Okay, I'm a firm believer in the whole "there's no such thing as an original idea" saying. No matter what you come up with, someone else will have thought of it too. I have a few idea in mind that I think would make good books, but I don't know what one to pursue.

So, my question is this: What plots do you feel are too overused?

Also, please feel free to elaborate on your responses. :)

I know romance is a genre and stuff,
but there is ALWAYS romance, in almost every story line,
and I know, everyone loves a good romance,
but it's so overused and stereotypical.

I feel ya there

I'm not a huge fan of the obligatory chosen one plot.

Penny; srsly. in this one book I recently read, it started out great, and then the main character met a guy, and she went from super kick ass to super stupid in the head, and I'm like really? you just had to ruin the whole thing with your stupid mushy love plot.

Romeo and Juliet... *insert finger down throat* Most overused story on the planet...

and therefor most annoying... I had to read I think 6 different versions in school...

Romeo and Juliet isn't even Shakespeare's best work.

Exactly... but it's the most used to death

they should definitely lay off the Romeo and Juliet,
in everything, or anything even similar should not exist.

Agreed. James and the Giant peach has been redone a lot too.

really? I've only ever seen the one.

I've seen about 6 versions. I had to watch/read/listen to them all in middleschool

wow, I didn't realize there were so many.

Yeah and that's just the ones I got exposed to... *shivers* there's new movies out and stuff too

I mean, I know fairytales and stuff, are constantly remade over and over.

Originally Posted by Seridano

I'm not a huge fan of the obligatory chosen one plot.

Haha. This is just for people who aren't creative enough to think of a better reason their lame, totally average character suddenly has awesome powers and responsibilities.

If someone is the chosen one they should already have that power to an extent...

exactly what Poet said.
srsly. we need some originality.

I hate it when the story is great, everythings is awesome, totally fine and then BAM romance.
WHY DO AUTHORS HAVE TO SQUISH ROMANCE INTO EVERYTHING?
If I want to read romance then I will pick up a romance book. It's fine if you mix romance into the plot but it's not fine when you ignore everything that was going on in the book before the romantic part and just start focusing on the romantic relationships between the characters.
And love triangles ._.

Perfect, flawless girl falls in love with shady, "bad boy". And another boy shows up, and there's a stupid love triangle, because everyone wants Mary-Sue.

Twilight.

How is she flawless?

Yeah pretty much anything with romance, unless the romance is unusual. By unusual, I don't mean vampires or demons. Platonic love can be a good thing, though.
I do find myself interested in books with its own world, or taking place in another culture besides the modern western world.
Heart-warming stories can be nice, but I guess certain kinds are overused as well, especially ones with dogs. Horses, dogs, and cats in general are overused.

As for characters, plain characters are very boring. The main character being that plain person, or the person who wishes to be normal is way overdone.
At the same time, making the character be downright mental like Holden Caulfield will annoy readers to death. The majority of the book is him narratively complaining about everything redundantly, and I've had to read that book 2 or 3 times in high school, since I transferred then...

Agreed on the whole romance thing. It has a time and place, but it isn't for all the time, everywhere. I honestly think a lot of books would've been better without the mention of "falling in love", especially books with strong female leads. like the Hunger Games

I mean seriously, can any freaking female lead (besides the princess from Brave) have an adventure and NOT fall in love? It drives me insane... I guess it's just catering to a specific audience, and if that's what people will buy, that's what publishers will publish and writers will write :/

So true... though I admit when it forces the girl to choose from being evil to good because the good guy is "hot"... that's rather entertaining...

~SUPER EDGY FORBIDDEN HETERO LOVE~ is definitely an overused plot in my book.

First of all, romance in general is a hugely overrepresented genre. Even if it's not the focus of the book, it still has to be blatantly there in most works. It gets tiring.

Second, WHY ARE THEY ALWAYS STRAIGHT? Statistically speaking, at LEAST 1 in 20 shouldn't be. Yeah, yeah, ~controversy~...get over it, pop-fiction writers; it's 2013 and over half of the population of the US sees nothing wrong with not being straight.

Third, we've seen just about every way this can go down. Class differences, age differences, SPECIES differences, and feuding families a la Romeo and Juliet are done ad nauseam. It's not "fresh and edgy" anymore. It's old, stale, and if it's going to be the backbone of your novel I sincerely hope you have something REALLY good to change the same old, same old.

Like maybe a twist ending where the love triangle is resolved by all three parties getting involved with each other. I like that one.