Laws and Rules Tropes

Some tropes seem to be expressions of underlying laws of fiction . By that I don't mean a law such that the violation of which constitutes bad writing. Nor do I mean something like a scientific law, in that the convention is considered a law because it describes some fundamental aspect of fiction that cannot be avoided. These are neither Omnipresent nor Universal tropes, and being Tools they can be Played With or even avoided like any other trope.

The term "law" should not be taken too seriously in any event, because, being tropes, many of them are a bit tongue-in-cheek, and because they can contradict one another. For example, you have Beauty Equals Goodness, and you also have Beauty Is Bad. Both can be legitimately used straight, just not in the same story unless Played For Laughs.

Following is a list of Law Tropes that appear in my stories:

All Myths Are Real -- In fantasy settings, myths, legends, and folklore are accurate descriptions of reality.

***** Medb, Team Girl, and Sir Differel encounter vampires, werewolves, ghouls, zombies, the Daoine Sidhe, demons, ghosts, mummies, CHUDs, the Cenobites, Deep Ones, dragons, unicorns, manticores, basilisks, wolfen, the Greys; you name it.

Arkham's Razor -- In fiction, the oddest answer is often the correct one.

***** All my stories are predicated on this. Well, almost; I do have few Meddling Kids! twists.

Attractive Bent-Gender -- Genderbent males make attractive girls.

***** Inverted with Sir Differel; she sometimes disguises herself as a man, and gets women swooning at her feet or throwing their underwear at her.

The Bechdel Test -- At some point, do two named female characters talk to each other about something other than men?

***** Men are Lady Margaret's favorite topic, but she and Differel also talk about monsters.

Bellisario's Maxim -- Don't examine this too closely. Another way to put it is, we could plug the plot holes, but that would cost too much.

***** I try to avoid plot holes like the plague, but sometimes they slip through. In any event, I don't intend for people to analyze my stories too closely.

MST3K (Mystery Science Theatre 3000) Mantra -- "It's just a story."

***** Anytime anyone reading one of my stories starts to think, "What kind of crap is he trying to pull here!", he should repeat this mantra until the spasm passes.

Moff's Law -- In criticism, someone is going to bring up 'Why can't you enjoy it for what it is?'.

***** Anyone seeking to critically analyze my stories should ignore any statement like, "Chill, dude, it's just a story!"

Chekhov's Classroom -- Information in a lecture will become applicable later on in the work.

***** In my story "Far-Sight", Dr. Jeremiah Arkenton gives a lecture on the theory of tachyons. Their properties become important in the climax.

Clarke's Third Law -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

***** Dr. Mabuse's mad scientist inventions. Plus, any alien technology.

Conservation of Ninjutsu -- In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder.

***** Played straight with the Caerleon Order. In "Man Friday", the monster decimates an entire platoon of soldiers, but one man kills the monster by himself. Somewhat justified, though, in that he thought outside the box and came up with a novel plan.

Cool of Rule -- Cool things are cooler if they don't break the laws of The Verse.

***** Everything in my stories obey the laws I set forth for my Verse, even if some of those laws require a certain amount of hand-waving.

Finagle's Law -- Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

***** The primary reason Eile and Sunny get into so much trouble.

Infant Immortality -- Babies don't die.

***** Played straight in the Waking World; justified in the Dreamlands in that no Dreamer under the age of consent can be harmed.

Law of Cartographic Elegance -- The world is always easily represented on a map.

***** Averted, especially in the Dreamlands; maps of the Dreamworld must either be published in atlases or printed on sheets larger than dining room rugs.

Law of Conservation of Normality -- No matter how weird things get, you still have to go to work.

***** Played straight in the Dreamlands, being as things there are pretty weird already. Also, until they became rich, Team Girl had graphic design and adventure company clients to satisfy.

Law of Inverse Fertility -- The fertility of a couple is inversely proportional to their desire to have a child.

***** Differel's son Henry was conceived the first time she and her future husband Victor had sex, before they even discussed having children. After he was born, they wanted to conceive another child, but failed despite their best efforts.

Law of Inverse Recoil -- Weapons have recoil inversely proportional to their real life equivalents.

***** Averted in "Man Friday" and "The Beast of Exmoor"; Holt is the only normal human strong enough to handle the recoil of a heavy anti-material sniper rifle, and Differel rejects trying to use it herself because she knows she can't.

Law of Inverse Romantic Interest -- The interest of other characters in a certain character is inversely proportional to the character's own interest in romance.

***** The more Differel tries to avoid romantic entanglements, the greater the number of men seeking to woo her.

Lord British Postulate -- Invincible characters will still be subject to attempts to kill them.

***** Played straight with Medb and Vlad Drakulya, who have certain specific vulnerabilities, but you still have to get past their defenses to exploit them. Subverted with Differel: she isn't invulnerable, but people or monsters still keep trying to kill her as if she was.

Magic A Is Magic A -- Magic is consistent; the same magical causes will have the same magical effects.

***** Played straight in the Dreamlands; as long as it's done right, magic always works the same way every time a specific spell is cast.

Magnum Opus Dissonance -- Soulless moneymakers will be more popular than the painstaking masterpiece.

***** I am constantly surprised by which of my stories are popular and which are not.

Never a Self-Made Woman -- A female character can only be part of the story as a relative or Love Interest to one of the male characters. If she holds skill or power, it should be attributed to the influence of a man.

***** Zigzagged to death. Medb, Team Girl, and Differel have adventures for their own purposes, not through the auspices of some man. However, they were trained by men but also women, as well as being self-trained in certain skills. Differel depends upon men in the Caerleon Order to do her job, and she must answer to men in HM Government, but her power comes from her family and her control of Vlad Drakulya. Ultimately, all four women have achieved their success through their own ability, but they had help along the way.

Nominal Importance -- If you're not named, you don't matter.

***** Averted in "Man Friday"; the nurse is never named, but she is the antagonist Differel must confront.

Rule of Personification Conservation -- Non-humans should be non-human for a reason.

***** Played straight in my stories; no Yogi Bears or Bugs Bunnies need apply. (Though the Princess in Orange can change all that with a snap of her fingers.)

The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction -- Hot women talking to average guys in bars means they have ulterior motives.

***** Played straight in "Redshirt" with a vengeance.

Schrodinger's Gun -- Only what has been revealed to the audience is fixed, everything else can be changed.

***** I plan out many background Verse and World Building details, most of which do not make it into my stories. However, those that do become canon, while those that don't are subject to change without notice.

Science is Bad -- Science destroys all that is good and beautiful about the world.

***** Played straight in the early Dr. Mabuse stories, but averted after she becomes a friend and ally as her inventions save the day.

The Smurfette Principle -- There will be only one female character in animated features not marketed solely to girls.

***** Inverted; Medb, Team Girl, and Sir Differel are more likely to team up with other women and have a single token male.

Theory of Narrative Causality -- Things happen because the plot says they should.

***** Duh. Or, put another way, THIS IS FICTION!!!

Truth in Television -- When a story depicts something that actually happens in Real Life.

***** This applies more to the tropes I use than my stories. The thing that needs to be kept in mind about this trope is that just because a Real Life spy might wear a tight-fitting jumpsuit, fear closed-in spaces, and once traveled through a crawlspace doesn't make the Secret Agent in the Spy Catsuit with the debilitating handicap of Claustrophobia crawling through an Air-Vent Passageway Truth in Television, because stories often exaggerate such things beyond what is possible in the real world.

Underdogs Never Lose -- The plucky disadvantaged guys come out on top always.

***** Played straight with Team Girl. Downplayed with Differel, who isn't really an underdog but often is disadvantaged. Subverted with Medb, who is rarely if ever at a disadvantage.

The Villain Makes the Plot -- The villain is the basis of conflict and therefore creates the plot.

***** My stories follow Villains Act, Heroes React, so duh. However, subverted in the Dreamlands, where Team Girl often initiate their confrontations with villains, though rarely deliberately.

What Measure Is a Non-Human? -- To what degree is killing a non-human the same as killing a human.

***** Zigzagged. Team Girl rarely kill anything, even after they become cynical and world-weary, and treat everything with kindness and respect until it proves undeserving, but they will protect themselves and defend the helpless. Medb has no qualms about killing any adversary, but will treat any friend in an honorable fashion. Differel will not hesitate to destroy any monster that poses a threat to Queen, Church, and Country, but she will ally herself with monsters willing to live in peace and obey British law, especially as she gets older. For the most part, my characters judge this question on behavior and practical needs, not ideology or philosophical tenets, though they tend to observe the Golden Rule.

Then there is the question of whether Dr. Mabuse's robots are human, and to what degree.

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There are other tropes that begin with the "Rule of ...". As with the Law tropes, the term "rule" does not mean something required or unavoidable. It is simply the way this group of related tropes was titled. Having said that, these tropes are all described in the same way:

"The limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to the degree by which it meets this trope."

In other words, the willingness of a reader to suspend his disbelief is determined by how cute/funny/glamorous/creepy/etc the story element happens to be. The cuter/funnier/more glamorous/creepier/etcerer the element is, the more likely the reader is to accept it without too much thought. In fact, these tropes are often used to dispel arguments among fans over implausibility in fiction.

These tropes are entirely subjective. Whether they work is up to the reader to decide, and two readers may not agree. As such, I could claim that Vlad Drakulya wading through a horde of monsters ripping off heads and arms and yanking out hearts and guts is WAY COOL!!!!, but no one else may believe me. Nonetheless, I do write stories with some of these tropes in mind, so what follows is a list of Rule Tropes that apply to my stories.

Rule of Cool -- The more wicked awesome an element is, the more likely readers will forgive the way it takes liberties with reality.

***** The aforementioned Vlad Drakulya, especially when he blows away monsters with pistols that can destroy battle tanks. Along with a female barbarian that can take on whole armies by herself, two girly girls who can put Indiana Jones to shame, and a lady swashbuckler with a honkin' huge sword.

Rule of Drama -- If the potential for conflict exists, it will always occur.

***** I don't write comedies, or romances, or New Age feel-good stories. I write stories about a female Conan, two adventurous girls, and a British aristocrat who hunts monsters. Damn right there's drama!

Rule of Fun -- The more fun/bizarre/weird an element is, the more likely readers will forgive the way it takes liberties with reality.

***** The last thing I want is to bore my readers to death. So I try to introduce excitement along with awesomeness and drama.

Rule of Scary -- The more an element creeps out the reader, the more likely he will forgive how illogical it is.

***** I don't find written horror scary, so I don't know how to write to frighten people, but I do try to creep them out.

Rule of Sexy -- The sexier an element is, the more likely readers will accept it no matter how outright impossible. Pertains to erotica rather than pornography.

***** Medb fights in the nude (justified in that heroic nudity is a cultural convention, and she is Nigh Invulnerable); Team Girl sleep in the nude (Girl on Girl Is Hot!), and wear Spy Catsuits, Latex Space Suits, and Form-Fitting Clothing; and the Princess in Orange likes to subject Sir Differel to Breast Expansion, Clothing Damage, and the Impossible Hourglass Figure, and dress her in Stripperiffic styles or Chain Mail Bikinis.

So, duh.

Next week, I will discuss tropes for Garnishing the Story.