Is being Troperiffic a bad thing?

And if you're not using the screwdriver just to say it's in there.

And, well, When All You Have Is a Hammer…...

Simply pulling it out and waving it around does not automatically result in stabbing yourself with it.

Would that be what she said or what he said?

If you're not going in thinking "I'm gong to write a story with X plot" and/or "I'm going to write a story with X character," it's not necessarily going to be a bad story, but you're starting from quite a bit behind the line.

Of course, we have lists of Plots and Characters that are tropes, but I would classify that as a trope that arises from the nature of the work.

edited 1st Feb '12 7:10:44 PM by HersheleOstropoler

I think being Troperiffic is a GOOD thing. There's a reason why things like Kick the Dog and TheStarscream are used over and over and that's because they WORK. People want to see the Good Guys Getting The Girl and the mano-on-mano fist fight in the rain. If you don't use engaging plots how are you supposed to make a story ENGAGING?

...That's not what Troperiffic means.

In fact, for the record, I ought to state right now that what people have been arguing about this whole thread - whether one can create a good story by deliberately building it out of tropes - is not, in fact, what Troperiffic actually means either.

Yeah, Troperiffic seems like it just happens. When done intentionally it's probably more like a Cliché Storm.

To the OP, I belive there is no way to have a truly original premise. At least, as far as I have seen. This really depresses me, as I think of myself as a writer, as this seems to doom us to an endless repetition of the same ideas over and over. Not because we are lacking in ideas but because there are so many millions of people that have had these ideas already.

But, and this is a big but, we change. It may take minutes or it may take decades. Things will change. Tropes will fade in and out of importance. People 50 years from now will love our movies the same way I love 80s B Movies.

I don't think I really have the words, I really don't. The world is far too interesting to end. Our minds are far too fucking cool to be limited by reality. We can do anythingthing with fiction, we can change, destroy, even create whole new worlds.

I absolutely fucking love cheesey fucking movies.

Edit: I realised after a moment or two that I'd completely ignored the actual question. So here it goes.

Movies/Books/Your Medium Of Choice are made of tropes. They tell us what's happening, they keep us on edge, they fuck over the Superman, they destroy the world, they do whatever the fuck you've read.

Edit2: I've read this back. It's not an argument against either side. I'm really shitty at getting my idea across, hence my unemployment.

Edit3: After reading it for the third time I think I can express my opinion. Tropes, if you trust them right, can be balls to the floor awesome. Just lok at Hobo With a Shotgun. There is nothing new there, at all. Everything has been done before, the whole plot is some derivative crap. Bad guy does sht, good guy gets pissed, bad guy fucks him over, good guy wins.

Edit 4: Still didn't answer. I give up.

edited 3rd Feb '12 10:58:57 PM by fiftiethcarp

Going to the (original?) discussion of deliberately planning a work with tropes: taking an author like Terry Pratchett for example. I'm pretty sure he deliberately decides which facet of life and the fantasy genre he's going to affectionately parody in each Discworld novel. Sure, he starts with the basic tropes, but then he builds off them and takes them in so many different directions, it's amazing.

Thinking in tropes may start you off behind the curve, but it also lets you reach greater heights too. Because if Pterry did it, everyone can.

edited 3rd Feb '12 11:41:02 PM by Autumncomet

Not really something to be depressed about. It's not about what it's about, but how it's about it.

That actually brings up the point I was making earlier: deliberately putting tropes in your work is not the same thing as building your work out of tropes.

The author of Gintama also very deliberately built his story from tropes and then very deliberately built plots from tropes, which is one of the reasons why the show is so extremely fun and why I love it so damn much.

edited 4th Feb '12 3:07:47 AM by fanty

But in order to build a story out of tropes you have to put the tropes in first! According to the laconic: "Using cliches because they're cliches." It didn't say anything about what you do with the cliches.

Pratchett uses elements from various genres and real-life situations in order to parody them. I think it's safe to say this whole argument does not apply to parody elements; when you're parodying something, your starting point is the thing you're parodying. That's a given.

What about shows that are not entirely parodies but don't take themselves too seriously? Actually, the awesome thing about Gintama is that often a trope gets pointed out and then not parodied but simply played straight, and it STILL works. Things like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are also very obviously and very consciously troperiffic, and play everything straight, and it all still works. TTGL is definitely one of my biggest inspirations on how to pull off troperifficness right.

Thinking in tropes may start you off behind the curve, but it also lets you reach greater heights too.

This has prompted me to pose the question in its most uncomfortable form.

Suppose Tropes aren't really a crutch. Using the various concepts on TV Tropes as an active, involved tool in your outlining and writing does not hold back your writing- at least not in the long term; in fact, it can ultimately enhance your writing.

Where are all the successful Troper authors? I mean real Troper authors, that came out of here, cultivated their writing in the light of the site's (and this particular forum's) philosophy — or at least lurked, or heard about the site second-hand — and decided that this is what works for them, and eventually went on to, you know, do things. Real things. Getting published comes to mind.

This site is huge, and it's been around for a few years and gets lots and lots of traffic. So where are these people? Why, when I google for authors who answered the question "where do you get your inspiration" with an answer that included the word "tropes", do I get plenty of results from fanfiction.net and deviantart and esoteric blogs, and only one author who at least accomplished enough to have a Wikipedia page about them — and he appears to have unironically written a fantasy novel that has a dark lord in it, the very same dead horse cliche that prompted Pratchett's "and then there is no help for you" bit?

TV Tropes is a great resource for writers. At least it's been a great resource for me, because the first advice writers get is "read a lot". If you're a site regular you have better odds of getting a neat spark of inspiration regarding what to do now when you're stuck; and you have a better idea about some things that writers do that they ought not to do.

But I have a strong hunch that the concept of a "magic toolbox" for writing appeals to writers' worse nature, and they get all caught up on the "what it's about" stage to the point where they figure that's all that matters and don't even get to the "how it's about it" part. This isn't something unavoidable. I really do agree with the points raised earlier by fanty and the rest, that Tropes are not inherently poisonous, and that there are things to be gained from them and no reason to fear them, if- if- you know what you're doing.

Thing is, this forum doesn't seem very keen on helping people reach that stage. I'm probably touching a sore spot here, but honestly plenty of threads here come across as a Youtube party of sorts, where everyone's so completely focused on getting attention for their characters and settings and couldn't care less about giving out any constructive criticism (to the degree that they are qualified to give it out in the first place). This is a problem, because constructive criticism is the thing writers need the most, and ought to be the soul of any writing forum. This forum has nearly no focus on constructive criticism, and a very great focus on Gushing About Your Own Writing That You Like in all its myriad thinly-disguised forms.

I suppose the conclusion all of this leads to is that we should start a ConCrit thread. Everyone here agrees that ultimately what matters is good writing vs. bad writing, and both can be done with or without tropes. If we can cultivate an atmosphere in this forum that encourages good writing and helps writers improve and get away from the pitfalls of bad writing- wherever they may be- then we will have done good.

edited 4th Feb '12 9:48:01 AM by TripleElation

I couldn't agree more. This forum (and the Troper writers) could really benefit from some constructive criticism.

What are you talking about? This thread is functioning. Or, at least I know I'm beta reading for someone who put their announcement up on there.

Also, there's nothing wrong with a writers' subforum that focuses on ideas instead of execution. I lurked on an execution-centric site for a month, and believe me, after reading through a few hundred threads on which person you should write in, whether using adverbs is a good thing, and how to show instead of tell, I decided that I'd really rather lurk here. There's more to writing than just those nuts and bolts. And there's plenty to talk about before you even reach the stage where you have something that could get critiqued.

Also also, the fact that someone spends some of their time in a cake shop doesn't mean that their diet does not feature meat and vegetables.

edited 4th Feb '12 10:23:16 AM by fanty

The sites tone is too anti-criticism though, despite criticism being the most important part of the creative and analytic processes when it comes to art.

Two pages is functioning? When most of the high-traffic, fast-moving threads in this place have hundreds or thousands of posts?

Whether or not to use adverbs and whether or not to write in the first person are really not the point. Here are some points: Writing subtly, instead of hitting the reader over the head. Not using a paragraph where a sentence would do. Making dialogue flow naturally. Introducing the reader to some reason why they should care. Making characters' thought processes believable. Giving characters some distinction, even if it means you don't get to shove in all your 31 character draft ideas. And on, and on, and on.

I do agree, although I don't see nothing inherently wrong with "Youtube Parties" just that there is an over saturation of it.

There are the character development threads as well.

I don't know if I'd call this place anti-criticism. TBH, I just think it's more pro-lazy

edited 4th Feb '12 11:04:07 AM by MrAHR

Depends upon whether you mean WB or the site at large. But that's not something that I want to get into here and now, for various reasons.

In any case, I'm with Triple Elation, in terms of overall sentiment, with the sole caveat that the exchange thread's length is not necessarily a reflection on health or activity therein, considering its function.

You can't dish out several thousand works. Of course that thread will move slowly.

As for the second bit: Every place on the internet leans somewhere and neglects some topics. There is no Perfectly Rounded Writing Forum anywhere. You have to visit several. You are not chained to one. This subforum is perfectly fine as it is.

edited 4th Feb '12 11:26:53 AM by fanty

@Triple Elation: I agree with you, tropes can be used for good or ill—Tropes Are Tools after all. And I guess I'm defining "trope" a bit differently; a person can still use tropes without ever having visited TV Tropes after all.

I'll disagree about not including parody works like Pratchett's when talking about this, but there's still the matter of works like TTGL.

And I joined this subforum just yesterday. I have no clue on this sort of thing, although just from first glance I can tell more constructive criticism wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm not even much of a writer, but I find this subforum fascinating.

In my mind, what it boils down to is don't sacrifice your story for the sake of shoe-horning in tropes, and don't make your story just about the tropes either. For some people, it might help to have a list of things to start from; that's all well and good, just go beyond that list. The reason I said you could possibly reach greater heights while using tropes is because making that sort of list probably gives your work a bit more focus. YMMV.

That novel series you linked seems like all the wrong sorts of Troperiffic. The first book has 4 stars on Amazon though.

edited 4th Feb '12 11:43:53 AM by Autumncomet