears a dress that "hugs her in all the right places." If your friend forces you to do something you really don't want to do, I'm not sure how much of a friend he/she is. But whatever. Tessa usually does kinda want to go, so it doesn't even take much effort to convince her.
WAKING UP TO AN ALARM CLOCK
Lol. I can't believe I've never mentioned this. Then again, every rant book I've ever read always talks about how books opening with an alarm clock is cliché, so I never really thought I needed to mention it.
⬆ (Oh well)
This scene is pretty self-explanatory. One thing I do know whenever I see that opening scene is that the first chapter will be completely boring because it will follow every single thing Tessa does to get ready for school.
⬆
(I don't really care if she wears a freaking bikini to school. Just get to the point already)
LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIPS
⬆ (Oh, boy)
Okay, so I kinda get why this concept is so popular. It shows real character development of how Tessa and Tyler get together by overcoming their differences and blah blah blah. Heck, even Pride and Prejudice, one of the only romance books I actually like, uses this cliché. Though, to be fair, I don't think this was a severe cliché back when Jane Austen wrote her books.
Anyway, what's really annoying about love-hate relationships is usually the execution. This cliché is actually one that I think should stay because it's pretty good, and I love a good smart banter between the couple. Bickering with my sisters irl is a complete pain, but when I see bickering between characters (siblings/love interests/best friends) in books, I completely fall in love with their bond because it's so entertaining to see how the characters pick apart the other's flaws before realising they both need to change. Like, it's just so cute to see how they know the other's weaknesses because it means they are close enough to know their flaws, but still have disagreements. And through the bickering, you also get to learn about the characters' personality and whatnot.
But, aside from that, I believe that love-hate relationships (romantic or otherwise) have a lot of potential in conveying humour, suspense, and so many other elements. That, and the possibilities of how this can be utilised is endless. A classic example of this is the lovers starting out as enemies, whether because they're on opposing sides of some kind of war or because they are specifically targeting each other. Then, the way they grow by understanding one another or realising they actually love to tease each other is just absolutely adorable, and it'd be like I'm a mother watching my kids grow.
So, it completely irks me when people use this concept in a kind of twisted way. There are several ways this concept is used annoy me.
Firstly, I hate it when this so-called love-hate relationship is just an outright abusive one. I get the feeling that some people don't really understand the concept of love-hate and outright interpret it as the characters being horrible to each other, but still falling in love.
Like, the reason this relationship works in Pride and Prejudice is because the characters realise their own flaws and want to get better because of one another. They aren't outright horrible to each other. Sure, both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy could come off as rude, but most of the conflict that happens in the novel is because their flaws end up clouding their judgement. Elizabeth doesn't like Mr. Darcy because she thinks he is a horrible man based on what she heard and her own run-ins with him. There is no abuse here. Just simple human errors that are fixed when they both realise their mistakes.
There is no abuse. They don't go around trying to make each other's lives hell. Yet, in a lot of modern romance fics, the characters literally try to tear each other down before falling in love. Like, they both try to hurt each other as much as possible. That's not love-hate. It's emotional abuse. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense here, but let's just move on.
Another way, I feel, this concept is ruined is when the characters who have the love-hate relationship completely change when they get together, or make up or whatever. I feel like with the hate part of the relationship, some people interpret it as some sort of argument. So, when the characters finally end up together, they just keep the love part of their relationship and completely forget about the hate.
Now, this isn't to say that they should keep hating each other. It's just that, I feel like the characters themselves shouldn't completely change their personality when they get together. A guy who is cold and inexpressive isn't going to suddenly turn into a puppy when he finds a girl he loves. My dad took years to even start expressing his feelings because he always grew up suppressing them and expecting others to just know by his facial expressions.
While the characters should develop, they shouldn't change (like, become a completely different character). Does that make sense? That character is still his/herself, so all the experiences they've been through will still be a part of them.
I guess a way to remedy this problem would be to keep their personalities but make them have more chemistry. It can be really difficult to do, and since I myself aren't a romance writer, I'm not sure how much of what I said can be taken at face value. Whatever the case, when a love-hate couple finally starts dating, I feel like they should still have banters. They could still tease each other by intentionally being annoying or something like that.
I don't know. Maybe it's just me.
USELESS LOVE TRIANGLES
Mmm...This is something I should have talked about a long time ago. Love triangles never seem to work. The problem with love triangles (or square/tetrahedron/double-decahedron [lol, don't even know what that is {Update: It doesn't exist, but you get the point} Lol, so many parentheses]) is that you ALWAYS know who the character is going to choose. It's so painfully obvious that you can usually guess just by reading their introductions.
Spoiler alert: The boy who's usually really nice and is in Tessa's friend group will have a crush on her, then maybe they'll date for a brief period of time before Tessa falls for Tyler and leaves him in the dust.
Never in my life have I seen a love triangle in a book really work. I've heard people say that the love triangle in The Immortal Instruments by Cassandra Claire is the only love triangle that actually works, but since I never read those books, I can't really say.
Most of the time, the love triangle is between two guys and the MC, and it's painfully obvious which one of them she'll choose. (It'll always be the more brooding bad boy). When the love triangle isn't about a guy trying to steal Tessa from Tyler, it's about Tyler's jealous "ex" trying to break the two of them up.
Do you know how a love triangle would work? If it was a conflict of life and death. Love triangles can be used for suspense in things like mystery. Jealousy is one of the biggest culprits for murder, and there are countless cases of a love triangle being the result of someone getting killed. That would be interesting, but otherwise, love triangles are bland and boring and are there only for a few chapters of conflict before completely disappearing off the face of the earth.
INSTANT BEST FRIENDS
Best friends in cliché teen fics in general are pretty generic and blah. She's either the super pretty one who's not part of the mean girl squad, and she's usually the reason Tessa finds herself getting involved with Tyler.
Like, literally, she sometimes just comes up to Tessa and says, "Hey! You're new here aren't you? You look like you need a best friend! Don't worry! I'll be your new bestie."
Ugh. I just kind of wish there would be a book about Tessa developing a best friend rather than just getting one without much effort, especially if she's an introvert.
I, myself being an introvert, never had a best friend since grade school. It might be a different case for me, but here was my mentality.
Every single best friend I had in grade school moved away eventually. So, in my mind, I thought it was pointless to have a best friend since she (as a kid, I only hung out with girls since there was a divide of girls vs boys in the class) would move away and we would never talk anyway. Instead of best friends, I had close friends. So, we'd be super close in school, but we would never communicate outside of school.
It wasn't until my junior-senior year that I got friends I'd consider my absolute best friends, and I'd been going to school with them for at least 2 years. (One of them I'd known for more than a decade). Our friendship developed, and we became best friends as we got to know each other.
Now, my case might be a little bit of an extreme case since my school was an international school that had a lot of people moving in and out every year. But still, my point here is that instant best friends don't seem very plausible. Maybe it'd be possible for extroverts (you lucky bastards), but since Tessa is almost always an introvert, I don't really see this instant BFF thing happening.
___
There. If I remember more clichés, I'll be sure to let you know. For now, I am tired and sick, so I'm gonna just relax and have something good to snack on. Like, honestly, there is so much rain where I'm at, and I'd sat in an air-conditioned classroom for four hours after being thoroughly soaked, so I practically invited the flu in.
So, for now, it's goodbye! Maybe I'll snuggle down and read a book or watch something online. :3