Here’s today’s question:
In storytelling, you get certain tropes — earmarks of genre, of format, of style, of author — that either happen naturally or are evoked forcibly to be a part of the story.
(You can find a major warehouse of these tropes at TVtropes.org.)
So, let me ask you:
What tropes are you tired of seeing?
What tropes in storytelling are too toxic? Too predictable? Or too damn boring?
Jemima Pett says:
It can be quite difficult not falling into these tropes when you are writing (especially mash-ups where you’re not really familiar with a genre!) – there is an element of what people expect of a certain genre. But then, the onus is on authors not to fall into those traps, to avoid the obvious and challenge the expected.
Thanks for the link though – I will explore what I have to avoid!
June 24, 2013 — 6:25 AM
Victoria Byron (@vyctorian) says:
Misogynistic tropes and racist tropes like the “Magical Negro” are very toxic. On the less serious side a trope I find too predictable is character’s in all black and red or other typical bad guy traits being well bad guys, I enjoy it when they turn out to be the good guys instead much more.
June 24, 2013 — 6:28 AM
Brian C Hall says:
I very much concur.
June 24, 2013 — 7:44 AM
Eva Caye says:
I wrote about my Good vs Evil hangup here: http://evacaye.blogspot.com/2013/01/good-vs-evil-that-tired-ol-trope.html Basically, since I have never met anyone who claims or intends to represent unmitigated evil, I’m tired of all the Bad Guys being sooo evil they have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
I’m curious as to what constitutes a trope, though. I have a few running jokes in my series, a phrase I mention in every book, for example. Is it only a trope if it ‘goes mainstream’ with other authors?
June 24, 2013 — 6:37 AM
A.C. James says:
I agree… I have a weakness for well written bad boys but they need to be sympathetic in some way otherwise they just aren’t as likable.
June 24, 2013 — 1:36 PM
Abby says:
“Above all, a trope is a convention. It can be a plot trick, a setup, a narrative structure, a character type, a linguistic idiom… you know it when you see it. … when the trope itself becomes intrusive, distracting the viewer rather than serving as shorthand, it has become a cliché.”
Basically, something you describe as a ‘running joke’ probably isn’t a trope and yes, it usually would be picked up by other authors and/or media to become a trope, especially one that’s annoying/intrusive.
June 25, 2013 — 12:46 AM
Brian C Hall says:
My big thing is names in Fantasy and SF. Whether person, place or thing.
For fantasy, “Ks” and “Xs” should never be used. Names like “Darkoth” or “Raxammon” or anything else that sounds like it was taken from a book of Cimmerian baby names needs to go. Also any bad guy name containing anything similar to “deth” or “dark” or “blak” or anything else as blunt as that, is crap. Tolkien was the first one in this game and the closest that I can recall he ever got was “Mordor” and “Morgoth”. “Mord” being German for “murder” and “-goth” being a reference to the Goths and Visigoths. But, first off, he was still being original. No one had done what he was doing. And, secondly, at least he had the good graces to try to hide it in a language not English.
In SF it’s “Xs” and “Zs”. When “Captain Xanuna” and “Captain Zargon” initiate a starship dogfight, no matter how nail biting, the names make me want to donate the novel to a good old fashioned book burning. SF is also plagued with one syllable names. One syllable names are fine, but when used too much they’re a cop out for the unimaginative.
Oh, and apostrophes and accent marks for no fucking reason… You can get away with it sometimes but only if done well. Klingon (despite the shitty race name) does a great job with apostrophes because the language is well developed. It’s a very guttural language with a ton of glottal stops. I fits. Apostrophes aren’t used in words just to purtify them. They’re used to signify a certain pronunciation and they’re rarely used in SF&F for this purpose.
It’s the simple distinction between shitting out a world after one too many D&D sessions or crafting a world like a sculptor with a slab of marble. In one, you’re a hack. In the other, you’re an artist. Sure, hacks can get published. Hacks can even be pretty damn successful. But only an artist can make anything truly great.
This is what you do. You take your created race, or person, or legendary item of whatever, and then think of a general motif or feel you want them to have. After that you study the naming conventions of real life ethnicities and cultures in order to get a feel for how these things develop through time. One of the first things you’ll realize throughout the worlds cultures is a nearly universal absence of hard sounds and difficult-to-pronounce names. They’re filled with soft, natural sounds. Even in languages that are known for being harsh, like German, follow this rule. Most German dialects are actually very beautiful sounding. And, when spoken by a native speaker, even the most harsh dialects have a certain grace.
The point is, if you’re going to create a world and spend months or maybe even years of your life writing a novel, why not spend another half-a-day to at least make it interesting and different?
So yeah… you asked for a trope that bothered me and I think the length of this rant proves the extent to which this trope annoys me. lol I’m done now though…
June 24, 2013 — 7:37 AM
Brian C Hall says:
I should mention that this can backfire if you go too far with it though. If you’ve ever seen Babylon 5… They went to far with the Centauri. Love the show but… damn those guys were badly conceived…
June 24, 2013 — 7:50 AM
Brian C Hall says:
went too*
I need to go to sleep….
June 24, 2013 — 7:51 AM
Benjamin says:
I don’t know if this is the the biggest gripe I have, but it is the one I am wrestling with in my current book. The trope that a hero “wins” a girl (like she was a blue ribbon or a NEW CAR!) just for being heroic. Nothing devalues a female character faster than putting her in the prize box along with fame, fortune, and saving the universe cred.
June 24, 2013 — 8:35 AM
Anthony Laffan says:
The work I’m editing right now gets around this by simply not having there be a romantic relationship. I’ve also changed protagonists to women, or made them gay, to avoid or at least stilt the “win a lover” prize. My favorite so far though is when the “romantic interest” pursues the hero. It lets you have the romantic interest ‘win’ the hero for the relationship to happen.
June 24, 2013 — 4:34 PM
Anthony Laffan says:
I should clarify, the first couple are less about devaluing the character and more about making sure that it isn’t always “a boy wins a girl” or the tied on idea that “a woman’s love, and therefore sex, is something you earn by doing heroic deeds and saving her life.” It’s also why I like the protag being pursued, they can still have agency in the relationship but it helps make it not feel like the protag is earning sex/love by saving the day and being a hero. It’s just something they’re finding along the way because they found someone who wanted it enough to fight for it.
June 24, 2013 — 4:36 PM
Ben Wintersteen says:
That is pretty solid advice. Got me thinking.
June 25, 2013 — 2:05 AM
Jessica says:
The damsel in distress. Though there are more things parodying this than playing it straight these days.
And narrators thinking about the thing they’re not thinking about in order to hide it from the reader while at the same time letting the reader know there’s something they don’t know. There’s a particular fantasy author I stopped reading because of this one. The POV character would know some big secret and the fact that they knew a secret would be dropped into the narrative without revealing what it was. It felt really forced.
But the biggest one: stalker guys being seen as romantic instead of creepy.
June 24, 2013 — 8:51 AM
Aerin says:
You’re sending people into TV Tropes without warning? Good God, man, that site can paralyze a writer for WEEKS! The first time I found it, I don’t think I came up for air for a solid month, and it’s been known to crash my browser from too many open tabs…
I’m a little sick of twist endings at this point. It makes it hard to get sucked into the story when you’re instead looking for clues to the mystery. A nice straightforward story is refreshing once in a while.
I think most tropes can be interesting if used intelligently and unexpectedly. I like when an old standby gets invoked, examined from every angle, and pulled apart to see how it ticks, all without getting subverted. I think it’s possible for a work to examine why something becomes a trope without deconstructing it entirely. Remember, Tropes Are Not Bad.
June 24, 2013 — 8:57 AM
Brian says:
Funny that you mentioned twist endings: I was just watching an episode of “The IT Crowd” in which one of the characters laments beings told in advance that there’s a twist at the end of a movie he’s been waiting to see. The twist isn’t revealed, but just the knowledge that a twist was coming was enough to ruin the experience for him as he spent the entire movie trying to guess what the twist would be.
I think twists can be okay but they need to be really spectacular, the kind of thing that you never saw coming, but as soon as it happens you’re like “Oh, of course!” Most of the time, twists just end up feeling forced.
June 24, 2013 — 9:49 AM
Winnie says:
I hadn’t considered this but I think it’s accurate, obvious bait ruins it. The things you never see coming but are placed so carefully you feel like a dunderhead when realization hits, those things are good. The zomg wait for it wait for it, not so much. I remember groaning about 3 minutes into Shutter Island because I just KNEW.
June 24, 2013 — 5:35 PM
Winnie says:
“You’re sending people into TV Tropes without warning?” This. The trope web is deep. Too many tabs for months and months.
June 24, 2013 — 1:49 PM
Brian C Hall says:
For me, the really great twists are rare. In film I can’t even think of half a dozen movies with truly great twists. Good twists are one’s where the twist is circumstantial to the plot (i.e. Darth Vader being Luke’s father.). If you go for a good twist, it can be weak and still not ruin the movie. The really great twists are very risky because they require the entire movie to hang on them (i.e. Bruce Willis is a ghost.). The problem with the latter is it’s really easy to fail at. I prefer to stick to smaller twists that will make people go, “Huh…” instead of trying to make them go, “Wait, what?!”
June 24, 2013 — 4:03 PM
Sarah Z. says:
I have a thing for bad guys. I love villains. The most awful sin you can commit to me is to have a weak villain. I hate when someone spends pages building up a well developed protagonist and then treats the villain like a throwaway NPC. The antagonist needs to be just as compelling. They will have huge flaws, but they are still human (usually, unless this is SF). Everyone is the protagonist in their own tale. Remember that the villain has a tale too, he doesn’t just exist to be an obstacle to the hero.
Also, if they are in a position of power, they must have had the skills, charisma, guts and influence to get themselves there. Do you think they would surround themselves with idiots who would become the weakest link to their downfall? Think about it this way, who protects the Presidents, Prime Ministers, monarchs and the Pope? Very elite, specially trained warriors who are experts at combat, investigations and human behavior. Why is it such a stretch to think that a villain in power wouldn’t also be protected by equally well-trained forces?
I’m tired of evil for no reason, empty villains with no real purpose except to exist and be evil and idiotic henchmen/security.
June 24, 2013 — 9:04 AM
jdsfiction says:
I totally agree with your statement, and it was very well said. I can’t stand it when the antagonist is only there to put the protagonist into peril. It’s a lame way to use what could be a compelling character. Even bad guys believe they are on good quests.
June 24, 2013 — 12:59 PM
Rossi says:
This. Also, the thing people tend to forget is that villains need to be strong enough that the hero has to _try_ pretty hard to beat them. A weak villain makes your hero look like a bully/lame.
June 24, 2013 — 4:19 PM
Dan Thompson says:
The new guy/gal who is struggling even to keep up with all that’s going around him… turning out to be the chosen one, the second coming of Our Fantastical Savior, the prophesied champion, the last scion of Famous Dead Dude, and a generally overpowered fluke. All he has to do is learn a couple of rudimentary skills, and he becomes an unstoppable killing machine.
I’ve seen this kind of thing done well and believably (Harry Potter comes to mind), but I’ve seen it done badly much more often.
June 24, 2013 — 9:26 AM
polarbear6761 says:
History causing evil to befall the next generation. I can think of only one author who has used this time and again without it getting old and tired, but only the one. How many times are the bad acts of our great great great …(you get the idea) grandparents, aunts or whatever going to come down to haunt us or worse cause us to repeat their bad behavior due to some family inheritance? YUCK!
June 24, 2013 — 9:35 AM
Norah says:
Agreed. Which is funny, when you think of it, because the real-life evil dangling over our heads is mostly due to previous generations. (Plenty of real-life good too, of course, but mostly evil. And a few Big Red Buttons.)
June 26, 2013 — 1:04 PM
gillianspeace says:
Recently, for me, it’s been the “disposable partner” — the spouse or fiance(e) who, either before the story even starts or else right at the beginning, dies tragically (often but not always with the couple’s adorable little children in tow), thereby enabling the protagonist to learn some Very Important Lessons about life, love, and embracing possibilities…as if the entire purpose of the deceased person’s existence was to help his or her surviving partner self-actualize.
Even worse is that, in the process of setting up this trope, the author reduces truly awful things like cancer, fatal car crashes, mass shootings, etc. to tacky throwaway plot devices that don’t seem to have much lasting impact on the MC except to make him/her vaguely depressed (that is, until he/she happens upon the REAL love of his/her life, in which case it’s good to no longer be saddled with that previous placeholder partner because, you know, that would be really awkward.)
Either way, nobody wins — not the one who died so that the hero/heroine could experience personal growth, and certainly not the one who shows up to teach the hero/heroine how to achieve said personal growth — except, I guess, the one we’re supposed to be sympathizing with (who starts to seem like a solipsistic $#!+).
June 24, 2013 — 9:37 AM
Imelda Evans says:
YES! I also hate romances where, if the woman has had a previous relationship, even if that person died, it was never as good as the new one. Why can’t they both be lovely? Different, obviously, but why does the previous love have to be just a stepping stone? Love what you said about reducing massive life events to minor plot points.
June 24, 2013 — 5:51 PM
Michael R. Underwood says:
I have a deep Rar for the trope of Women in Refrigerators: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators
Lazy, callous, and/or hurtful storytelling.
June 24, 2013 — 9:37 AM
Brian C Hall says:
Concurred. This bothers me so much that it’s extended further, to the point where I have trouble killing off any characters without developing them in some way. I have characters that I kill off within a page and a half of introducing them, but in that page and a half I try show the reader who they are and what their personality is. That way the reader understands why the characters react to the death. I keep having people berate me for creating characters they like and then killing them, but that’s the point. You SHOULD care when someone dies. A death, even in literature, should never be a non-event.
June 24, 2013 — 5:36 PM
filamena says:
Maybe stop motivating your characters by having them step over the bodies of dead, abused women. (General you, not specific.)
June 24, 2013 — 9:41 AM
Andy says:
Redneck stereotypes.
June 24, 2013 — 9:46 AM
Graham Milne says:
The Chosen One is something I’d like to see disappear. An ordinary person who finds it within themselves to do heroic things without their fate being preordained by a faux-poetic thousand-year-old prophecy is much more endearing. Also dislike magical McGuffins, i.e., “We must get the Sacred Chalice of Whoozenwhatsits to the Forsaken Pit of Hergersheimer before next Tuesday at 2:47 p.m.!” Tolkien Did It Better. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care – give me characters with wants, needs and emotions I can understand. And as Brian Hall observes above, weird, polysyllabic, consonant and apostrophe-heavy fantasy names that I can’t figure out how to pronounce stop me dead as a reader.
June 24, 2013 — 9:46 AM
Kira Lyn Blue says:
I definitely agree on both the Chosen One and the Sacred Object That Must Be Found. The Chosen One is the one that really annoys me, though. Maybe I just have an aversion to anything reeking or fate or pre-destination, but I’d rather see a character choose to be a part of something bigger than themselves than be drug into it because “it’s their destiny.”
June 24, 2013 — 12:02 PM
Brian C Hall says:
🙂
Also, I agree. These two things have been done to death. Granted, they can be done well, but it’s safer to just stray far away from them. A hero simply isn’t a hero if they’re obligated to save the day. Heroes always have a choice.
June 24, 2013 — 5:50 PM
Veronica says:
The ugly duckling into swan. I’ve been around kids too long to believe that a shopping spree or a new friendship with a “popular” kid will suddenly propel a “dork” particularly a loner dork into the ‘elite’.
June 24, 2013 — 9:48 AM
Brian says:
My main problem with this trope is that it almost always misses the point and reinforces the dichotomy between popular and unpopular kids based on superficial criteria. I understand there’s a certain amount of truth in this, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be propped up.
The other problem with the trope is that the alleged “geek” who is to be made over is invariably already attractive (Rachael Lee Cook in “She’s All That” comes to mind). The transformation usually involves little more than taking off glasses and combing hair. The trope would be somewhat more compelling if they could take a person who is legitimately unattractive and make them popular.
June 24, 2013 — 10:05 AM
Kira Lyn Blue says:
It’s not just kids or YA lit. I’m tired of seeing the Swan Scene in PNR and UF, you know where the heroine gets all gussied up in a fancy dress, makeup, and coiffed hair and all the guys fall all over her stunning beauty.
June 24, 2013 — 12:05 PM
Aiwevanya says:
Disposable street kids, you know that plucky, streetwise orphan sidekick that gets killed off about halfway through the book to up the angst for the main character for about a chapter and a half and then be forever forgotten (because hey, no parents to care and the hero has bigger problems now). I loathe that, really, really loathe it, as in, probably will not finish the book, will not be reading anything else by that author loathe it.
June 24, 2013 — 9:51 AM
David Earle says:
The Heroic Orphan is getting a bit tired. (Listed on TV Tropes under Death By Origin Story.) Especially in comic circles it’s becoming too common for the hero to lose his parents/family as part of his origin or a main motivating factor. Batman was fine, but then it turned out Green Lantern’s father’s death makes him the greatest Green Lantern, and then Flash became obsessed with proving his father innocent of killing his mother after having a good family life for decades (at least that one was an attack by Professor Zoom). Then with Marvel (Plinkett Voice Activate!) you’ve got Spider-man, Daredevil, Wolverine, Cyclops, half the Fantastic Four sort of, Rachel Grey, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, the Hulk, the new Nova, Magneto when he’s a good guy, and Kevin Bacon. It’s too much!
June 24, 2013 — 9:51 AM
River Vox (@River_Vox) says:
My daughter, age 11 1/2, routinely complains that in all her YA books the parents are dead or painfully divorced. She does not know a single kid with a dead parent and only two families who have divorced. In both of those cases, the parents get along amicably. If you took YA literature and peopled a world with it, everyone would be an orphan. I try to explain that this is supposed to give the story some drama, but she thinks it’s bunk and every book that employs this trope is reduced in her estimation. I think it’s just lazy. Also, please note: elementary school kids no longer have “lunch money” which can be stolen by bullies. They have credit accounts. (I suppose their phones could be stolen.) Be aware that your personal childhood experience might not match the present and that a middle school cafeteria is so full of drama, no parent has to die.
June 24, 2013 — 9:52 AM
Chihuahua Zero says:
This is turning into the “Pet Peeve Tropes” thread over at TV Tropes. :p
On subject, there’s the trope when when a middle- or high-school character falls in love with their best friend, sometimes since preschool. It happens too much these days, and is sometimes used to form a love triangle for the sake of itself.
June 24, 2013 — 9:55 AM
Theresa Meyers says:
Want to test your word-smithery bad ass ninja skills? Try writing three tropes into a story and still make it fresh. It’s a lot harder than it seems.
Part of the reason tropes still continue to work is because they tap into the cultural subconscious. They are repeated themes we cling to in storytelling, much as Joseph Campbell described in his work The Power of Myth. That’s why George Lucas said he followed Campbell’s outline of the mythical structure in his movie making. It’s why certain stories, regardless of the tropes, still elicit a strong cultural response. (Harry Potter, anyone?) Tropes: Good vs. Evil, Man against the world, Man against himself, the underdog, school bullies, first love, orphan child, bringing down the establishment, revolution in society, (seriously I could go on and on).
The challenge for us as writers is not to eschew the tropes so much as to take this psychological tool and use it t our advantage. To dig into the slimy coils and bends of our reader’s brains and implant the idea that while they feel drawn to our story they don’t know why and they can’t stop reading, even though they sense they know how it will end. It’s like being a brain surgeon and a psychologist with words!
June 24, 2013 — 9:57 AM
Lala says:
No, it’s not really that hard. Tropes aren’t always bad things, they’re just commonly used aspects of fiction. Anything can be a trope, really. Pretty much every work of fiction has three tropes in it, if not more.
June 24, 2013 — 1:10 PM
johannpollardn says:
The farmboy killing the dark lord has been done to death. I also feel unexplainable rage towards fantasy authors making up their own curse words for some reason. “Blood and Ashes” makes me want to tear my eyes out. If you want to curse, curse.
June 24, 2013 — 10:02 AM
Aerin says:
This is trickier than it seems. A lot of curse words are religiously derived, and if you take out that religion, having them there no longer makes sense. After all, if the culture doesn’t have a concept of hell, “damn” and “hell” wouldn’t have come up. The trick is to do it in a way that doesn’t seem egregious. (Drink!)
June 24, 2013 — 10:48 AM
athenagrayson says:
Made-up curse words also allow you to get around censors with lists of “no-no” words and/or criteria for YA readership. If it’s a made-up word, the kids are smart enough to get your drift, while the censor-bots can be fooled.
June 28, 2013 — 11:06 PM
agincourtdb says:
Every time someone one Defiance says ‘shtako!”, which means of course exactly what you imagine it means, I root for the razor rain a little more.
June 24, 2013 — 12:28 PM
Lala says:
Does it mean “shit taco?” It does, doesn’t it.
June 24, 2013 — 1:11 PM
agincourtdb says:
I would go with the mushroom, myself, but shit taco works. 😉
June 24, 2013 — 5:34 PM
Winnie says:
I second that about cursing except for when it comes to frak. Though it’s a violation of this, It allows me to be vulgar and nerdy in mixed company. I need that.
June 24, 2013 — 5:43 PM
Graham Powell (@graham_powell) says:
Here’s a slightly different question: does fandom hurt genre fiction, but calcifying certain tropes in place? I’m thinking in particular of horror, with the current vampire and zombie trends, but I think it happens in all genres.
June 24, 2013 — 10:03 AM
Brian C Hall says:
It depends. You have to know something about a genre to do it well, but fandom can be dangerous too.
That’s the number one reason a lot of comic books have been so terrible for so long. A fan of Superman has a lot of trouble thinking of Superman in any other way than they did as a child.
One way to write for things you’re a fan of is to think of all the things about it that you don’t like and work from there. Another would be to just sit back and consider, “What haven’t I seen before?” and “What have I seen far too often?”
Being a fan of something can be extremely beneficial, provided you don’t try to duplicate what’s come before. Like with the vampire and zombie trends you mentioned. None of the really popular stories in those areas (ignoring overall quality, good or bad) have ever been done quite that way before. There’s something in each of them that gives the consumer something new.
June 24, 2013 — 5:24 PM
KL Klein says:
The Wise Old Seer – why does the seer, who can predict the future and see exactly what needs doing, just sit around waiting for a hero to give sage advice to, when s/he could just go deal with it themselves?
Villains who have no reason for being villainous besides “I’m evil! Hahahaha!”
Long-lost heirs – if the heir to the throne hasn’t been trained in statecraft since childhood, they are NOT going to do a good job of it when they spent their childhood as an illiterate street rat, and got plopped on the throne age sixteen. Stop making them into kings. The people will thank you.
Evil uncles – come on, why is it always an uncle? Never a third cousin twice removed, or something?
June 24, 2013 — 10:11 AM
athenagrayson says:
Some of these speak to those ideas that we “know” to be “true” from myth. The “price,” if you will, of being able to see into the future is being unable to change it (see: Cassandra). All you can do is give advice.
Long-lost heirs who fail at statecraft are a relatively recent concept stemming from a cultural rejection of the divine right of kings. In the myths, it didn’t matter if the long-lost heir had any kinging lessons–he’d be good at kinging because he was the heir. It was in his blood and ordained by god(s). Which is probably why a lot of sovereign countries that used to be around are no longer…
Evil Uncles are evil because they are a male relative close enough to have influence, but at the same time, close enough to benefit from misfortune to one’s direct lineage. In terms of property inheritance, whether it’s the throne of Denmark or the double-wide in the trailer park, Evil Uncle Clyde stands to both influence young prince Hambone *and* benefit from ol’ Hambone’s misfortunes.
Tropes–especially the more well-trod ones, can also be cultural markers. To someone reading stories for artistic or analytical purposes, they can be tiresome and, depending on their execution, teeth-grindingly annoying. But for someone who’s reading the stories as a way our culture speaks to itself (like a kid who’s reading a book because he’s hiding from the bullies), those tired tropes are an expression of an idea that our culture values–that kid understands that the lesson about the underdog being the chosen one isn’t that there are a lot of Chosen Ones out there–it’s that there’s more to a person than casual appearances reveal. Even if it’s done badly, the underlying mythic thought is there.
June 28, 2013 — 11:19 PM
Priscilla says:
That’s a very interesting way to see it, I loved the explanation 😀
June 29, 2013 — 9:32 PM
Emily says:
I think a trope that’s toxic is the ‘it’s always a bad person who does the racist/sexist/homophobic thing’ trope.
I think this is damaging because often the racist/sexist/homophobic comments that hurt the most come from otherwise good people who you respect. Grandparents, mentors, dear friends.
I think it does a disservice to real experience and makes for shallower villians and characters to just give the villain a sexist line. See? He’s sexist. Now we can really hate him. (I think that’s kind of cheap and boring).
What if we gave the main character’s mentor character a sexist line? Then we’d have to deal with that. Does the main character speak up? Maintain a painful silence? Throw out all the other good advice given by the mentor over the years? Accept the sexist remark as she’s accepted all other advice the mentor has given her? I think this kind of thing really happens to people and how how they deal with it makes for good character development. Especially if our characters don’t always do what we think to be the right thing.
June 24, 2013 — 10:13 AM
DisastrousCreations says:
The sexist mentor idea is solid. It would be fantastic at “showing” the protag’s character. I often try to look at redeemable qualities in people who disgust me. It usually isn’t too hard to find at least one. That doesn’t make them admirable but sure helps in being able to relate, which can be creepy.
June 24, 2013 — 10:49 AM
Lala says:
I totally agree. When I was a kid, I practically worshiped my aunt, but when I got older, I realized how racist and bigoted she was, and it made me lose so much respect for her. That there would be such great drama in a story, and it would show just what type of person the protagonist is.
June 24, 2013 — 1:15 PM
DisastrousCreations says:
I had a similar experience with my grandparents. I discovered as I grew up that they were very racist. I didn’t, however, lose respect for them because they were merely products of the influences and experiences they had over their lifetimes. Aside from that character trait, they were wonderfully kind and amazing people. I couldn’t hold them to the same standards I hold myself to because their lives presented them with much different stimulus than mine did. Both of my parents, remarkably, are decidedly not racist and neither am I.
The example of the sexist mentor is interesting because the world is full of those who accept that behavior and those who reject it. Therefore, the interpretation of the protagonist could vary greatly depending on the bias of the reader. Wow, that’s a lot of responsibility for the writer.
June 24, 2013 — 1:51 PM
Brian C Hall says:
This is brilliant. I had never thought about this before. When I think about my writing I’ve, fortunately, avoided this.
June 24, 2013 — 6:01 PM
David Jón Fuller says:
I get a little tired of the “two groups with long-standing feuds must just hate each other because ANCIENT ENMITY” thing. In UF this can be werewolves/vampires, but really, pick out any unexplained, interminable conflict and it’s flat and boring unless there’s specificity that makes it matter to the characters (and therefore the reader). Even in Romeo and Juliet the characters do things that actually outrage the others, so it isn’t just endless posturing. For a good example, I love the way Steven Brust handled the longstanding dislike/distrust/racism/still-gotta-do-business-with-each-otherness of the Easterners and Dragaerans in his Jhereg books.
June 24, 2013 — 10:24 AM
Lynna Landstreet says:
Deffinitely the first one that comes to mind for me is having everyone the protagonist meets of the opposite sex instantly fall in love with them, or at least be sexually attracted to them. Come on, no one’s that hot. For bonus suckage, have everyone of the same sex that they meet be jealous and spiteful. That one is probably more common with female characters (particularly in urban fantasy for some reason), but the everyone-instantly-wants-to-bone-the-hero(ine) one is definitely common to both genders.
The orphan thing, definitely, as others have pointed out – but especially, having the orphan turn out to be the child of someone incredibly important. That one is huge in the fantasy genre – pretty much any time it’s mentioned that a character is adopted, you know their biological parents are going to turn out to be royalty, a legendary hero, a legendary villain, or something along those lines. Just once, I’d like to read a fantasy book where the main character is adopted and at the climax of the book their parents turn out to have been just ordinary goat-farmers or something, so that whatever is awesome about the protagonist is actually their own doing and not encoded in their DNA.
Characters who compulsively mouth off to everyone, including very powerful and easily offended people, and yet somehow never actually suffer any negative consequences for doing so because everyone admires their “pluck” rather than getting pissed off and deciding to have them beheaded or something.
There are probably lots of others I could add, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.
June 24, 2013 — 10:25 AM
Brian C Hall says:
Kung Fu Panda 2 deals with your second point. Sure, his parents were killed by the villain’s goons, but they were still just farmers. It’s something that reaffirms the moral of the first movie. Strength and “awesomeness” doesn’t come from anyone or anywhere else but inside the person wielding it.
And your third point is rampant in anime. I love anime, but characters like that frikin piss me off to no end.
June 24, 2013 — 6:10 PM
38caliberreviews says:
The Dark, Brooding Hero with the Mysterious Tragic Unspoken Past. Just once give me a hero who can’t shoot a gun, cuts himself slicing a bagel, gets lost at the end of his driveway, is afraid of spiders, has a large, well-adjusted family, and the only death in his past was a beloved family pet. Make the pet a bunny.
June 24, 2013 — 10:27 AM
KL Klein says:
You’ve just given me the idea for my next story, I think!
Can he still be emotionally traumatized by the death of Mr Bunsey? Probably due to eating too many carrots…
June 24, 2013 — 10:32 AM
38caliberreviews says:
I guess he could still carry the scars. Deep inside he secretly carries the burden of knowing he plugged in the toaster at the very moment Bunsey absent-mindedly chomped on the cord. When the cord, rabbit, and electricity all met he dropped the butter dish on top of poor Bunsey.
Thus he ended yp staring down at a hot, buttered Buns(ey).
June 24, 2013 — 10:38 AM
KL Klein says:
The toaster incident can be the Dark Secret he must eventually confess before he can move on with his life and overcome his past. Yes. This could work….
June 24, 2013 — 10:45 AM
38caliberreviews says:
I expect to be thanked right next to your agent and parents.
June 24, 2013 — 11:02 AM
louisesor says:
LOL : )
June 24, 2013 — 10:52 AM
Bryce Anderson says:
Man. What did bunnies ever do to you?
June 24, 2013 — 5:24 PM
Emmie Mears says:
Bunnies aren’t just cute like everybody supposes.
June 24, 2013 — 6:04 PM
Brian C Hall says:
Excellent reference. One of the best lines in one of the best episodes.
June 24, 2013 — 6:14 PM
Emmie Mears says:
I’m so glad it was understood. 😀 And yes! I agree!
June 24, 2013 — 6:49 PM
Soy says:
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses.
August 28, 2013 — 5:44 PM
Emmie Mears says:
And what’s with all the carrots?
August 28, 2013 — 5:46 PM
shay says:
I’m not sure if there is a Trope name for this, but it is a convention used especially in TV and we are seeing it more and more in books…..and I HATE HATE HATE IT
The there must be sexual tension between any male and female lead if they are equally represented on the page as “partners” . The must have been/are (and hiding it)/will been in a physical “romantic” relationship at some point. I work with a lot of men, I have had very close working partnerships with many of them….at no point have I EVER been in that constant sexual tension….its stupid lazy and demeaning to both men and women.
Two others…..I a fraking tired of Zombies/Vamps/Werewolf/Witch fiction, romantic or otherwise. How bout we have fun with some ghouls, or liches. throw in a Lamia…anything please anything. Or at least be ORIGINAL in how these creatures work/exist instead of following what everyone else has already written.
Lastly….get your freaking heads out of Disneyland when speaking of folklore spirits (aka universally as “fairies” ugh) read the original tales of these critters. Most of them ARE NOT cutesy, or even remotely “friendly”…perhaps tolerant, but they have their own agendas and they are not remotely “human”. The Sidhe (aka: The Dannan, The Tuatha De Dannan, The Gentry) are not FAIRIES or ELVES……read the original stories please……..
June 24, 2013 — 10:30 AM
DS Delacroix says:
Funny you should mention this… I worked up an idea for a Ghoul centered story the other day. And went back to the original lit (Thanks, Cat Valente!) to mine for ideas.
Dunno how many years it’ll be before I get it out into the world, but yeah, I’m with you.
Lamia: play DnD much…?
And my Fey don’t play well with others, especially humans… MWAHAHAHAHA
June 24, 2013 — 3:29 PM
Brian C Hall says:
I have had a bunch of close working relationships with females in my time in the military and, while conversations often got very personal (as partnerships of that sort are often half therapy, anyway) they never once got sexually tense. It’s one of the reasons why X-Files got worse and worse as Mulder and Scully got more intimate.
I’ve been trying to think of a fresh zombie story for ages and just can’t. I got close once, by making them not zombies, but the byproducts of a failed automated cloning experiment, but it was still an awfully trite story that doesn’t require anymore effort than the one sentence I use to describe it. I also thought about trying to write a slice of life literary novel based in a zombie apocalypse, but I couldn’t make the zombie apocalypse relevant to the story in any meaningful way. If anyone out there wants to write that second one, feel free because I’d love to read it. I’m just not good enough to write it. 🙁
June 24, 2013 — 6:40 PM
Vivi Anna says:
Fate. Tired of the fated lovers, the one true king, the ONE, the ‘this is your fate’ young one, go on and save the world.
I’d rather ordinary people fight and struggle to save the world because they want to save it, because they feel it needs saving, because they are selfish and want to save something else that means something to them, and inadvertently save the world in the process.
I’m a Han Solo and not a Luke Skywalker.
June 24, 2013 — 10:33 AM
Kay Camden says:
To me, tropes are only bad if they
a) perpetuate ridiculous or harmful stereotypes (sexist or racist ideas most rational people are trying to evolve past)
b) are entirely cliche and offer nothing new
c) are written badly
I think tropes exist because there are some themes that just speak to us. And there are a lot of stories that get told and retold and I see nothing wrong with that either. The savior story mentioned by Dan above is one. It’s something that will never get old if placed in the hands of a good writer. Romeo and Juliet is another.
I could list some tropes I’m sick of reading/seeing, but as soon as I do, I’ll find a new book/movie that uses it in a way I love.
June 24, 2013 — 10:40 AM
Travis M. Hicks says:
I’m not even 100% sure this is a trope, but I’m tired of foreshadowed death of a main character (not necessarily, but possibly including the protagonist) because 99% of the time the character doesn’t die. My first thought upon reading something like that is: “Okay, how is the writer going to get the character out of this one?”
It’s like the boy who cried wolf for character death. The foreshadowing ceases to build tension if I don’t think you’ll follow through.
Interesting, I don’t think George R.R. Martin runs counter to this trope, either. I don’t think he foreshadows much in the way of character deaths; they’re just suddenly dead, out of the blue.
June 24, 2013 — 10:40 AM
shay says:
Read this any thought of the Movie “John Dies in the End”…..totally hear what your saying
June 24, 2013 — 1:27 PM
Kat says:
Heh. That depends. In the book both characters die. In the movie even John’s death maybe didn’t happen. The movie changed a lot of stuff.
September 10, 2013 — 12:36 AM
Tia Kalla (@tiakall) says:
I used to do a lot of fantasy roleplay via email and livejournal – any trope you think is bad is probably ten times worse there. Some of the most annoying for me:
–A story that establishes a bunch of commonalities/customs for a culture, then has the central character break each and every one of those tropes. Arranged marriage thought well of? Not for this princess! So you come from a matriarchal mage society? Now you’re a male, dominant warrior. Oh, and you have funny colored eyes.
–Things that rip off Tolkien. Please, enough with the Tolkien ripoffs. Please, enough of the prettyboy elf archers and drunken dwarf smiths.
–Sexist tropes. Maybe I’m just turning into a grumpy old woman, but I’m getting very, very tired of the ‘me big strong man, me save woman with my girthy man-meat’ trope, among others. Also: main character is an ordinary guy who gets tossed together with girl with phenominal cosmic powers, but ultimately is not as important as the man.
–Orphans. Everywhere. If you’re really determined not to include parents in a story, why not just have them be alive but shitty?
–Lousy names. I see this less in fiction and more in roleplay (seriously, the next
“Darkraven Bloodrose” I come across is getting shanked) but it’s part of the reason I never finished American Gods.
June 24, 2013 — 11:05 AM
Brian C Hall says:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All of these are so much yes.
June 24, 2013 — 6:46 PM
Jessica says:
Let me guess, you don’t care much for Drizzt Do’urden? Silly R.A. Salvatore.
June 24, 2013 — 8:26 PM
louisesor says:
Woh. Just blew my mind at tvtropes.
Didn’t realize there was a label for just about everything to do with plot, character, twists, spoilers, fan feelings, and well, simply everything.
My non-fave tropes are in romances in which the main characters spend the first three quarters of the story hating each other, soften up slowly, and realize just before something awful happens that they actually love each other, then they spend the last quarter of the story minus one page overcoming the awful thing, then they do. The End.
OR, they fall in love on page one, but due to a series of tragic misunderstandings, spend most of the story secretly and mutually pining for each other, until they finally figure out how to communicate with each other, or stop interrupting each other, and declare their mutual love. The End.
Plus, all of the above tropes mentioned.
Although, in the hands of a good writer, these tropes can be fine.
June 24, 2013 — 11:09 AM
Brian C Hall says:
The Archer episode, “Skytanic,” mocks that first one excellently.
June 24, 2013 — 6:49 PM
D. W. Coventry (@DWCoventry) says:
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife and all of its insidious permutations. All too often a male protagonist who is described as butt ugly and possessing few redeeming qualities ends up bedding some some beauty because he is the protagonist. It smacks of pandering.
The defense of the trope is usually something along the lines of “After their incredible journey together the hot girl sees the hidden good side of ass-monkey-faced hero”, but how often does the reverse happen? In Romance novels maybe?
Unfortunate implication: That a woman is a man’s “prize” for heroic behavior.
Romantic plots (even subplots) are best when two people see each other as equals, no matter how unlikely their initial footing. Maybe that’s why we have the Jaime-Brienne fandom?
June 24, 2013 — 11:14 AM
Imelda Evans says:
In romance, girls who don’t see themselves as anything special, look-wise, often get gorgeous blokes (it’s mostly girl fantasy, after all 😉 ) but not if they don’t have redeeming features. Romance is all about people seeing and bringing out the good inside each other. The looks are a bonus. A bit like when joss said about the Buffy world ‘of course, they’re all ridiculously pretty, because this is TV’.
June 24, 2013 — 6:06 PM
Kefirah says:
Oh god, every new TV year there seems like a half a dozen “new” shows with the Ugly Guy-Hot Wife thing going on. Don’t get it. Especially when, as the series continues, we see more and more unattractive, boorish qualities of the man. Add that to the “my husband is such a dumbass, it’s a good thing I’m around to straighten him out by the end of the episode” thing. Man-bashing is such a petty thing to fall back on. Ugh.
June 24, 2013 — 9:58 PM
A. Reyes says:
“Always save the girl”.
I truly dislike this one trope because, in my opinion, this is THE deal breaker for either a supposedly heroic character or for good storytelling. That is because when the protagonist chooses to do this, he shows that he’s just as despicable as the darkest complete monsters. Allowing evil to win just so they can get laid is just as bad as doing the evil deed themselves.
And let’s not forget that most of the time the author will not let the reputation of his selfish little twat be ruined, so he’ll pull a Deus Ex Machina to save all those who are not love interests.
Of course, tropes are not bad and I truly admire the authors who deconstruct this trope and show the consequences of following to the end. Sadly, I haven’t seen many instances when they do this right.
June 24, 2013 — 11:57 AM
Priscilla Zorzi says:
I think what I dislike is not this or that troope, but the way certain authors use them. So perhaps certain troopes are just much harder to use in a fresh or successful way. Anything that sound gratuitous or offensive or shows the lack of development in the plot/characters is bad.
As a woman, I really hate sexist troopes. Even those that may not sound sexist, like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. That always makes me feel bad about myself. Plus, I hate “perfect” people in books. And characters whose only purpose in the story is to compliment and admire the hero.
I don’t like stories in which people fall in love too fast. My pet peeve regarding romance, though, is when a couple fight for silly reasons just because the plot says they can only be together in the end.
In stories where there is a feeling of danger, it’s really sad when you know the hero is not going to die just because he’s the hero. Or when you know the main character is the one that’s gonna solve everything just because he’s the main character. Or when he can do The Thing just because he’s The Chosen One, regardless of the amount of effort or training actually needed to do The Thing.
As plot devices, I’m done with “it was all happening in the main character’s head” or “the main character was the villain all along, he just didn’t knew that” and its variations.
Deus Ex Machina? Please don’t. “It was magic” or “it was science”? No, it was the job of a lazy author. May some questions remain unanswered? Yes, but not the ones central to the plot. “It was the power of love/friendship”? We’re not 4 years old anymore, thanks. And please don’t forget the phlebotinium because we won’t.
Oh, really, the list goes to infinity and beyond. But you got the picture, I hope.
June 24, 2013 — 12:25 PM
Christopher Robin Negelein says:
I have a hate/love relationship with the Butterfly of Doom Time Travel trope. It’s the one-shot episode in a series where a time travel hero tries to change the past, makes a present worse and then goes back to fix things … repeatedly.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButterflyOfDoom
The hate comes from the predictability of the episode. The love comes from episode being a signpost that the series has jumped the shark and it’s time to move on.
June 24, 2013 — 1:05 PM
Brian C Hall says:
That was something I enjoyed about the TV show “Eureka!” They go back in time and when they get back, things are irreversibly, albeit subtly, changed and the main characters (both those who were and weren’t along for the ride) have to cope with this fact and the consequences of this episode permeate the last couple of seasons of the show because, “Surprise! Time travel can seriously mess stuff up!” Granted, it still wasn’t done as well as I would like, but it was done better than most.
June 24, 2013 — 7:32 PM
Kat says:
I have found a lot of sci-fi shows using the time travel trope to reboot their series. Primeval is a good example; a couple seasons in they effed up the time line and it ended in permanent consequences. But the show itself actually got infinitely better. Eureka did this as well to reboot themselves out of a corner they’d written themselves into. I think it’s the freakin LAZY way out of things, and whether I laugh it off and roll with it or angrily stop watching really depends on how well they handle it, but it’s not an automatic show stopper for me.
Yet. But if it becomes much more cliche I will.
September 10, 2013 — 12:30 AM
Lala says:
I think the worst trope I’ve seen lately, especially in YA fiction, is the girl who falls in love with a guy who treats her like a steaming cow pie because he “doesn’t want to get close to her” because he’s “dangerous.” It’s just about the lamest thing to put in a book, in my opinion, and it’s just ridiculous.
Another that I can’t stand is the brooding anit-hero who treats everyone like dirt because he had a bad childhood or experienced some heartbreaking tragedy in his past. I’m sick of authors using a tragic past as an excuse to have their characters act like complete douchebags towards people who have done nothing to them. In my opinion, the stronger character is the one who can see the bright side of things despite having gone through unspeakable horrors in their past.
June 24, 2013 — 1:32 PM
Priscilla says:
I completely agree with both. While a troubled past can justify trust issues or difficulties on relationships, being a douchebag is hardly one of them. In those cases I always have the feeling that the author only gave this character a troubled past in order to justify its douchebaggery. But it doesn’t justify. Nothing ever does.
And about guys treating girls like shit, well… First of all, I hate that troope of “we’re obviously in love but I can’t be with you because I’m dangerous” (specially because you know the couple is gonna end up together anyway, so it’s just a waste of time). But it gets really worst when the guy mistreats the girl, because if you love someone, you won’t treat this person poorly even if you can’t be together. From this moment on, I start cheering against this couple. And, above all, I think young girls can develop a very dangerous perception of love because of troopes like this.
June 24, 2013 — 5:08 PM
Erica says:
Yeah, like teenagers of either sex need any more encouragement to pursue relationships with people who treat them badly or need any more “denial cards” to play as to why that boy or girl doesn’t want to get with you.
June 24, 2013 — 9:23 PM
Jenna Bird says:
Expressing attraction between characters almost solely through poor decisions.
“Should we make this bad decision?”
Character A is reluctant. Character B is reluctant but makes the decision (for no apparent reason). Character A agrees to decision – whole situation is presented in a way that it only makes sense AS a story-telling trope to make an opening for character-relationship development.
…in fact, let me alter my original statement.
I hate tropes that are so obviously put into place as story-facilitators, not necessarily as sensical parts of the story. (If X only happens so that Y can happen in the story – not as a logical thread of events/decisions… X is bad.)
I don’t feel like I’m expressing this very well. …but it’s all those tropey-decisions characters make that seem to happen ONLY to cause more conflict, and otherwise don’t make any sense/lack a motivation.
June 24, 2013 — 1:51 PM
Miranda says:
It’s like the author constructed a plot and then inserted the characters, none of whom had any reasons or motivations to actually incite important story events, but they do it anyway because that’s what’s supposed to happen. Instead of the story being a vehicle driven by the characters, the story exists like a ship hull covered by barnacles only somehow the barnacles are credited with everything that happens to the ship.
June 24, 2013 — 3:08 PM
Jenna Bird (@jbird_writing) says:
Exactly right, Miranda!!
June 26, 2013 — 1:50 AM
Tymber Dalton says:
I’m sick of the “billionaire and the young virgin/so noob to love might as well be virgin” storylines in romance. I won’t read them. I’m also sick of rom writers who stick a domineering asshole, uber-Alpha guy in the lead role and call it BSDM. Or who include a spanking scene and automatically label it BDSM. Um, noooo.
In crime/mystery, I’m tired of the burned-out cop/detective trying to redeem himself/rediscover his love for his work. I’m also tired of the retired/career-changed spy/former military guy getting sucked into a plot where the world is against them. (Anyone who’s been through the VA system can attest to the fact that the government usually has its head up its ass so far it isn’t capable of the plots spun.)
In horror/thrillers I’m sick of people substituting gore/violence for suspense. Showing a gruesome murder/violence is no substitute for building tension and suspense.
I know it’s just fiction, but it’s been done so many times that unless someone can bring a truly different spin to it, it’s not worth reading to me.
June 24, 2013 — 2:21 PM
Shelton Keys Dunning (@SheltonKDunning) says:
Don’t know if it’s a trope or not, but it would be nice if, once in a while, the person who believed their parent/child was dead didn’t discover that the parent/child was actually still alive, just hiding out somewhere, doing something profound or exciting, secretly monitoring the well-being of said person. It’s a plot point that seems to come up in all the shows I watch at the same time. It’s season finale cliffhanger time, so let’s bring in long-thought-dead mom at the very end and have the MC go “Mom?” and cut to credits. Hawaii Five-O and Grimm spring to my immediate mind. I can almost set my watch by it.
June 24, 2013 — 2:46 PM
Miranda says:
I don’t care much for The Chosen One, although I can think of a few examples where having a Chosen One present doesn’t negatively impact the story. Most of the time I think the problem is that The Chosen One’s amazingness and ability to change the world are just Informed Attributes, or come into play after all the “lesser” characters do the hard work and The Chosen One simply delivers the final blow. If everyone else’s efforts are integral to the success of the mission, I want to hear more about those characters in the narrative.
I also generally dislike it when characters have special abilities or are called for special tasks because they’re the sons and daughters of so-and-so, especially when their genealogy comes as a reveal. “Oh, all along, you’ve had all this power and were doing so well because your father had a magical wizard beard!” Yeah, no. If it’s not feasible that they could have achieved the same accomplishments without some special elite blood running through their veins I get a little annoyed. (What about the rest of us who were born Muggles, eh? Why don’t we get to have any adventures?!) I don’t mind stories where parent-child relationships are important, and maybe I don’t even mind inherited problems (as long as it’s recent enough to have been relevant throughout the character’s childhood), but if the results aren’t contingent on the character’s actual efforts I wonder why I’m even reading about it. I’d much rather read about their sidekicks who actually have to be clever and persistent to make a difference in the world.
Also, just a reminder for people who maybe aren’t familiar with TV Tropes, Tropes aren’t BAD. There’s at least one trope for just about every plot device, character roles, character types, etc. you can come up with. They can get tired, sure, and some have Unfortunate Implications, but if you try to avoid tropes you won’t have anything left to write about. Instead, try to avoid lazily applying tropes. A lot of the complaints about tropes come from them either being disrespectful or tired – using an orphan, for example, to inject drama into the story doesn’t work as well when half the world’s protagonists seem to be parentless. Tropes are just the building blocks; how you put them together and execute the story is the architecture.
June 24, 2013 — 2:56 PM
Laura says:
We’re all rather sick of orphans, aren’t we? I’d add “orphan who is miraculously magically gifted at everything.”
June 24, 2013 — 3:12 PM
rebeccadouglass says:
The number of comments on orphans here resonates, as I’ve been involved in a discussion at Goodreads.com on the “Dead Parent Society in Middlge-Grade Lit.” I even did my blog post this morning on a couple of my old favorites from that genre. Of course, in children’s lit, if you want the kids to have a good adventure, you often need to get the parents out of the way (face it, most of what those kids do, a good parent would put the kibosh on. Come to think of it, I did love that aspect of “The Wierdstone of Birisingamen” because there the adults didn’t die or go away–they simply agreed to come along and help the kids with their very challenging quest, mostly without relegating the kids to the sort of side-line position they usually have to take when grown-ups are around).
June 24, 2013 — 3:32 PM
Kefirah says:
Speaking of “parents out of the way”, I always thought it was quite unrealistic that the mom in the movie “Big” seemed to just mope around the house until her son came home. It was a good movie otherwise and I guess having scenes with the mother freaking out, chasing down leads to find her son would have made it a completely different movie. But still I couldn’t help thinking she was weird throughout the movie. Parents just don’t sit back and let their 11 year old kids run off and disappear for ages.
June 24, 2013 — 10:13 PM
Amanda says:
This is much more minor compared to everyone else’s points, but has been a peeve of mine for a while: the clumsy YA heroine.
Maybe this is more a personal issue than an artistic one, but clumsiness is not endearing. And usually the family/friends of the heroine just laugh it off and rationalize it as that’s just how she is. I don’t know who is bringing up these girls (according to other posts, mostly single parents or legal guardians), but constantly breaking stuff because of your own inability to check your surroundings doesn’t do much to recommend.
If you (vampire) boyfriend finds your helplessness at everyday life that attractive, it is definitely time to run in the opposite direction.
June 24, 2013 — 4:01 PM
D. W. Coventry (@DWCoventry) says:
I think clumsiness as a trope is more about a lack of agency: if the female protagonist was physically capable, the unspoken assumption is that she wouldn’t need a man to rescue her.
Because we all know that healthy relationships are founded on endangerment-rescue cycles.
Alternatively it is an uber-lazy attempt to circumvent a Mary Sue characterization. Of course this doesn’t work since the character is otherwise perfect, and never goes far enough down the rabbit hole of wounded physical capacity to actually make things interesting.
June 24, 2013 — 4:22 PM
Priscilla says:
What I truly dislike about this troope is that most authors seem to think that clumsiness works as a replacement for real character flaws. Then we have The Clumsy Mary Sue, which is like a regular Mary Sue, but tripping and falling for no reason.
June 24, 2013 — 5:23 PM
Kat says:
First off, speaking as a naturally clumsy female, I can honestly say the problem isn’t just checking my surroundings. The problem is me getting lost in thought. The problem is I have bad eyesight and misjudge distances. The problem is I’ve never (and I mean since I was young) had a very good sense of balance, and that includes walking. And it makes no sense because when dancing ballet as a kid and when I get a kick of “oh shit, danger!” endorphins I become the balance queen, so it’s possible there’s a mental thing going on there as well. It’s not unusual for a friend to describe me as “she could trip over air.” I am probably 100% more likely to break my hip when I’m 8- than anyone else I know.
BUT, I rarely see a clumsy heroine handled well. She falls for pratfalls but at no other time. Or it’s mentioned, but only when convenient. There is no traceable personality defect that causes it, such as being lost in thought or bad eyesight, and almost never any story arc where it improves, such as through training of some kind. Or–and this is kinda irking–she’s Perfect In Every Way, and so the only non-creative flaw they could think to give her was clumsiness. I usually see this used when the woman isn’t a character so much as a romantic trophy for the male; it really is used as a “flaw” in place of having, say, a friggin personality. See: Bella Swan.
September 10, 2013 — 12:15 AM
Erica says:
I think almost any trope, even the “tired” ones can be used to good effect if the author has a reason for doing it and is trying to be realistic and avoid mindless stereotypes and so on. At least I hope so, as it is pretty hard to write a fantasy novel that doesn’t employ at least a couple of the situations mentioned in TVtropes. There are reasons why some of these themes come up again and again, after all. They’ve captured people’s imaginations through the ages. For instance, the ubiquity of orphans and runaways in children’s fiction is that it’s hard to think of a reason a kid with a normal family situation would be off having an adventure.
But having said this, rape as the go-to trauma for a female character is one that is overused and often handled badly. I’m not saying it should be off limits, as it is something that has happened throughout history, and is certainly an issue in the real world. But it is especially triggery, since a significant portion of readers have likely experienced it, or at least been afraid of experiencing it at some time. Also, it is highly politicized and is an unresolved issue socially (unlike other violent crimes like, say, murder or torture or assault), because victims are so often blamed and perpetrators are so often excused. Any portrayal that smacks even a little of blaming the victim or excusing the perpetrator (or God forbid, has the victim later falling for her assailant) no matter how plausibly the author tries to set it up, well, that’s going to piss a lot of people off. And attempts to portray it as a sexual or erotic thing, as opposed to a horrific crime, well, that’s pretty insensitive, I think.
June 24, 2013 — 4:14 PM
welltemperedwriter says:
I’d love to see a badass female character whose backstory doesn’t involve some sort of sexual trauma.
You know, just for variety.
June 24, 2013 — 4:47 PM
Erica says:
Seriously, because, you know, there ARE some women who haven’t been raped too. And also, there are plenty of other “interesting” traumas a character can have experienced. I know this is true, because most male characters in fantasy have experienced them.
June 24, 2013 — 9:19 PM
Jenna Bird (@jbird_writing) says:
I will keep on working on drawing out the story of my favorite-brain-character, then! There’s no sexual trauma in her story at all. …but I’m with you on this one, 100%
June 26, 2013 — 1:54 AM
Paul Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) says:
We talked a bit about tropes this weekend at 4th Street.
Tropes are a useful shorthand but can be used to good effect if used in interesting ways. It’s the execution.
Tropes that dehumanize characters, especially female characters, or minorities (racial and otherwise) are definitely “over”. I think society is changing that, slowly and inexorably and that’s a Good Thing.
June 24, 2013 — 4:22 PM
Amanda says:
The Love Triangle, especially in YA. Please. It’s used for angst, and that’s about it. There are other ways to create tension and drama. I’m so sick of them I refuse to read anything with a love triangle in it anymore, because I will undoubtedly end up throwing the book at the wall halfway through. Or a quarter of the way through.
June 24, 2013 — 4:27 PM
chris m says:
Not really a trope, per se, but that moment when a genre jumps the shark…you know, when a topic or character type becomes so ubiquitous that publishers seem to take otherwise perfectly good books and say, “you know what would make it better? A vampire/zombie/whatever..” or to borrow the title of the song, “just glue some gears on it and call it steampunk.”
June 24, 2013 — 4:31 PM