As of my current draft, The Hero of my story has over 150 tropes. Is it too unnatural?

How many tropes do your characters have? Just wondering.

No. What matters is the execution. You can have tropes, you just shouldn't define the story by those tropes.

Your character is withdrawn from the world, but warming up. Not a Defrosting Ice Queen.

Hey, it's you. Thanks again for reminding me on trope usage! :D

No problem dude, we've all been there.

I haven't bothered counting them all up. I'm rather mindful of the tropes that I use, avert, subvert etc but I don't tend to do a running tally just to see what's going on.

I will occasionally describe a person by one or two key tropes like "Genre Savvy" or "Deadpan Snarker" but it's just a guideline. I'm generally more interested in their quirks and unique skill pools and how they interact with other characters - and that tends to flow out of the mental image I get of the characters.

I can barely come up with any tropes for my characters. I'm beginning to think I'm just not a very good troper.

Stop obsessing over tropes.

No, seriously. Good stories have been told without even knowing what a trope is, let alone "how many" there are in the work.

edited 30th Mar '11 3:27:04 AM by annebeeche

It really doesn't matter how many. As long you manage to make them your own, thats what's important. Besides, they're more like guidelines anyways.

Why does that sounds so familar, I wonder.

I'm just surprised at myself for cramming so much tropes at once, and the series is not even that long.

Anyway, thank you all for the advice/reminders.

Because your smarter than the average bear.

Oh, come on. Couldn't you have just played along? :D

Another note: You don't use tropes, they just appear in your works.

Don't even think about tropes and you'll be fine.