I highly disapprove of numerous cliched plots in one story. Or rather, more specifically: numerous cliched plots that are both extremely noticeable and poorly melded. An example, as should be obvious, has presented itself to me.
Eventually, in every fandom, there will be a story called "Love is Blind", which has a character contract blindness in some hideous way or another, only to be taken care of by either 1) someone who hates the newly-blinded character, 2) someone who has the social skills of a disgruntled marmoset, or 3) both. Then, through caring, understanding, and a lot of heavy alcohol, the characters realize they love one another, and poof, no more blindness.
So this story starts with the Love is Blind plot: one character has developed some sort of hideously debilitating thing (in this case, comatose behavior after trauma), and is being taken care of by the lower primate. I'm figuring this is a variant on the old hurt/comfort plot (or, depending on your definitions, motif), but as hurt/comfort is often the basis for all sorts of perfectly respectable fiction -- Colonel Brandon and Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility could arguably fall into this category, for instance -- hurt/comfort is not, by itself a cliched plot. When it manifests itself in a repetitive manner over multiple fandoms and is entirely predictable, however, it comes too close to the cliche, and one of the end points can be Love is Blind. Conclusion: Love is apparently both blind and much more involved in its formulaic drama than it really ought to be.
But I've read good Love is Blind stories. Hell, if I minded them, I wouldn't have gone looking for them all over the place. So really, one cliched plot is not enough to drive me screaming into the night.
As I was reading this bit of fanfic, the natural conclusion of the Love is Blind plot came about, and really, for all that it was a bit rushed, it wasn't half bad.... It was then that I noticed that the story continued for over twenty more chapters. Cliched plot number two was fast on the heels of Plot One's climax, and introduced itself about as subtly as a train wreck: Someone was in deathly danger by remaining a virgin, and so, for the good of everyone involved, Certain Measures Had to Be Taken.
I'm certain this phenomenon already has a name, but for the sake of fun titles, I like to think of this one as the Necessary Cherry plot. Once more, this thing'll turn up everywhere, even (unfortunately) in male slash fandoms.
-Buffy's in a magic circle set to Virgin Trap, and there's demons on the way! If only Giles could think of a solution...
-"Mr. Potter, I'm afraid the Dark Lord requires the pure and untouched skin of his most hated enemy." "Oh, no, Professor Snape! Pure and untouched? Damn my modesty! If only there was some way..."
-Scully gently clasps hands with Mulder as they stare through the bars of their alien prison. "I've never had sex, at least on screen" she sighs, "and in only an hour and a half the aliens will impregnate me with their dread virginity-required monster fetuses. I wish you liked girls, Mulder, I really do. If only...!"
Are there variations of this? Well, yeah. For instance, the "we have to get married [for some entirely practical -- or so they say -- purpose], but secretly, I love you" plot. Or, less a variant and more a related idea, the "we only have moments to live, and so surely, sex is the big thing we should be thinking about, because secretly, I love you" plot. In fact, if one were to think of this as a overall plot motif, these could all be stuck under the heading of "real conflict resolved through non-necessary solutions derived from secret infatuations". And I like that motif, because, dude, I'm a romantic.
However, Necessary Cherry strikes an off chord with me. Solving problems with sex is both problematic and often not really solving anything in a long-term realistic sense (I mean, it's nice right then, but later...). But if need be, I can handle that -- heck, I can even enjoy it. But when the conflict requires virginity... that's easy on the author and hard on the reader. The author wanted sex in the story -- here's sex! The reader, on the other hand, is stuck with the impossible task of reconciling why anyone would have virginity as some major requirement -- I mean, how are the parameters for it being defined? Why go to the trouble of requiring something so easily "fixed"? And why require something which frankly, in this day and age, can be hard to find anyway?
While I'm at it, what if the virgin would rather face painful something-or-other rather than get it on with the nearest available penis? There's no search for alternate solutions. The author didn't bother to think of one, but I, as a reader, can't get it off my mind.
Like every other cliche, though, I'm certain Necessary Cherry's been used to good effect. Possibly not as the entire basis for a story, but as a plot element, it's certainly entertaining. The problem arises with its presence in my current choice of reading; introduction of Plot #2 gives Stupid Fic one cliched plot too many. This didn't stop the author, though -- onwards to our third, and pray God, last cliched plot: Where's My Monocle?
Perhaps this is more of a theme than a plot -- I haven't searched this one out like I have the others, so its definition is, at the moment, slightly nebulous. What I've got is: For reasons that make no sense whatsoever (in other words, AU is not being used as an excuse), the women are wearing pelisses and short stays, the men have an impeccable knot in their neck cloth, and everyone's attending Venetian breakfasts. Why? Is it some wish of the author's to see their favorite characters in a Regency romance? (Answer: Yes.) Couldn't they have made it AU if they really wanted to do that? (Answer: Also Yes.) Then why the hell didn't they? (Answer: Because that, my dears, would require research. Whereas, if you set it in the here and now, any/all oddities can be explained away with modern idiocies.)
If not immediately obvious, this last one drives me bugfuck. Is it because of the context in which I'm encountering it? Quite possibly. I'll call Where's My Monocle a cliched plot for now, but I won't push it until I've read more.
So what's my problem? Aside from the fact that not one, but three cliched plots appear in this fanfic, what's really killing me here is the way they're being presented. There's been absolutely no attempt at melding the three plots, or foreshadowing actions in one that occur in another, or even bringing up previous conflicts from earlier plots. At the same time, this fanfic isn't a piece that should just be divided into a trilogy and be done with -- if it were divided into completely separate stories, there wouldn't be enough of a shared universe for the storyline to persist.
And maybe that's my big meta thought for the day. When an author is constructing a universe (even if that universe is built on the shoulders of another), there must be an overarching continuity, not just in the basic storyline, but in the worldbuilding itself. If the worldbuilding isn't concrete, then you might as well make each plot -- multiple or not, cliched or not -- its own separate and unconnected story, because unless the author pulls off a masterful stroke of cohesion, the audience won't buy what the author's dishing out. Compounding this error with unimaginative approaches to cliched plots will not by any means sweeten the deal.
