-->"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [of pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But ''I know it when I see it'', and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
-->- [[AmericanCourts United States Supreme Court]] Justice Potter Stewart in his decision in ''Jacobellis v. Ohio''.

Merriam-Webster defines trope as a "figure of speech." In storytelling, a trope is just that -- a conceptual figure of speech, a storytelling shorthand for a concept that the audience will recognize and understand instantly. Those familiar with Stylistics might know of Roland Barthes 'Codes' - it's the same idea here (There's even a RagsToRiches 'Code'). According to the Codes theory, a Code/Trope is an attempt to "give meaning to what would otherwise be a series of happenings. They are... constructs and patterns of behaviour."

Above all, a trope is a convention. It can be a plot trick, a setup, a narrative structure, a character type, a linguistic idiom... It's like porn; you know it when you see it. [[TropesAreNotBad Tropes are not inherently disruptive to a story; however]], when the trope itself becomes intrusive, [[TropesAreNotGood distracting the viewer rather than serving as shorthand]], [[ClicheStorm it has become a cliché]]. [[BadWriting Bad screenwriter]]. No biscuit!

A discussion of the trope concept is [[http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem07.html here]] (but be warned, it's quite dry).

On this wiki, trope has the even more general meaning of a recognizable pattern -- not only within the media works themselves, but also in related aspects such as the behind-the-scenes aspects of creation, the technical features of a medium, and the fan experience. It's even been verbed, as in, "That isn't really different enough from our other tropes to be separately [[IsThisTropeable tropeable]]."

See MetaTropeIntro for a comparison of the ways that a trope can be used.
----
<<|TropeTropes|>>
<<|MetaConcepts|>>