The poor, lame orphan looked up pleadingly and blinked away his tears. Whootie Owl puckers at overly-sweet scenes such as these. Death of familiar characters. It's OK for a parent or family member to die in the first few paragraphs, but kids will object when a main character dies well into the story. This is also true of animals that have become central to a story.
External forces save the day.
Let's say an avalanche falls on a greedy merchant. This plot line doesn't fit Whootie Owl's profile for Whootie Owl's Fairytales and Folk Tales , because an external force determines the outcome. Whootie Owl prefers stories where the individuals in the story solve their own problems. Main characters in Whootie Owl's stories have to exert some effort to find a solution to their problems. A story of how Anansai the spider, for example, tricks other jungle animals to get something he wants for himself doesn't fit Whootie Owl's profile for Whootie Owl's Fairytales and Folk Tales .