I thought tropes were not bad: Bad Writing

Then why is this here?

Because Tropes Are Not Good either.

The page itself explains it:

"Sometimes the inclusion of one of these tropes may improve the work: the trope itself might not be the most plausible, but it creates an separate effect which makes it worthwhile (for example, using Instant Death Bullet without in-universe justification to make a scene more stylistically appealing at the cost of realism). Tropes themselves are not inherently bad; whether the use of a trope is worth risking the suspension of disbelief is a subjective and personal determination. These are just considerably riskier than average. "

First off, I know that it is an index. (I have seen people list this as a trope before). But do we really need an index of literary criticism?

If the tropes are there and they have a common theme yes its an index. However actual potholes to it, it really depends on the context of the entry on if it should be this or one of the tropes in the index.

(The Index not having an index itself though is a slight problem imo.)

Bad Writing found in: 171 articles, excluding discussions.

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edited 1st Mar '11 7:37:31 PM by Raso

I thought this page was for tropes that cannot be done well, such as Did Not Do The Research and IKEA Erotica, because if those are done well, they are no longer those tropes (if that makes any sense). I think we should take off this list any tropes that have significant potential to not be Bad Writing. Any entry in this page that starts with "unless..." should be a good indicator of a trope being not inherently bad.

Tropes Are Not Bad and Tropes Are Not Good in the way that the inclusion of a trope does not automatically make a story good or bad. There are tropes where their existence originates from bad writing, but that does not mean it will define the quality of the work. Informed Ability comes largely from forgetting Show, Don't Tell, but there are several examples that are supposed to be funny or a plot point within the work that we never see a person's attributes live up to their hype.

There are also tropes that are thought of as being good or cool that can hinder the work, due to being handled poorly or generally being awkwardly used. Anachronic Order is often a clever way to emphasizing important details that come at a point of the story other than the climax, but Anachronic Order for the sake of being Anachronic Order can make the narrative a confusing mess.

Disagree.

IKEA Erotica can be used for, off the top of my head, estabishing character or a character's mindset, humour, or simply setting a generally depressing scene.

Did Not Do The Research can usually only be invoked for humour, but you could also deliberately avoid doing any so that Rule of Cool had free reign.

Isn't that what They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste is for? You know, for things that typically suck but don't if the author is good enough at writing about it?

On the subject of the actual article, I've seen Bad Writing linked to stuff like Metroid Other M (which is something that isn't even universally agreed upon). Even if the work in question does have bad writing in it, the page should explain why this is the case. It seems to me that people are using the index as a method of making cheap potshots at stuff they don't like.

(I'd just like to say that we should probably have a Good Writing Index, for things that people agree are good. Take, for instance, Character Development. It's something that allows a previously established character to grow internally. Yes, I'm aware that the page has been cut, but it seems like it has the potential to make a good article.)

edited 13th Mar '11 5:44:56 PM by KingClark

Good Writing tropes index would be a good think I think.

The main problem I see with a Good Writing index is that the wiki is largely a resource of ideas adn advise to writers, which is how I approach anything on this wiki. The idea of Bad Writing is "These are tropes that are hard to use right." It's an advisory to emerging writers on what to avoid or be careful when using it.

Good Writing as the opposite would be "These are tropes that are hard to do wrong." It's kind of like saying that just using them makes you a good writer. Sturgeon's Law states that most of the tropes on the site can be done wrong, so what would be the point of an index on it?

I would merge this article with Sturgeons Tropes and rename it Handle These Tropes With Care.

That's an index already (of tropes with a potential for Unfortunate Implications, I believe).

Removed Purple Prose and Beige Prose, either of those examples of bad writing both are a stylistic choice of writing on the behalf of the author. Many works of both types have received just as much praise as criticism for being Purple or Beige.

also I suggest the entire Index be Cut

edited 17th May '11 3:05:24 PM by Vyctorian

I know: Rename to Handle These Tropes With Care...or something like that.

I've always seen it like this:

This site started as a wiki for collecting tools for fiction writing: tropes. Pretty soon, other things - Audience Reactions and various cases where writers Did Not Do The Research, for example - were given articles of their own. By that time, any article on the TV Tropes Wiki was called "a trope", regardless if it described a fiction tool or something else. A bit later on, the Bad Writing page was created, listing things found in fiction that are, indeed, bad - usually. They tend not to be enjoyed by the audience, an effect most writers probably aren't striving for. They are also likely to be the result of lack or knowledge and/or experience in the writer, time constraints, etc. In other words: under more ideal circumstances, the writer probably wouldn't have used them.

So the tropes listed on Bad Writing can pretty safely be called cases of bad writing - they just aren't necessarily tropes.

(Am I making any sense here?)

A rename might be a good way to get less misuse of the index name. Common Mistakes In Writing? (I'd suggest Common Writer's Mistakes if that weren't a punctuated title.) They are, after all. And when they're not, they tend to be used for effect. They're really hard to use well, even if you know what you're doing. So although they're not always mistakes, they often are, and they're (more or less) common - common enough to have TV Tropes Wiki articles of their own.

Oh, and the Tropes Are Not Bad page/statement is meant to stop people from making Justifying Edits, mostly. If having a page in the TV Tropes Wiki meant something couldn't be a bad thing, we'd all be in trouble if someone started a page called Evil ... ;)

Tropes Are Tools (a merge of Tropes Are Not Bad and Tropes Are Not Good) isn't about specific tropes, it means that the use of tropes doesn't make a work bad or good — the Tropeless Tale is an accomplishment, to be sure, but it's not automatically better or worse than other fiction on that basis alone.

The pages on the Bad Writing index aren't really tropes as we currently seem to be defining the term because authors don't generally include them on purpose except when bad writing is what they're trying to achieve, although sometimes the piece works anyway. But there's no contradiction between certain recurring patterns being Bad Writing and the fact that a work includes recurring patterns -- in general -- not being inherently bad

Exactly - Tropes Are Not Bad means that having tropes is not bad. It's meant for the same reason we have Not A Subversion - so that people don't try and natter about how Their Favorite Show didn't use a trope (or more commonly, didn't play that trope straight). It doesn't mean that some tropes are not, in fact, bad things.

edited 14th Jun '11 6:46:38 PM by nrjxll

The aim of this index, I don't think, is so much to denote that certain tropes themselves are bad but that certain tropes can cause problems to rules concerning continuity and story establishment and development and other factors.

For instance, Strawman Has a Point is not a bad trope, but having an audience agree with a character that they are not supposed to be finding agreeable can have a negative impact on a story as a whole. A Plot Hole or Ass Pull isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, but a story's overall quality will generally not be benefited by one's presence, which can potentially leave a lot of people following a story feeling very cheated.

edited 14th Jun '11 7:27:00 PM by SeanMurrayI

For instance, Strawman Has A Point is not a bad trope, but having an audience agree with a character that they are not supposed to be finding agreeable can have a negative impact on a story as a whole. A Plot Hole or Ass Pull isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, but a story's overall quality will generally not be benefited by one's presence, which can potentially leave a lot of people following a story feeling very cheated.

Wait. how are these tropes, like Did Not Do The Research, not bad by definition?!

I'm all for calling it Handle These Tropes With Care. Can't deny they are more often considered bad than good. If we have a few tropes that are by definition bad, maybe we can split them in the page under "with extreme care" or something.

But tell me, how does this differ with Sturgeons Tropes?

Sturgeons Tropes is abput tropes that although not bad by definition is mostly used in a bad manner, but can be done well. Bad Writing is about tropes that can never be done well and are bad by definition like any example of Derailing Love Interests

Ah, I understand. So it's a list of tropes that are (curiously) rarely done well. Fair enough.

Did Not Do The Research, by itself, is not definitively a bad thing (hence why a lot of its subtropes have been redubbed as "Artistic Licenses", as opposed to "You Fail X Forever"), but it can potentially have a negative affect on a work in certain situations. Same goes for things that belong on this index.

I am noticing a bit of Square Peg Round Troping on this index, however. Things like Kudzu Plot, which come with a general explanation along the lines of "Can be done well, but if it's done poorly it will be a problem." Yeah, stuff like that is straight-up BS.

Not happening. Too close to Handle This Index With Care, which has it's own problems. And this index's purpose is more geared towards tropes to generally avoid having in a work—not ones that need special care if they're going to be present. Good writers avoid things like Plot Holes and Ass Pulls and the Voodoo Sharks to explain them all away. These tropes generally don't contribute positively to a narrative at all so they're not going to get any special care; they're just going to be avoided.

edited 15th Jun '11 6:56:02 AM by SeanMurrayI

Did Not Do the Research, by itself, is not definitively a bad thing (hence why a lot of its subtropes have been redubbed as "Artistic Licenses", as opposed to "You Fail X Forever"), but it can potentially have a negative affect on a work in certain situations. Same goes for things that belong on this index.

The thing is no matter what, if you talk about things you have not research properly, saying inaccurate things, you will look stupid. That is why Did Not Do The Research is always a bad thing.