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Q&A

Posts tagged tropes

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Q&A Averting Always Chaotic Evil

Always Chaotic Evil denotes an entire species in a fictional setting as outright evil - no matter how one treats them, they reward kindness with treachery and violence. Frequent recipients of this ...

5 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Mark Baker‭

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Q&A Averting Real Women Don’t Wear Dresses

Real Women Don’t Wear Dresses is when writers portray female characters possessing traditional feminine qualities as being less desirable, competent and reliable instead of their tomboy foils. They...

7 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Including disabled characters without "inspiration porn"

We all have seen the headlines: "Touching Moment Where Autistic Boy is Asked to Prom", "Watch This Child With Downs Win Her Heat During a Swim Competition", etc., that are touching at first glance,...

6 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by weakdna says reinstate monica‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How do I avoid the "chosen hero" feeling?

In many works of genre-fiction (I'm talking mainly about fantasy and sci-fi, but others genres can apply), and across many forms of media, the main characters ends up being special in some ways. M...

10 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Liquid‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Avoiding the "not like other girls" trope?

The "not like other girls" trope is pretty common in young adult fiction, arguably misogynistic, and usually applied to a female protagonist or love interest. Attempts to make a female character s...

7 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by weakdna says reinstate monica‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Trying to avoid being cliché

Has opening a story with something like "I hurtled to my death", "I had destroyed the earth", or other outlandish statements like these become cliché? And if so, what are some alternative methods t...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Theocles of Saturn‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How do you write boy & girl protagonists without turning them into a love story?

I've played with the idea of a multi-book fantasy story for years, where a female and male protagonists' lives intertwine with one another, the series running from 12-22 years old for them. There...

10 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by B.M. Corwen‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Resource for generic plot hooks?

I'm in a long and painful recovery from many years of writer's block. Coming up with even quite simple story ideas costs me unreasonable amount of effort. Sometimes inspiration is generous and I'm ...

1 answer  ·  posted 11y ago by SF.‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Non-cheap ways to make villains evil?

Do you have any tried and true techniques to make villains of your stories truly hated by the audience? I mean, frequently it's "eh, sure, that's bad, he's got to be stopped" but the audience woul...

2 answers  ·  posted 11y ago by SF.‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Avoiding cliches when writing gods

When writing fictional polytheisms, it's tempting to draw inspiration from the existing ones. In ancient religions (I'm mainly thinking of the Greek/Latin, Egyptian and Norse pantheons) there are ...

6 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Liquid‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Using real words from a foreign culture feels like 'Calling a rabbit a "smeerp"'

I'm working on a novel, that's set in pre-Islamic Persia, in the same general way that The Lord of the Rings is set in Britain. (Meaning, it's set in a world all its own, but there's this source of...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Galastel‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to Write an Eldritch Abomination?

My trilogy features an otherworldly monstrosity called Fenrisúlfr as it's primary antagonist, whose characterisation takes cues from Nyarlathotep, Sauron, Showa!King Ghidorah, Sutekh, Makuta Terida...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Averting Protagonist-Centred Morality

Protagonist-Centred Morality is when a fictional work is eager to point out when an antagonist does something immoral or distasteful but fails to acknowledge when a protagonist does the same or som...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Dead parents: something to avoid?

A lot of people die in my story, some of them are parents. One of the main characters for example lost his father (and one brother) in a car crash when he was young, which he was a part of. He beca...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by noClue‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Writing a love interest for my hero

If I'm going to face down a dragon, Mob boss, evil corporation, or a demon from the 7 circles of hell or dystopian dictator, etc, it's not going to be to rescue my buddy Herbert, or cousin Jimmy. T...

5 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Ric Fuentez‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Subverting the emotional woman and stoic man trope

In my post-apocalyptic story, the split of male and female main/supporting characters is 50/50. The girls and women in the story, Eris, Marina, and Ezrith, display very little emotion--Eris repr...

3 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by weakdna says reinstate monica‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Averting Bathos

Bathos is a storytelling technique that consists in the rapid succession of 2 “moments” with conflicting tones. This trope occurs when a serious moment gets followed by a gag. One of the many, many...

3 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Non-trope happy ending?

This is in the idea stage, but I was wondering... In stories involving multiple protagonists (4 or more) that make and end relationships, date each other, etc. during the course of the story, the ...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Tom‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question ending romance tropes
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Q&A How is a semordnilap typically used?

I am asking whether I should use it as a hint to make it clear that my story is about the story of Adam and Eve. In my short story, there's a place called "Nede", with two characters called "Mada"...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by puffofsmoke‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Can dream reveals make good climaxes for a POV’s internal struggle?

Dream twists just spoil our senses of disbelief. I can see how that can be excetuted carelessly, but if done for the need of showing what the main character wants or fears most then maybe it would ...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Edmund Frost‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to defeat a strategic mastermind without throwing the idiotball? [closed]

My antagonist is a "strategic mastermind", similar to the one discussed in How to prevent seeming like a Marty Stu-ish villain is cheating? Proceeding from this kind of antagonist, my question is h...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Mephistopheles‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What makes for a successful resurrection?

If you've seen Avengers: Infinity War, you'll recall the line "No resurrections this time" being said in the scene just after the first (arguably second) on-screen death of a main character at the ...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Adi219‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is there any way to get around having everyone in the world speak the same language? [closed]

You see this a lot in fantasy fiction, where everyone on the planet (and sometimes beyond) speaks the same language, even though it makes absolutely no logical sense for them to have any knowledge ...

6 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is killing off one of my queer characters homophobic?

(For reference, I am queer.) In my post-apocalyptic novel and in the short story from the novel's antagonist's perspective, my MC, Eris' love interest, Caspian, has/had two mothers, Saskia and Ezr...

3 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by weakdna says reinstate monica‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What's it called when the bad guy gets eaten?

Is there a specific name for the plot device in which the story's "Big Bad" has a cunning plan to use some monstrous being to further their diabolical machinations. This may be something summoned f...

1 answer  ·  posted 4y ago by Ash‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What are some bad ways to subvert tropes?

I recently came across something I wrote in 4th or 5th grade, where the MCs, a girl and a boy, were superheroes. One wore a blue costume with knives, and the other wore a pink one with flowers... B...

5 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by tryin‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question technique tropes
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Q&A How can I convince my reader that I will not use a certain trope?

Imagine a fantasy story in which there once was a very powerful evil divine being, but it was defeated long before the beginning of the story. For the story it is very important that it was defeate...

7 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by PoorYorick‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How do I subvert the tropes of a train heist?

What are the recognizable tropes to a "train heist", or more broadly the action sequences where a protagonist boards a moving train in order to stop it? My protagonist is the unreliable guile her...

8 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by wetcircuit‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question plot tropes action
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Q&A How can I make an eldritch abomination out of humanity? [closed]

The fanfic I'm writing is so that I may get into the swing of literature. A test story if you might like in the Mass Effect Universe. Please prepare for a long text because there's a lot of trivia ...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Alberto Lazo-Morejon‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to compactly explain secondary and tertiary characters without resorting to stereotypes?

Sure, I understand the characters, but that's because I've been thinking about them. But how do I transfer that knowledge to the reader without taking the time and space to flesh them out further?...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by RonJohn‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Chekhov's gun, but it's just "useless" background info

We all know how Chekhov's gun works: in short, it's the "rule" that whatever is explicitly shown to the audience should be important later, otherwise you should get rid of it. Don't show us a gun i...

0 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by noClue‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is the "hero guy saves girl" trope misogynistic?

(Question about my hacker (hacking??) novel.) Just an FYI, I am a woman. Edward is a cyber spy and works with an organization named Vox Populi to curate and release all data online, especially t...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by weakdna says reinstate monica‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Why using the "It Was All Just a Dream" Trope?

There is a particular trope that became quite infamous across many media: the "it was just a dream" revelation, where, usually at the end of a important story arc, everything turns back to the star...

3 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Deutertraumen‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Avoiding Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is when the audience is put off by the incredibly dark nature of a fictional work and won't care what happens next, lose interest or want all the characters to die ...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How can I convey an absolute truth from the author to the reader without a mentor character?

There are sometimes moments in works of fiction where the author needs to convey something to the reader without ambiguity. Let's say the situations around the characters get so weird that the auth...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Andrey‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Avoiding "kill it off for DRAMA" trope whilst doing it

Why hello there, old sports. I guess we all know the spiel with this one, but I tell you anyway, using this handy-dandy step-list: You introduce a character who is likable. (optional)Keep him aro...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Mephistopheles‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What does it mean to subvert a trope?

Recently, I've been seeing a lot of discussions about works that subvert a given trope. I think I have an understanding of what this means (from context) but can someone offer a clear definition or...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question tropes
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Q&A From a writing standpoint, what is the value of Deus Ex Machina?

Deus ex machina is considered by TV Tropes to be a sub-trope to asspulling, and thus, often considered a bad writing trope. Now, unlike most other bad writing tropes, that have their roots in fanf...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Mephistopheles‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Reasons to use "red herrings"?

I don't see any analytical literature about the usefulness of red herrings as a TV trope. What are some reasons to use them? I'm assuming there's more to it than just bored writers trying to amuse ...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by Sridhar Sarnobat‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭