Trope Description Improvement Drive

What it says in the title. EDIT: Link to auxiliary sandbox page

Some trope descriptions suffer from problems. Some possible ones:

1. Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!. A paragraph starts explaining element X of the trope, then it wanders off to explain element Y. Two paragraphs after that we're back at element X again. Nary a conjunction is in sight.
2. Too long. Stuff that should go in analysis, or maybe in another trope, or maybe nowhere, going in the main space. Too much scrolling required before you can get to the examples.
3. Fan Myopia. Some "this is how it happens in WRESTLING!" dissertation is taking up half of the page on a trope about white t-shirts. We already have a thread on that one - discussion about the general phenomenon goes there, specific candidates to deal with go here.
4. General lack of balance and order. Something is emphasized at the expense of the other aspects of the trope, even though it has no right to be. Consequences of the trope come first, then related tropes, then a mention of the Trope Codifier, then common scenarios where it comes into play...
5. Failure to answer the fundamental question up front: What is this trope? Not what it "might" be or what can "possibly" happen - what is it?
6. Not enough meat. Juicy stuff is missing, like: When is the trope likely to turn up? Why would an author use it? In what ways does the audience often react? Which tropes are related to it and how?
7. Spelling and grammar issues.
8. The first line which makes honest-to-god sense is below the fold. e.g. Example as a Thesis that makes you go "huh?" instead of "ooooh".
9. Bad Writing. Purple Prose, pitching the trope, Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma.
10. Egregiously Fan-Myopic quote.
11. Jaywalking.

Bring up trope pages here so we can work on them. If no one does in a while, I'll try to dig something up.

edited 22nd Sep '11 10:48:59 AM by TripleElation

I'd like to add Take That! and "this is a trope that sucks and any work that uses it sucks". Also, lacking a Related Tropes Paragraph.

Under 3, you should probably add a link to the other thread.

Done.

That's the flip-side of pitching the trope. Batting the trope, if you will.

Hm, after pulling the image, I think Be Careful What You Wished For has an issue with rambling and trying to cover too many different ways to play the trope. It also seems to have four related tropes paragraphs.

Be Careful What You Wish For umm yeah.... big sign is "Also the supertrope of Literal Genie. The majority of trope examples will belong on that page!"

edited 20th Sep '11 1:30:18 AM by Raso

Unlucky Everydude seems to be written genre and medium specific. Does this warrant a rewrite or a full TRS'ing?

It certainly is a genre really or sub-genre usually paired with Magical Girlfriend and/or Harem Genre or both for maximum Lutz, considering we have The Everyman The Generic Guy The Loser Is You and such for others I dont know if it's split worthy, cleanup or rename. Normal but unlucky Butt-Monkey protag dropped into madness and watch the lutz (the biggest source of Abuse Is Ok When Its Female On Male and lots of people have issues with it, as well as having a protag who can't stand up for himself.). It can use at minimum at least minor rewrite no matter what we do though.

(And Magical Girlfriend, Magical Girl, Super Robot, Real Robot and Super Hero all have the same problem of genre/ character type combo issue.)

edited 20th Sep '11 2:54:18 AM by Raso

Adjective Noun Fred needs to be fixed as it's a general language/translation trope.

Did stuff to Be Careful What You Wish For.

EDIT: If we're not sure about whether something about a page needs fixing or not (e.g. the Unlucky Everydude thing), it'd be better to work that out someplace else - here's the place for the grunt work.

(EDIT)^2: What's the generic form of Adjective Noun Fred? If it's not explicitly about the Japanese thing, what's the trope? Language oddities being carried over in translation? In that case the title is horrible. Maybe it needs a supertrope rather than a rewrite.

edited 20th Sep '11 4:33:43 AM by TripleElation

Actually, seeing as I'm sorting some of them, I'm just going to leave this edit open for tropes on the Anime Tropes index:

Against the Setting Sun: anime specific

Anime Accent Absence: Japan specific (needs general TRS for rename)

Aspect Montage: anime specific

Bishie Sparkle (has a lot of non-anime examples for an anime trope)

Bishōnen Line: length

Bleached Underpants: anime/manga overload.

Cry Cute:length

Stopping after C.

Edit: your interpretation of Adjective Noun Fred sounds accurate. I'll keep it in mind for TRS later.

edited 20th Sep '11 4:38:53 AM by Deboss

I don't actually see a problem with Adjective Noun Fred... It's not really something that happens in standard English right? (as in it's not correct grammar?)

Up till now I thought that they were just titles that were a little off but damn reading that I learned something there that it's Japanese language structure mixing in with Engrish to make strange titles like Mahou Sensei Negima. (Magic Teacher Negima.)

edited 20th Sep '11 4:54:08 AM by Raso

I sometimes consider Example as a Thesis a case of point #5 as well as #8.

edited 20th Sep '11 5:56:20 AM by Stratadrake

Going back to Be Careful What You Wish For, if it is a supertrope, (and it is — it isn't limited to magical wishes) then there's nothing wrong with saying that the examples should be on the appropriate subtrope's pages.

Lots of the shoehorning we've been finding in TRS is a result of a subtrope having a page, but its supertrope not existing, so all the "kinda-sorta close" examples have nowhere to be put.

Cutting supertropes that we already do have is just gong to make this problem worse.

Adjective Noun Fred seems to be about the specific naming convention(eg, Egregious Vocabulary Ruiner TV Tropes), which I believe is simply unidiomatic in English. Definitely needs a rewrite to make it clear it's not Japan-only, especially since the examples don't bear that out(and one of them isn't a parody/OEL Manga!). I'll go ahead and take a whack at it.

EDIT: And done. The article now mentions its popularity Japan after establishing it's unidiomatic in English.

edited 20th Sep '11 9:04:01 AM by 20LogRoot10

Fixed Against the Setting Sun to be nation non-specific. I just had to remove three words.

Bishie Sparkle seems fine. It definitely started in anime, and most of the non-anime examples are references to it, or just rare Western exceptions (Twilight being the Trope Codifier in the west, I have a feeling we're going to see more as time goes on). Added a line to that effect:

edited 20th Sep '11 9:02:58 AM by Discar

Three-Month-Old Newborn

The current writeup goes into a lot of unnecessary rather gross detail that doesn't matter much.

and it doesnt really go into the real necessary details like its only California law that bans it (it doesn't have to appear elsewhere but it just does.) as a 15 day minimum age to be on screen and they are all usually played by twins as they can only work 20 minutes a day.

Finger Twiddling maybe? There's a lot of reasons to twiddle fingers.

I'm thinking Anime Accent Absence might need to be merged with Not Even Bothering with the Accent. I don't see much difference. We can put that on the backburner until the TRS backlog gets cleared up.

I edited the Bishōnen Line article a bit. The custom title is a mess for some reason, but that's not an issue for this thread.

Is there a place where we can see which tropes get the most inbounds? Those should get precedence for fixing description issues.

edited 21st Sep '11 12:16:28 PM by TripleElation

The Finger Twiddling article was originally supposed to be about the specific gesture shown in the image (put the tips of the index fingers together, move them up and down in unison), which is confined to pretty much the scenario in the description. However, the name makes it seem like it's much more generic. Maybe it should go up for a rename when TRS clears out?

Yes, TRS for Trope Transplant reasons.

Also, I think we should list anything that's planned for TRS on Sandbox.Trope Description Improvement Drive so we don't forget about them.

Covered with Scars.

Is it just me, or is the note attached to the end of trope description overly restrictive? It clashes with how the first lines of the article imply that the trope is about at least one particular body part being scarred to an extreme/abnormal extent (i.e. the body part's surface being "essentially one gigantic scar").

Hm, I think Saving the World was in TRS for the specific purpose of being written videogame specific. However, it's being planned for a Trope Transplant, so we'd need two descriptions.

Ok don't ban me for this one but I got to bring it up.... (seriously please don't, this is an honest trope description issue if it's a problem I will delete it. )

Bishōnen is written Anime specific but shouldn't to be Japanese work specific? I am perfectly fine with the fast one's choice, (Happy even) just the Anime Land wording sticks out.

Japanese Video Games give us things like Persona 4's Teddie◊.

Future TRS?

edited 21st Sep '11 7:40:52 PM by Raso