Recurring Tropes in your writings

Let's face it: No matter how hard you try to avoid it, there are usually certain tropes you tend to use often. Sometimes it's not intentional, other times, it's about as subtle as a music video from India.

For instance, the ones I've noticed for myself:

• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: It doesn't appear that often, but several times, it's kinda subtly hinted at.
• Tranquil Fury: This is one that I LOOOOOVVEEEE. Sure, if a character's ranting like a mixture of Lewis Black, Sam Kinison and the Tasmanian Devil, it means he's pissed. But if he's suddenly gone into Silent Bob or Spock mode, run. Run long, run fast, run silent, run deep, run like water through a Mexican tourist. The key word: RUN.
• Order Versus Chaos: I've always liked this ideal.
• Berserk Button: Children Are Innocent, Mama Bear, Papa Wolf: Now this is a big deal for many of my heroes. If you're a villain, and you threaten the life of a child, we'll just get to see how many body parts you'll wind up with.
• Beware the Nice Ones: It's extremely rare, but it does happen sometimes. After all, everybody has their limits.
• And finally, this isn't a trope, but even though I'm an anarcho-pacifist when it comes to politics, I'm very pro-military (which always surprises people). As a result, mercenaries/soldiers/etc. are often portrayed in a positive light if they appear in a story.

Let's see....

• Tranquil Fury
• Dissonant Serenity
• Ax-Crazy
• Hidden Depths
• Slasher Smile
• One-Man Army
• High-Pressure Blood
• Superpowered Evil Side
• Gorn

Yeah, you see where I'm going with this.

Bathos, The Comically Serious.

Protagonists tend to lampshade absurd situations or defuse dramatic situations with undignified reactions/inner monologue. I don't think this fits into Deadpan Snarker though, mostly because they're not deadpan or witty at all. I also try not to call too much attention to their (nonexistent) "wittiness", because I hate it when other works don't do it properly.

There's quite a few tropes I like to use in my works, and quite a few more I don't.

I'll have to take some time to think about them, though.

Hmm...

• Keet: Although I like to Deconstruct it.

• Brainwashed/Brainwashed and Crazy

• Disney Death

• Sanity Slippage

• Breather episode/Humor mode

And my all time favorite...

• Beware The Nice Ones.

There's probably more, but it'll take me about five days to write them all down.

edited 12th Nov '11 3:21:01 PM by Masterofchaos

Let's see off the top of my head:

• Scenery Porn: Sometimes I get carried away describing scenery when I should be describing plot or characters.
  • Scenery Gorn: It's a war series, what do ya expect?
• Hot-Blooded: Several of my characters are and others get Hot-Blooded moments. Which leads to...
  • Large Ham: Some of my characters if voiced by actors would seem hammier than a ham sandwich.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: This keeps recurring every now and then as well in part because of the above.
  • World of Ham: A lot of folks speak in a manner not befitting traditional actors.
• Anyone Can Die: The body count is through the roof as expected from a semi-realistic depiction of an interstellar war.
  • Kill Em All: Several instances have entire units, outfits, ships or what have you being nearly or completely annihilated.
• Death In All Directions: Most notably...
  • Beam Spam: Minovski particle weaponry is the standard issue and some of them can fire quite rapidly, either through multi gun systems or...
  • Gatling Good: Quite a few weapon systems use Gatling type particle weaponry.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: Buster Rifles, Shinigami beam cannons, AMRs (short for Anti-Materiel Rifle), the Buster Rail aboard Parmagrass Ultra in the second and third books. Yeah they come in all scales and sizes from infantry portable (AMR) to starship/space station shipkiller (Shinigami).
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Rocket artillery bombardments happen on a recurring basis as does repeated use of missile weapons sometimes numbering in great numbers fired.
  • Spam Attack: When all else fails, repeated sword strikes are a viable tactic. Either that or...
  • Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: ...repeatedly punching somebody is too.
• Numerological Motif: Including...
  • Rule of Three: A lot of threes have a tendency to happen. Some intentional, some not.
  • Four Is Death: Some fours are mentioned as well. Sometimes with the deathly connotation.
  • Powers Of Two: Semi-Author Appeal or Write What You Know. I have computer degrees and am quite fluent at assorted benchmark binary numbers.
  • 108: VF-108 starfighter squadron, Captain Roy Jansen's outfit is repeatedly shown.
• Minovsky Physics: Why this is so far down when it's the primary Phlebotinum of Endless Conflict is just amusing. Minovski particles (aka Minovski radiation, usable interchangeably) allow particle bolt/beam weaponry, FTL Travel, and FTL Radio.
• Great Offscreen War: Numerous references to the Two Year War abound inside. A number of characters reveal themselves as veterans of this conflict. (In Gangee's case the feud with Swordmaster Khornan stems from this war.)
• Cryptic Background Reference: Oh so many...

And I'll stop there. This post will be way too Trope Overdosed if I continue.

edited 12th Nov '11 3:30:11 PM by MajorTom

"It" Is Dehumanizing. Dear God, "It" Is Dehumanizing. It's quicker for me to list stories I've written in which I didn't use, subvert, or play with this trope.

The problem with threads like this is that no one can prove that they've used recurring tropes unless they provide at least two sufficiently long excerpts of their own work for outside scrutiny.

^ And which threads would be suitable for Recurring Trope analysis?

I get the feeling that this is more one of those "talk about your works" threads then it is a serious attempt to analyze what tropes you tend to use.

Although it looks like you're only listing tropes from one work?

Recurring Trope does not necessarily imply or mean just one trope per work. A work can use a trope many times in a recurring fashion. The classic example of a Recurring Trope is a trope used as a Running Gag.

Yeah, but the impression I get was that this thread was meant to be about someone's "signature" tropes - those that crop up again throughout your writings, regardless of the setting.

Major Tom: Trying to list recurring tropes in one work can easily blur the line between Running Gag, Arc Words, and other repetitive devices. "Recurring" itself has the connotation of separate items connected with repeating elements—a recurring dream, for example, takes place over several nights. It's not just one dream with one scene repeated over and over.

Not to mention the OP's title is vague enough for us to take it both ways.

nrjxll: I have a vendetta against threads devoted to talking about work instead of working on work.

edited 12th Nov '11 8:55:28 PM by Leradny

At this time, the only trope I can confirm with certainty (in a cross-work sense) is Did Not Get the Girl (or Boy). From the top of my head, only one story I'm planning to have the protagonist end in a relationship—unless I pull a The Hero Dies.

One example of this trope: Manifestation Files. The love interest's father is killed, and she is sent away on a bus to a boarding school.

Another example: Kira Is Justice. Every important girl associated with Justin? Either dead, insane, or on the run.

Depression Harmonica: This time, it's the protagonist on the run and separated from the love interest.

Ashwood Landing? Status unknown, but it'll probably not end up happy.

edited 12th Nov '11 8:59:13 PM by chihuahua0

New Dawn: Cool Sword, Idiot Hero who turns out to be a Guile Hero, Dysfunction Junction, Ho Yay, Genre Savvy and Villainous Breakdown.

Viandas Rewrite: Cool Sword, Guile Hero, Dysfunction Junction, Villainous Breakdown, Ho Yay and Genre Savvy.

Let's see...

• Grey And Grey/Black-and-Grey Morality: I don't think, in the more recent incarnations (which are far more numerous than you might expect), I have had a side that wasn't at least somewhat morally ambiguous.
• Byronic Hero: Seriously, I don't even do it on purpose (except that one time I did); two or three characters will always end up being this trope. Even before I knew what one was, it would happen like that.
• Screw You, Elves!: Either I make them suffer, or I make them villains. Kind of a meta version of this trope.
• Despair Event Horizon
• Hope Spot: Because nothing is more fun than dangling a carrot in front of your characters, and cruelly yanking it away, then eating it, and forcing them to watch.
• Mood Whiplash
• Scenery Porn
• Scenery Gorn
• Power at a Price
• Magitek: This one started up a bit more recently, but it's fitting in comfortably enough that it looks like it's here to stay.
• Wham Episode: LOVE these.
• Tone Shift /Genre Shift: What often comes after.
• Dysfunction Junction
• Wild Card: A good number of characters end up being this...
• Xanatos Speed Chess: ...and this is often why.

edited 12th Nov '11 11:17:46 PM by tropetown

Do you really want me to copy and paste my entire profile?

Let's see...surprisingly few across multiple works, most carryover is too general to be considered by tropes.

• Combat Pragmatist: I have a recurring fascination with people and/or mecha getting gutshot in the middle of a swordfight or whatever functional equivalent is in play. My current hero thinks absolutely nothing of going no-holds-barred on anyone who picks a fight with him, including pre-teen girls. This trope? I am all over this trope.
• Five Rounds Rapid: Conspicuous by its subversion. When it does appear, it is immediately subverted as while personal firearms fail people will then go up to mortar bombs, shoulder fired rockets, and vehicle guns.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Tends to sneak in more as a result of camouflage functions usually, but In The Service has no such excuse (except canon).
• Gender Is No Object: I am an incurable idealist, perhaps, and frequently deal with technology that renders gender differences moot anyways.
• Mundane Utility: I honestly regard this as one of the most important aspects of dealing with sci-fi or fantasy. You have to establish this isn't the world people are used to, and this does it.
• Reporting Names: In a general sense. Organizations military and paramilitary develop equivalent behaviors to this. I make an attempt to replicate this for "feelies" as it were.

More than a few. Here are the ones I can think of right now, with explanations:

• Black Comedy / Dead Baby Comedy: I find a lot of things funny that most people wouldn't admit to finding so. Perhaps it's that my inner sadist doesn't see enough light in the other corners of my life, or I'm just a morbid, depressive person by nature. In any case, the sick little boy comes out to play now and then, and it's always something.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: People react strangely to when someone challenges their sense of ethics or morality. Usually, they see it as a personal attack: They define themselves by their beliefs, and so see any criticism as something more. Defensive postures appear, weapons are drawn, confusion runs rampant. This is my little, twisted mirror on what I see.
• Classical Anti-Hero: While I wouldn't say that I'm openly hostile to the idea of having a straight Hero Protagonist, I'm not really sure that it's in my make-up. All of my protagonists are defective in some way, just slightly off, and that's just how it is.
• Cosmic Horror Story: Where I started, and likely where I will end up. I have always found the reflex to make human conceptions of moral and structural order apply to any scale larger than the human one an ultimately self-defeating one: It only makes you feel smaller, sillier.
• Cry for the Devil: It should not be so easy to hate someone as it often is in fiction. So I make it hard. But sometimes that isn't so easy itself; people will be people, after all, and people can be cruel. So I wait, counting out the hours till the point where you think that there is no redemption, no value, and it is there that I strike. And then you know it was never really easy at all.
• Genius Bonus: There is a certain thrill in recognising some quality in a work that you are aware that others likely do not. Beyond the obvious guilty pleasure of being one of a small elite, there is a heightened sense of kinship with the author: Both of you care where others do not. Sharing this feeling is even better.
• 'Hero' In Name Only: Sometimes, in order to do what is right in the long run, one requires a character with as few scruples to speak of as possible. After all, who better to know the worst of man than someone who, were it not for circumstance, could very well be that.
• Intentional Nightmare Fuel: There is something in me that thrills in making other people squirm, be it in a sympathetic way ("that bothers me, too") or one less so ("dance, puppets, dance!"), but whatever the reasons, it's always there, and so I embrace it.
• Knight Templar: Absolute devotion both terrifies and fascinates me. Being fairly non-committal in most aspects of life, I often find complete enthralment to a cause or idea to be something completely alien and mysterious. This, of course, makes writing it the most beautiful thing.
• Manipulative Bastard: These sort of antagonists (and even protagonists) just kind of come naturally to me. Perhaps it's a side-effect of being utterly incapable of emotional duplicity myself, meaning that I give more weight to it. I don't know.
• Mind Screw: I am not a stupid person. I am actually quite intelligent, by a certain value of the word. Because of this, when confronted with most matters of logic, I am able to reach a fairly accurate conclusion quickly and quite easily. It is when I cannot that my interest is truly peaked.
• The Snark Knight: Sarcasm, like any good instrument of cruelty and destruction, cuts both ways. It's much more endearing, I think, when the cutting done to the hand holding the blade is of an intentional sort.
• The Sociopath: A total lack of empathy, like an absence of doubt, is something inherently contrary to the greater part of human nature. It is begotten of pain, or madness, or some crucial flaw or twist in the heart. And that is the beauty in the beast: One is not born this way; one is made.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: This trope always made a kind of curious sense to me. Really, think about it: The average human mind is only equipped to understand so much as an extension of its own abilities; to have more than that is naturally going to throw things out of order.

Okay, here's my list:

• Action Girl: Most of my female characters. Chickification is entirely averted, but some of the women in my stories are a bit too scary to qualify for Action Girl status. Also, there are Dark Action Girl protagonists (see Black-and-Gray Morality below).
• Anvilicious: I have a strong tendency toward sociopolitical commentary. It's usually about as subtle as Hiroshima.
• Ascended Fanboy: At least one character in each story.
• Author Appeal: I don't shy away from it at all. Some of the greatest Guilty Pleasures ever written have been fueled by this trope. Besides, we need more works heavily featuring lactation.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: See also Combat Pragmatist, Cold-Blooded Torture, Kick The Son Of A Bitch, etc. My protagonists are not ideal heroes for most people. Sometimes, depending on how polyamorous the work is (and how anviliciously it promotes polyamory), this can descend into Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Black and White Beauty: See also Author Appeal. The vast majority of my female characters look like this because I find this trope to be the embodiment of physical perfection.
• Brain Bleach: Trust me, you're gonna need it. Sometimes I need it, and I wrote this shit.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall
• Byronic Hero: At first glance, but actually subverted due to the lack of Wangst and general tendency not to dwell on horrible things they've done to villains after the fact. Also, the fact that so many of my main protagonists are female. But the rebellion against society's values (free love is a common theme in my work, as is killing rich people) and tendency to do dickish or morally ambiguous things is there, and despite the relative cooling off of passions once the murder has been accomplished my protagonists are rather Hot-Blooded at the beginning of the story.
• Camp: I tend to not take myself very seriously when writing, and this combined with the fact that despite its supernatural elements the primary genre of most of my work is Action makes it fairly campy.
• Canon Welding: Almost everything takes place in the same Verse, and Character Overlap does occur from time to time.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Not from one character in one line, but the work itself as a whole. Be warned, if you have problems with harsh language then you are going to be deeply offended by my work.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Even when the good guys do it, it goes beyond the usual Jack Bauer stuff.
• The Combat Pragmatist: I don't know any other way to fight... the stuff my characters do is what I would do in their situation.
• Country Matters: Bit of an Author Catchphrase. If you see a work with my name attached to it, rest assured one of the characters will call one of the other characters a cunt at some point.
• Creator Provincialism: I set most of my stories in the cluster of cities surrounding the one in southeastern Virginia where I live. There's one that alternates between Virginia Beach and Las Vegas, one that takes place in Nashville (but definitely not our Nashville) and another that takes place in Myrtle Beach, but those are exceptions rather than the rule.
• Cruel and Unusual Death
• Dangerously Genre-Savvy: At least one character in each story, usually the Ascended Fanboy.
• Deadpan Snarker: There are so many of these in my work that it's almost a World of Snark.
• Either/Or Prophecy: If there's a prophecy, the bad guys have another one that states the exact opposite. This allows me to still keep readers in suspense, while also edging closer to Anyone Can Die territory than I would probably dare to without it.
• Ethical Slut: There's the odd monogamous character every once in a while, but since I don't believe in monogamy myself I usually don't bother writing it.
• Everybody Has Lots of Sex
• Everyone Is Bi
• Exploitation Film: Technically books rather than films (well, in most cases anyway), but the trope still fits. I even refer to my work as "grindhouse books".
• Fanservice / Fetish Fuel
• Good Bad Girl
• Gorn
• Hell Is That Noise: Considering the auditory limitations of the literary format, I pull this off successfully with surprising consistency.
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel
• Immortality: Elves, vampires, powerful Planeswalker-type wizards, unaging aliens, Physical Gods, Eldritch Abominations, and Santa Claus all exist in the universe of my stories.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: That's what he's there for, right? Karma Houdini is gruesomely averted in my writing.
• Lovecraft Lite: Generally speaking, I shy away from actual Cosmic Horror in favor of a Lighter and Softer — but still extremely dark and hard — version of Lovecraftian storytelling. There's only one work I've started writing so far that is intended to be a full-fledged Cosmic Horror Story, and it's a Prequel to set up a villain's Origin Story so of course it's going to be fucking depressing.
• MIB: There's a government initiative specifically devoted to investigating paranormal phenomena. They permeate nearly all of my writing.
• Mood Whiplash: Intentionally shot for most of the time, in the grand tradition of such great writers as Joss Whedon and Aaron Allston.
• Narm Charm: See also Camp and Exploitation Film. I'm intentionally shooting for Narm at certain points.
• Porn with Plot: Just telling your audience the characters are doing it isn't any fun. So I show them instead.
• Rape as Drama: Bordering on — and possibly descending into — Gratuitous Rape. Once I find a better way to justify things like, just as an example, harvesting a villain's organs and selling them on the black market, I'll use something else besides rape to establish characters as deserving only death.
• Reference Overdosed
• Squick: Like JHM, I love watching people squirm. Intentionally including Squick in my work is one of the ways I pull it off.
• Urban Fantasy
• Villain Protagonist: A startling number of my short stories have these.
• World of Badass

Hmmm... -looks up- Well damn! This should be interesting...

• Deconstruction
• Pay Evil unto Evil
• Good Is Not Nice
• Gorn
• Deadpan Snarker: Many, on occasion from normally serious characters.
• Rape as Drama: Usually only in concept form. I rarely actually write it.
• Earn Your Happy Ending
• Beneath the Mask
• You Fail Physics Forever: I'm currently working on averting this, as I'm learning more about physics in class.
• Sir Swearsalot: I think this mimics my own (when I'm feeling comfortable) speech pattern somewhat
• Anti-Hero: So many...
• Blood Magic I. Love. This. Trope. I just have yet to form it into something I can plausibly use.
• My God, What Have I Done?
• Perpetual Poverty: I avert this everytime it shows up. Being in poverty can have serious reprecussions. I'm currently learning from experience. (...Yay...)
• Badass Normal: I don't get very creative with magical thingies, admittedly, so I hand out generic powers to start, develop their character, and then go back to developing magical shit for them.
• Humor: I don't use blatant humor often, but I do like adding in jabs, deadpan deliveries, and sometimes just plain over-the-top antics.
• Anachronism Stew: In works that aren't strictly "canon" within my fanfiction, I enjoy fucking with this a lot.
• Straight Gay; This trope is showing up more and more. I can just as easily not use it, although I find it to be interesting to write.

There shall be more...once I'm out of class.

Sword Fight

• The Stoic: I love writing stoic characters.
• Tsundere: I write a lot of Tsunderes, but I don't do the Type A Violent Approach Tsundere's.
• Sugar and Ice: My stoic characters.
• The Quiet One: Usually my stoic characters.
• Beneath the Mask: Some of my characters.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: I like my romances to be more mature and believable.
• Bromance: I have a lot of Bromances. Not of the Ho Yay variety, either.
• First-Person Smartass: I don't use it exclusively but I really have fun when I do, and I avoid the whole World of Snark thing. I hate that.
• The Dreaded: I think it's hilarious when other characters over-dramatize how scary a regular cast member it. Especially when that character is the stoic.

Eh, I don't think the stuff I write is all that similar to each other.

edited 15th Nov '11 5:11:03 PM by NoirGrimoir

Well I've noticed that I always have a character that is:

• Cloud Cuckoolander
• The Stoic
• The Cynic

And one time, I combined the first and third trope to make a Complete Monster.

But they are never main protagonists, just background characters. Main protagonist are always quirky. In many ways. They can be Crazy-Prepared or Ridiculous Procrastinators.

I'm an odd person, so I make odd characters.

edited 15th Nov '11 6:52:58 PM by Litemi

Also for me:

• Changeling Fantasy: lets not get started on the complicated parenthood of Matthew. Johnson doesn't have the father he thinks he has. Nathan...yeah. Nothing in Fall D.Ark Tyrant makes any sense.
• Mind Screw: New Dawn's Blessed Tear arc. Ein Woe Arc in Viandas. All of Fall D.Ark Tyrant period. The plot is the result of an aborted fetus clutching a Vesper Core for dear life and creating "Absurdity Circumstances."
• Bi Shonen: Matthew could give off some Bishie Sparkle, he's so pretty. Johnson averts it, but Nathan plays it straight.
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel: I tried being unsubtle in Viandas and got laughed at. In New Dawn, I mostly rely on more subtle things and Fridge Horror, rather than in your face horror. Fall D.Ark Tyrant is this when its not being utterly surreal.
• What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: All of Fall D.Ark Tyrant reads like me having an acid trip while hyped up on coffee. As a result, we got Kandine "Kandy" being literate aware, furry wolf-like hermaphrodites, a kid who kills monsters with his arm which is made of creepy cool crosses, and then the time travel paradox plot is revealed.
• The Combat Pragmatist: When you get past the sense of honor and obligation to save absolutely everyone, Matthew just does NOT fight fair. Johnson does groin attacks, eye attacks, kills with a fork while an opponent is citing reasons for his death, and attacks from behind while opponents are preparing for the match. Nathan...actually averts this.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Matthew really likes swords, Johnson wields a BFS, and the ultimate form of Nathan's Symphony is essentially a sword made of light energy which he uses to pop Armagus like a zit.
• Clean Cut: Matthew does this once to a Complete Monster enemy mage. Johnson does it often. Nathan averts it, due to his main weapon being his right arm.
• Hero Killer: Lots of very menacing enemies. Dolfe, Alucard, Nebiros, and especially Karasu.
• Anti-Villain: For every one of my Complete Monsters, there is one of these. Most of the above hero killers are also very sympathetic. Nebiros is just pitiably insane, driven such by his own demonic blood awakening. Dolfe just wants to see his son and daughter again. Alucard just wants to be normal. Karasu, Dolfe's son, just wants his little sister to be safe forever. Most of the Heavenly Blades are Anti Villains. In Viandas, when you think of it, Ein Woe acts like a Complete Monster, but his backstory is a huge Tear Jerker. Stephen Arkh is Future Nathan Drant, but "forever impaled to a piece of wood by the hatred of a betrayed mankind." He has no control over his own evil army, and is just a figure head, barely even seen any more, mostly just impersonated by Greeder, his own chancellor.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Matthew's Kladenets sword is made of black plasma which is cursed to destroy everything it strikes except for magically guarded things. Johnson's Demon Mode, and Nathan mostly averts it, most of his attacks being light elemental looking.
• Light Is Not Good: Queen Anathema, Vice, and Ein play this straight. Ein by wearing all white clothes, Anathema with a fancy dress, and Vice is made of white metallic pieces and is just squicky.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Matthew uses this to avoid any suspicion. Ein pretends to be just a "frothingly insane evil clown", when he's really a Magnificent Bastard, and Nathan likes to pretend to be an idiotic farm boy...right before he proceeds to rip you a new one.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Anathema, Ein Woe, Nebiros, Shiryu, Alucard
• Eldritch Abomination: Alucard could be compared to Wallachia, Karasu's ultimate form, Most Class 2 and higher Demons, Cain the first vampire, and many others.
• Dysfunction Junction

edited 15th Nov '11 8:18:22 PM by NickTheSwing