Something About my Irks and Pains

For all of you who sent me well wishes over the last week, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your thoughts meant more to me than you can imagine. I am getting better...slowly.

Now, onto the reason for my post :-)

Aside from having no plot, there are a few things that really irk me, and here is where I will tell you about them.

1) Villains who explain their plans! C'mon, this sort of stuff is for kids shows and the realm of cartoons, yet you'd be surprised (or not) how many times I come across this sort of 'bad plotting'.

2) The villain falls in love with the hero/everyone falls in love with the hero. For me this borders on a 'Mary Sue' kind of plot. A story where the author is plainly living out their fantasies through their characters. Sure, Mary Sue may be common in the realms of fan fiction, but believe it or not, this creeps into other genre's as well, more notably the 'boy who can do anything' type of teen/YA fiction rampant at the moment. *groan* and here I was thinking 'wonder boys' were gone once Wesley Crusher left the Enterprise!

3) And you're going to hate me for this one: But women who are portrayed as Xena warrior-types. Okay, nice to have a strong female protag, no problem there. But there's just something not quite right for me when an author thinks that strong=masculine=hitting everything=acting like a man. A woman is a woman, sure she can be strong willed, strong of body, and everything a man is, but that does not make her a man!

Talk to you all next week.