What it says in the title. EDIT: Link to auxiliary sandbox page
Some trope descriptions suffer from problems. Some possible ones:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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...
- 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?
- 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?
- Spelling and grammar issues.
- 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".
- Bad Writing. Purple Prose, pitching the trope, Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma.
- Egregiously Fan-Myopic quote.
- 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
The theme doesn't make sense. It's trying to be witty and being unclear as to what is meant by something like "Tasty Recipes." I'm not sure there's a reason for the split and what does Speculative Fiction have to do with food anyway?
Metaphor for what?
What makes Urban Fantasy a "Basic Ingredient" and Steampunk a "Tasty Recipe"
It may be "Concise and Witty" but it is failing "Clear" by a large margin.
A basic ingredient of Speculative Fiction? A tasty recipe for a Speculative Fiction story? That is my logic.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanYou aren't answering the question. You are repeating back the terms that I've already said I don't understand without any elaboration.
What is a "Tasty Recipe" for Speculative Fiction and what makes something a Tasty Recipe and not a Basic Ingredient?
A cooking recipe describes how to create a particular food item. A "recipe" here describes how a particular Speculative Fiction item can be created. This is my thought process, at least.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanExcept that none of the pages are a "How To" for writing Speculative Fiction. They are describe subgenres of Speculative Fiction, and there is no clear reasoning given as to why one subgenre would be considered an ingredient while another subgenre would be a recipe.
Unless a justification can be found an spelled out on the page in clear way, we should probably ditch the soft split.
edited 16th Nov '13 8:08:34 AM by Catbert
Looking at the page, I think the soft-split is between the "staples" of speculative fiction (fantasy, sci-fi, and horror) and the other subgenres that fall under it, such as alternate history, steampunk, etc. However, I'm really not sure that there's a compelling reason to split the subgenres like that; they're all part of speculative fiction, it's just that some are more common/well known than others.
And I agree with Catbert that if the soft-split of the first two sections is kept, then the current headings are definitely less than clear about what the sections actually are.
I would leave the third section separate, as that's clearly "crossover" genres, that is, subgenres which partly fall under spec fiction and partly under other genres.
Most of the "ingredients" are actually genres/types of stories and not really tropes per se, while some of the "recipes" are tropes and not story types.
edited 16th Nov '13 1:48:58 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.![]()
See, that would make sense if the "Basic Ingredients" part was tropes, while the "Tasty Recipes" was genres—which is what I actually expected to find the first time I looked at the page. But they're both listing genres (with the exception of a few tropes/settings which are in the "recipe" section). Hence the confusion. (And Speculative Fiction Tropes is its own page.)
edited 16th Nov '13 2:04:11 PM by Nocturna
I'm with Nocturna on this one.
Also, someone needs to have a look at the description on Camp Follower (which, like the last page I brought up, is more focused on the Trope Namer and less on the trope itself).
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)Just correct the filing of things that aren't filed correctly.
Edited to add: Okay, I looked at it after a long time and see what had gone wrong. Somebody tried to make it into a classification system with both categories and tropes in the same list. Like all "indented" indexes, it was doomed to fail because it was too complex/subjective.
I parsed it down to a list of sub-genres. The Speculative Fiction Tropes index lists the individual tropes just fine.
edited 16th Nov '13 6:49:34 PM by FastEddie
Goal: Clear, Concise and WittyUgh, Conservation of Ninjutsu's description looks bloated. How much of it do you think can be chucked in Analysis and how much should be axed?
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Hmm ... I always thought that these Laws and Formulas tropes have long descriptions because the main trope is encompassed in the formula.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanI know, but I think we have a guideline of sorts that recommends trying to not go too much beyond one screen's worth of text.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.I dunno, I just remember either you or someone else on the staff saying something to this effect, probably with a rough screen size that apparently corresponded to a measured "average" for TV Tropers users.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.The only thing like that I recall is that the actual definition of the trope shouldn't be pushed down off the first screen by things that aren't "actual definition of the trope" like analysis or background or an exposition on the trope in Real Life or a couple of paragraphs on the Trope Namer or things like that.
The various Laws generally tend to be kind of complicated to explain fully.

The problem, at least for me, is that I have no idea what is meant by "Tasty Recipes" and there seems to be no readily apparent difference between the subgenres that fall under "Basic Ingredients" and those that fall under "Tasty Recipes".
If someone can figure out what the difference is, it would be nice to have an explanation on the page. Otherwise, I think a simple alphabetical listing would be more apropos.