Guilty Pleasure Tropes You Use...

...in your writing.

Are there any tropes that you know some people would be annoyed by, but you want to use anyway because they appeal to you?

For example mine Babies Ever After -I like to have a bit of a happy ending and show that life goes on after the story.I don't pair everyone off. But quite a few.

Author Appeal. Just Author Appeal.

Dude, you have no idea. Just no idea. For one thing, Night Nurse outfits. Blatant Ho Yay too.

Medium Awareness, Painting the Fourth Wall and other related stuff.

I know it's not original anymore, but it's fun, dammit!

The ratios for things like gender, race, build, and orientation for my works as a whole are skewered. For example, the females have a large racial diversity than the guys, since I am attracted to dark-skinned, Asian, and white-skinned girls while boys...who knows?

For a proper trope, I'll have to get back to that—

Ah! Continuity Tropes and Crossovers! I think as my works belonging in one big meta-verse, so my story ideas reflect that. For example, once I start writing more stories, I'll start a Running Gag about how the protagonist hears about another story I wrote, but decides not to look into it because the concept doesn't sound interesting. Stories also tend to be separated in their own part of the timeline and location. For example, two stories can't be set in the Present Day and be set in Chicago. That's why I pushed my Ian Down idea five-ten years earlier to make way for my 2030's Precision.

In short, I love my meta.

edited 10th Jun '11 5:51:32 PM by chihuahua0

EVERYTHING in Rule of Sexy.

I try not to. I find giving in to certain tropes to be more of a weakness than something enjoyable. It still seeps in, but I try and not draw attention to it.

Lolicon

Aside from that, there's not many tropes I consider a guilty pleasure, so...

Deadpan Snarkers - from a meta level, I think that this may be overused and often not nearly as funny as it's supposed to be. From a personal level, however, this fits so many of my characters - call it Author Appeal or possibly Write Who You Know, as I know quite a few people like this. Constantly snarking characters also go a long way towards averting melodrama, which is the thing I fear most in all my works.

edited 10th Jun '11 7:20:33 PM by nrjxll

My main character George is a deliberate Author Avatar, created before I found out that those kinda things aren't really well-liked. I said to myself, "screw it" and continued using him, now consciously trying to avoid making him into a Mary Sue, after realizing that he had many of those qualities my first time using him.

Also, I love Breaking the Fourth Wall. It's something of a cliche, I know, but I think I can pull it off if I don't overdo it.

Lampshade Hanging...I used to use it a lot more to the point of breaking any Suspension of Disbelief, but I Got Better...a little

Oh! and I just can't help myself: A couple of Whole-Plot Reference to movies I like.

edited 10th Jun '11 8:56:06 PM by Anthony_H

I usually rein myself in whenever I think I'd irritate readers, but it's probable that some people will dislike my tendency to write Boy Meets Ghoul (or boy meets water spirit, or girl meets dragon, or girl meets sentient swarm of insects, or, in one case, reptilian creature meets animated suit of armor.) Those people can go fuck themselves.

Of course, if I've tapped into someone's fantasy, other readers can go fuck themselves too.

edited 11th Jun '11 3:54:57 PM by feotakahari

Non-Action Guy and male Moe even though people in the Western world find them annoying.

edited 11th Jun '11 4:07:34 PM by annebeeche

Tear Jerker and Gainax Ending.

I don't think most people are annoyed by Tear Jerker. I am (or, more specifically, I'm annoyed by melodrama and heartstring-tugging, which closely overlap), but I always thought that was out of the ordinary for a reader.

As far as another trope I make lots of use of that some people may not like: Mood Whiplash. I just tend to write that way.

Also, arguably, Dropped a Bridge on Him - I don't do it deliberately, but I avert Death Is Dramatic much more often then not, and it's pretty unclear what the difference is between the two - I'd say there is one, but it can be hard to draw the line.

edited 11th Jun '11 4:23:21 PM by nrjxll

Anyone Can Die, mostly as a result of reading too many Warrior Cats books.

But, damn, it feels really good to write a death scene.

edited 11th Jun '11 6:31:32 PM by Collen

At least once a story I have my characters quote a movie. Sometimes it's a tribute, and sometimes it serves a purpose. For example, one faux tough guy protagonist is revealed to have no idea what he's doing because he tried to scare someone with a Scarface quote ("I buried dose cock-a-roaches!"). In another story, an Army of Darkness quote ("You ain't leading but two things right now: Jack and shit. And Jack left town.") is used to show who's in control of a meeting.

There's probably a trope for that.

Shout-Out.

That's it.

• Tastes Like Diabetes
• Evil Versus Evil
  • The two above are being used in the same story.
• Narrative Filigree

• Medium Awareness
• Impossibly Cool Clothes (Considering how i'm not even trying to think about something very busy-looking that is functional as clothing, yeah.)
• Knight in Shining Armor
• Weakness Turns Her On
• Purity Sue (admittedly the purity part isn't actually that important and not mentioned much, but still, the character doesn't have that much else going for them)
• Badass Cape
• Wholesome Crossdresser
• Beauty Equals Goodness
• Everything's Better With Bunnies
• Kick the Dog

Author appeal full stop, particularly with my unhealthy fixation on Took a Level in Badass. Also, my current project has a genuine goddamned disney death, and the villain has a redemption equals death. I didn't want to do it, but it was the only thing that made sense. Also, Kaiya Averone is an author avatar and is pretty much a mary sue.

Oh yeah. Narrative Filigree. From what I planned for my works, I tend to mix a lot of realism into the story. I think of it as embellished real-life.

There's nothing much wrong with Redemption Equals Death in my opinion. It can be useful as long as its not overused.

Thirding Narrative Filigree.

Also Plot Armor, which I don't actually like, but I can so seldom bring myself to kill off a developed character.

You could always give them actual armor.

Unless you're the sort of person who makes realistic stories.