Time For Letting Go

It’s the end of the year, and I have been thinking about the books I’ve read, not just this year but for the past few. Four years ago, I decided to keep a book journal to track plot similarities in mystery/suspense books. The aim was simple: since I write in the genre, I was looking for ways to be fresh in my own projects.

What I discovered was a list of eight popular plot points and two language cliches. If you’re a writer, you might try to avoid these as I would imagine agents are getting sick of seeing them. Or put a different twist on them, if you prefer.

Here they are. The number in parentheses is the number of books they have appeared in.

It should be noted that this is a non-scientific poll, based on my own random selection of recent titles. Most were published in the last five years, and while most appear on best-seller lists, the sampling may reflect my own preferences.

1. Male character is the most likely culprit, but in the end it’s his wife who did it. (3)

2. Character hallucinates a plot point. (3)

3. Character presumed dead turns up alive. (3)

4. The protagonist, a lawyer, is hired by an ex to defend him in a criminal trial. (2)

5. Protagonist gets pregnant by a psycho. (6)

The good news, I guess, is that she usually doesn’t know he’s a psycho when the coupling occurs. Still, it raises my hackles a bit that this is one of the more popular tropes.

6. Character presented as a living person is actually dead. (2)

7. Included journal entries or letters are misunderstood. (5)

8. Pivotal clue is found in the jeans pocket in a laundry basket (4)

And language cliches:

9. “He looked at (character name) as if seeing her for the first time.” (8)

10. “It was hard to tell where [he] began and [I] ended. (3)