(My) Tropes To Avoid

One panel at World Fantasy was on tropes that must die. Situations and settings and characters and plot devices that are so overused that they need to be retired. Permanently.

The anti-climax: I didn’t attend this panel. However, I have sat in on similar panels and discussions, and have some thoughts of my own on the subject.

The takeaway from panels like this tends to be that most any trope can be well-written, though the more it’s used, the harder it it to come up with a new and different take on it. And sometimes tropes need to take a break – maybe come back in a few years with a fresh spin that makes it new and exciting again.

I highly recommend tvtropes.org – only if you have a few hours to spare to the rabbit hole!

I still have difficulty identifying tropes in my own stories, but there is an entire subset of tropes I prefer to avoid. I call it special-by-birth: characters who are somehow born special, whether because of family, or some unique ability, or because of some prophecy.

And if you know me and my stories, you’re probably laughing right now, because that encapsulates a lot of my main characters. I’ve only recently become aware of this, all right?

These tropes are essentially wish fulfillment. I mean, who doesn’t fantasize about having superpowers, or discovering she’s really an intergalactic princess? And there’s nothing wrong with wish fulfillment. If it’s written well, it can be a powerful tool. Tricky, though.

But the problem with the special-by-birth tropes is that what they are makes them special, not what they do. See the difference? What makes a character sympathetic and has us cheering for her are the choices she makes. Her agency. Characters that are the object of action and not the subject are boring, no matter how special.

Does this mean that I’m going to forget my stories that use these tropes? No. But it does mean I’m going to scrutinize each and every one of them.

And here is where you can peek into the workings of my brain:

I want this inherent specialness to inform the characters, not define them. So what would happen if I took away that thing that makes them special? Erased it entirely? Are they still them? Their values, their choices, their personalities?

Yes? Good. No? Back to the drawing board. Whatever character I have is too one-dimensional.

But if I took that specialness away, would the story still happen? If yes, then it’s nothing more than a plot device – deus ex machina – a shortcut. Sloppy. Get rid of it, and the story will be stronger. If no, I might be on the right track. Just so long as that thing that makes her special is not the fulcrum of every twist and turn of the plot.

In one novel, my main character starts out not knowing anything about her particular heritage, but take it away and there’s not much she would do differently. It is not central to move the plot, though it sometimes helps it along. So I had to play with what it would mean to take it out entirely.

Then there would be no story.

I have another story where the ability was central to the initial concept, but I’ve become less and less convinced that it works. Where the story stands now, I could easily write it out and not lose a thing.

The post (My) Tropes To Avoid appeared first on Anxiety Ink.