Good Style - Television Tropes & Idioms

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Good Style

Be aware of these conventions, even if you choose to ignore them.

When you write here, it is a common practice not to "inject" yourself into the entry. "I" and "this troper" in the main body of the trope/description will get stomped pretty quickly. It is not about you, it is about the trope. Naturally, in discussions this doesn't apply.

Practice understatement. Use plain language. Be bold and be nice. Extra points for funny.

The readership of this wiki is international. Americans, two-thirds of the people reading what you write live in another country. If you live in a Commonwealth country, two-thirds of your audience will need at least some setup for a joke about, say, the PM of Australia. Despite the fact that an abnormally large percentage of tropers are multi-lingual, we stick to English because that is a language all tropers know.

Stick near the formatting conventions that have developed over time around here, as shown in Page Templates. Nobody reads just one entry. An expectation grows that certain kinds of information will be in similar places in the entry. Meeting that expectation makes for a "smooth" read, where readers can zero-in on the content without distraction.

Keep in mind that what you are writing is likely going to be someone's first page they ever read on the wiki. In-jokes from the Troper community in the main article will just confuse folks, or make them them feel like they are intruding on a private conversation. In the same spirit, don't assume the reader knows as much about your area of interest as you do. The nifty thing about WikiWords is that you can easily provide at least a link to an entry that will clear up the jargon.

When creating a handle or naming entries, don't use the actual names of TV shows or other works, as standard procedure is to reserve the title of works for, well, the works themselves.

Leave out needless details in examples. If you add an example of a stalwart hero, we don't need to know that their voice actor won the silver cup at a polo tournament in 1983.

On the other hand, try to include enough detail that someone who's unfamiliar with the work can tell why the example fits. "Two words: Star Wars" is not a particularly useful thing to write.

Here is a checklist:

Avoid alliteration. Always.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
Employ the vernacular.
Don't use ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Contractions aren't necessary.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
One should never generalize.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
Be more or less specific.
Understatement is always best.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be avoided.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
Eschew obfuscuity.
Abandon unnecessary sesquipedalianism.
Its very important that every apostrophe is in it's right place.

You may also wish to take a look at Bob's Quick Guide To The Apostrophe

◊.

Then again, in the words of George Orwell: "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." Clarity and enjoyability is all that matters.