Awesome List is Awesome.

[kippurbird]

I was looking at Strange Horizons and they have a list of stories types they don't want to see. It is an Awesome list.

here

Highlights.

# Twee little fairies with wings fly around being twee.

# The narrator and/or male characters in the story are bewildered about women, believing them to conform to any of the standard stereotypes about women: that they're mysterious, wacky, confusing, unpredictable, changeable, temptresses, etc.

# White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy Simple Native Folk

# A place is described, with no plot or characters.

Comments

[subieko.livejournal.com]

# The narrator and/or male characters in the story are bewildered about women, believing them to conform to any of the standard stereotypes about women: that they're mysterious, wacky, confusing, unpredictable, changeable, temptresses, etc.


Wait, so they want male characters to never be confused about women EVER? Are the female characters allowed to be confused about men? Are they allowed to be confused about individual women, or are they meant to just always have total understanding of all women?

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

Suicide: Twee! *Twees*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

They're just saying, I think, they've seen a lot of these before.

[evewithanapple.livejournal.com]

Weeeell, I'm not fond of the Holy Simple Native Folk trope either.But what's wrong with confused males?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Maybe the type of those stories they've gotten?

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

Women, huh? All bitter little temptresses, I swear. Can never understand 'em, they think so erratically.

Yeah, women. Always so emotional. *scoff* Fuck 'em, right?

Haha, yeah, fuck 'em!

Yep.

Yep.

Women are crazy.

[evewithanapple.livejournal.com]

If the male characters get their heads out of their asses by the end of the story (i.e. by realizing that stereotypes are stupid) it could do some good.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

That's true, but at the same time, the list is mostly made of up things that could be done well but just aren't, and are frequently so overused that they don't really want to see them much anymore.

[(Anonymous)]

The narrator and/or male characters in the story are bewildered about women, believing them to conform to any of the standard stereotypes about women: that they're mysterious, wacky, confusing, unpredictable, changeable, temptresses, etc.

If you cut all this noise out of Jordan's WoT it would have been a trilogy.

[(Anonymous)]

White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy Simple Native Folk

Haha, definitely. Also tired of the primitive badass warriors that can slaughter a horde of medieval knight equivalents without breaking a sweat.

[emily-goddess.livejournal.com]

In a comedic/satirical story, vampires and/or other supernatural creatures come out publicly and demand (and/or get) the vote and other rights, but people are prejudiced against them.

But how else am I supposed to write my Very Meaningful Story about racism/gay rights/etc without actually having characters who are POC/queer/non-threatening?

Also, "twee" is and always will be a fabulous word. Twee!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Um. MAGIC!!

Twee is a great word. I need to make an icon of it.

[(Anonymous)]

A place is described, with no plot or characters.

'Sup, Lord of the Rings?