Personal cliches

[elfs]

I have noticed that I have a rather odd cliche’ in my stories. I don’t think it’s a particular tic of mine, but this morning while I was trying to figure out what to do with Officer Orin and Anaria Abbas (oh, dear, that’s a terrible last name; I shall have to change it), the crux of which is that the upstanding officer learns that Miss Abbas is running around town with a very short skirt and no underwear. So, how does the officer get a good upskirt glance of the rather airheaded Miss Abbas? How do I get him down to the ground?

He slips on the ice, falls and hurts himself, of course. A groaning turn over onto his back, which gives an full inventory of Anaria’s glories. A laceration on his forehead gives Anaria an excuse to bend down, bringing him an even better view and arousing other senses. And her care for him is a kind of intimacy forced by circumstance.

Except that I’ve done this before.  A few times, I think.  Furry & Nicolai had a “caring for the injured” scene, as do Linia & Shandy in the Honest Impulse novel.  It seems too convenient, or maybe I’m just noticing it more.

Maybe I don’t read enough romance. (I haven’t been reading romance recently, anyway; historical non-fiction and Joe Abercrombie’s nifty The First Law has been my reading stack this week.) Is caring for the injured as a pretense for getting the characters into physical contact, with barriers lowered by circumstance, a common trope in romance? Or is it just me?

Do you have a personal cliche that you’d be uncomfortable using again?

This entry was automatically cross-posted from Elf's writing journal, Pendorwright.com. Feel free to comment on either LiveJournal or Pendorwright.

Comments

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with *her* slipping and falling on the ice, or her skirt getting caught in an updraft from a passing bus or something?

And yes, it's a common cliche in romance or in building a romance.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

I think it's a fairly common trope because it's real. Studies show that people in stressful situations find each other more attractive (can't remember if it was just fear-stress or general...)

It's also well known that crushes on caretakers are common -- see "nurse" fantasies.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

Hurt/comfort is prevalent in fanfic, with (as everything else in fanfic) wildly varying degrees of success. It's got an excuse for physical proximity, physical (and possibly emotional) vulnerability (depending on the nature of the "hurt"), a reason for the protagonists to spend time together (whether that's 'just long enough to bandage a cut' or 'the duration of a protracted recovery')...

So, no, it's not just you. (The idea is somewhat cliché, but then, so is 'boy meets girl'. The execution is what dooms or saves you.)

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

The trope is called "hurt/comfort", and it is *very* common.

The ultimate story of hurt/comfort gone awry is Stephen King's novel Misery.

[urox.livejournal.com]

I have a coworker with the last name Abbas.

The theme is common in romance books.

Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale_Effect

[amythis.livejournal.com]

Another thing about hurt/comfort is sometimes shirts have to come off, like for arm injuries. ;-)

My personal cliche is people "blushing furiously," but as I mostly write Potterfic, I deliberately (over)use cliches to give it a canon feel.

[phred1973.livejournal.com]

And this doesn't help, but I really enjoy the notion of pretty young things running about $.location in short skirts and no knickers. It makes me happy.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

It's actually a stock scene for romance stories. Whole plot even.

Idea: Maybe instead of stopping to minister to him she's got her nose in her pda or something and breezes on by (still allowing the glimpse of her lovelies) and meets again at a later time, one in which he is perhaps looking to manufacture a meeting or reason to speak to her... perhaps on the pretext of warning her about the impropriety of her lack of undergarments?