I'm... broadly in agreement on the matter of trope-use, I think.
Specifically, I would say that "troping" is most useful as and primarily a matter of analysis—a way of examining a work, breaking down parts of the work into known elements. It's thus generally a post-hoc thing: a thing done to a work, in the study of that work, rather than to make a work.
(I wouldn't be surprised if there were some who might produce good work by starting with tropes, but I imagine that it's rare.)
I doubt it, myself: My guess would be that those who seek to determine what tropes to use in their work do so not because they're "plotters", but because they've gained the impression that that's what one does with tropes.
All that said, there might be exceptions for those who stick to a formula, perhaps.
While I'm a "pantser" myself, I imagine that it does so for "plotters" less than for "pantsers", because they're "constructing" more than they're "discovering".
One might say that a "pantser" is finding out what happens in the story, while a "plotter" is making things happen in the story. As such, things tend to happen as they say that things happen.
Still, I daresay that deviations do occur—and that they simply adjust their plans accordingly.
(Much as a military tactician might adjust their plans to enemy movement, it occurs to me—"no plan survives contact with the story"!)
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 22nd 2022 at 9:24:28 PM
My Games & Writing
Well, Tropes Are Tools. That means that it's useful to, among other things, recognize when you're using a trope in a work so you can decide how you want to play it.
Also, while intentionally "writing to tropes" without concern for how the plot fits together is one thing, Playing with a Trope is very much an important storytelling tool because it works on the audience's expectations.
Ars:
Thanks - I think that's what I had in my head, but implicitly. You've made me go 'Yep- they got it', and has made me realise that's possibly what I meant, but not realised it. Your second paragraph has made me go 'and yes, that's actually what I was trying to say (but didn't)'! Thanks for making my brain work. 
I have a small disagreement with your "not because they're "plotters", but because they've gained the impression that that's what one does with tropes", not because you are wrong, but more it's just semantics. I think 'Tropers' (as I will now call them) are a subsection of Plotter; however they may have arrived there by different routes. Some are 'Hyper-plotters', shall we say, those who have arrived at Troping via taking the Plotter route to its far conclusion - my contention.
Your view appears to be they are coming from the opposite direction, so haven't passed through 'plotting' in the 'normal' definition, but rather want to write, and think that building out of tropes is the way it is done. I can fully understand how they got to that position, but my personal opinion is that is because they started in the wrong place; that isn't their fault, it is that the internet has made things, in a way, too accessible, so it is a lot easier now than 30 years ago to find the wrong 'signpost'. Does that make sense?
I do disagree with you here, when talking about unexpected deviations.
Now it might be just the way I think, but I can not write that plot any more expansively - it tells me all I need to know, and indeed, that is how the chapter was originally written.
But then I reread it, and realised Lucy's 'voice' was too masculine. What the plot said was, once turned into actual 'story', without a 'femininity' that Lucy would bring in her interaction - i.e. that is men and women do speak differently (not Lucy speaks 'girly').
On rereading it for edit, I realised Lucy's responses were to masculine in tone/style. When I rewrote her speech in a more 'feminine' way, she basically said 'shouldn't you take me out to dinner first' - a big as shock to me as it was to Gabriel. It wasn't until the edit, and my realisation she was originally speaking in my male voice, that her 'take me out to dinner first' came through. This would not have been in a 'plot'; I did not know it was there until it was actually spoken by a character.
Plotters - How would you have picked this up?
Ramidel
I understand what you are saying. I do think we are running in parallel here; you have précised my much of my original post succinctly. However where I am heading is you don't need to 'Trope' to write. To go back to my original post for an example (and my self quotes are just a reference point), when the 'Id' dies, how does this affect the 'Superego'? It changes the dynamic of the 'Trio' - I am, in TVT terms, 'playing with a trope, but as a writer I was not using the Trope as a writing guide. Rather I was exploring the character's reactions, and how my Superego responded to loss of the Id is, I believe, very different to how Spock would react to losing McCoy (ToS, not film reboot, which is yet another dynamic).
I do think this is an important discussion to have here, and something not discussed enough here, which is, in effect a writing board (and seems far more accessible than others, possibly due to its populist roots, rather than being planned as such).
I do feel writing/story telling is the most artificial, and therefore most complex, of all the arts. Some pigment and you can paint an image; something that makes a pleasing sound, and you have music; an ability to exaggerate non-verbal expression, and that makes an actor. But writing feels like the one that needs the most work (though I am aware I may be heading towards Dunning-Kreuger here). I am not saying painting, music or acting is easy, but the artificiality of writing adds a dimension to it other arts do not have to cope with. To try and explain it we have added a further layer of artificiality (and tropes are just one part of this), which themselves needs explanation. Anyone can listen to Beethoven, or look at a Monet. But to gain anything from Dickens it must be in the artificial communication method of your personal language.
My point from the original post is if you then write from a 'Trope' point of view you are adding a further artificiality to that.
Edited by Last_Hussar on May 22nd 2022 at 4:54:21 AM
Hahah, it's my pleasure! ^_^
Honestly, I can see the potential for even "pantsers" to become "Tropers".
I see what you're saying—I just find it unlikely to my mind.
I sort of' agree here—specifically, my suspicion is that they start off with such statements as "tropes are tools that the creator of a work of art uses to express their ideas to the audience"
, from which they might gain the impression that "construction from tropes" is how writers build stories—and thus how they'' should write.
However, all that said, I doubt that either of us have much evidence for our positions, so on this we may have to simply agree to disagree!
I think that this may be the source of our disagreement here: I can absolutely see one planning well beyond that point.
That is, I think that you underestimate just how much a "plotter" can, well, "plot".
Indeed, reading between the lines, I have the impression that you think of a "plotter"'s process as being much like a "pantser"'s—that there's just as much discovery in their process as there is in ours. I'm not sure that this is true.
I suspect that, for at least some "plotters", this is simply not all that common an occurrence.
I would like to introduce you to game-development. :P
(Especially as game-development can include writing!)
I see what you're saying, I believe—writing requires language, and thus an additional interpretative step on top of those involved in most other arts. (Although I'll note that the same is true of any art that involves spoken language, such as song or theatre.)
Still, I don't think that it's this that leads to analysis by trope—indeed, on the contrary, I would say that we could potentially trope those other arts, too!
(And indeed, we do—we have pages for songs, for example.)
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 23rd 2022 at 11:25:16 AM
My Games & Writing
I will start with a call out to any self-confessed Plotters to join in. Please don't be put off, I always find it interesting in somebody else's thought process.
Dunno, maybe they are doing the prep they need 
I don't disagree with your thoughts, they do seem to compliment mine, and I think the truth is probably a mix of both. This is a very good thought
I'd love to hear from a Plotter, and especially a Troper, what they do if this happens. Writers, not just here, but professionals too, have told of when a Character just will NOT do what they are supposed to. I am guessing this is more often a Pantser problem.
I get what you are saying at the end, but I am breaking it down differently to you. A singer isn't creating the lyrics, an actor doesn't create the script; indeed with acting it comes down to how 93% of communication is non-verbal. Now I perfectly willing to stick my hand up and say 'Dunning-Kruger' here; I'd love to be musical or artistic, but I just don't have that. It is possible because I don't understand the creative process, I don't see the creative process. However my contention is singing, say, is using your voice as an instrument, it isn't the creation of the lyrics.
(Aside here; I have just realised my line 'Most complex' may be misunderstood - it is NOT a comment on difficulty, it is about having to use the artificiality of language as the tool, basically, yes, you have understood me.)
There is an interesting quote from Bernie Taupin. He said sometimes he sent off the lyrics to Elton John, and what came back was a different tune to what he expected. The musician does have an effect here, but they are using the lyrics as part of the tune, not as writing. You can enjoy Turandot without speaking Italian, the singing is an instrument, and you follow via the acting.
Going back to your post, I would say the person who scripts a game (as in theatrical script) is the writer. This may well cover parts of the development. But then they pass that on to their artists - the programmers and actual graphic artists.
Indeed! Right now this is largely just two "pansters" armchair-analysing "plotters"—it might help to have the perspective of an actual "plotter"! XD;
Thank you very much, on both counts! ^_^
Sure! But it need be little more than a spark—an idea, a concept, a direction.
From that one can start building, I daresay.
Arguably, with sufficient plotting, that should never happen. (In theory, at least.)
After all, with sufficient plotting the actual writing part simply becomes implementation: follow the plot, write it as described, and that's that.
Indeed. Although, speaking for myself, I disagree with the word "problem" here. In a sense, it's a big part of how I write: follow the characters and write what they do.
(With some craft on my side in what to focus on, how to depict things, and so on.)
Okay, that's fair; the lyrics, script, etc. all do eventually come down to writing.
And in game-development you have to use one or more languages to describe a construct to an "audience", and do so with sufficient clarity that by the extremely literal reading of said "audience" that description is interpreted into something close to your intent.
It's... like writing, and not like writing.
Nevertheless, I would argue that game-dev is arguably a more "artificial" art-form in the way that you describe.
As to the process that you outline there... eh, it's... Well, some games might be made that way, but not many, I suspect. In most I think that the narrative is treated as secondary. (If that.)
Furthermore, I think that it's often not a matter of writing a narrative script and then passing it on. Rather there are iterations, in which both story and mechanics may be changed, and may affect each other.
My Games & Writing
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I did used to be that writer, where I saw tropes on here and said "ooh, let's try and do that", without regards for making it feel natural. But since then I've really gotten better at not relying on gimmicks, and if I use tropes then great, I'm sure my story ideas are still really trope-y, but I don't go out of my way to use any particular tropes.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
War Jay - On the acceptance I am using black and white terms for something we understand to be shades of grey, do you consider yourself a Plotter? If so, do your characters ever do something unexpected (to you as writer)?
I would say don't worry about being too tropey if you are not putting them in on purpose. As I said above, I believe it is because certain shapes just fit better. It is Pratchett's "3rd son is bound to beat the bad guy."
Edited by Last_Hussar on May 25th 2022 at 3:28:05 AM
I think rather farther than you imagine.
And in any case, it wouldn't be ad infinitum: At some point one would be planning the actual text, at which point there is no "lower level" to reach, I daresay.
What I'm saying, I suppose, is that if one plans everything save for the actual words of the piece, then one should never find the work going in an unexpected direction, because one is simply implementing the plan.
In all fairness, finding a story that has no tropes would be... impressive, at the least!
Containing many tropes needn't be an issue, I daresay; containing many cliches might, perhaps, be.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 26th 2022 at 1:14:47 PM
My Games & Writing
The most important lesson I've learned regarding using tropes during the writing process is that so much of what's required to make a functional story just isn't tropable. I maintained extensive trope lists for years and never got a word written until I threw them all out and started actually writing. With that said, I do go to TVT when I want to try out an idea by searching for the closest trope equivalent, and skimming through the examples to see how other works tend to use that element so I can play with it differently.
Also, I lean more towards being a pantser. I keep a basic mental outline and don't plan ahead in any real detail any further than a chapter in advance, because you never know when something as little as a brief description can alter the course of the story. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and all that.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
I've read this post 2 or 3 times now, forgetting at the start I've read it.
I start the 2nd para going "not a pantser" then remembering I've read it when half way through, and realising you are coming at it from a different angle than I imagine a pantser.
In my head I have a troper as an extreme plotter, when it is quite possible a pantser troper is coming it at a completely different angle, not at all analogous to the plotter-troper.
Edited by Last_Hussar on May 27th 2022 at 4:51:41 AM
Perhaps it might be worth noting here, then, that "pantser" and "plotter" isn't a binary distinction—it's a spectrum. Different people might "pants" or "plot" to different degrees, and in different parts of the process.
My Games & Writing
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
(Laughs in Pantser)
Well okay, it's a bit deeper than that, I'm more of a pantser but I do plot in short bursts. I don't know what'll happen five chapters from now in my story, but once I get there I'll have a solid plan.
And yes, my characters do unexpected things constantly. One of them pushed a guy down one of those massive building stairwells just because he felt like it.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I tend to have a idea for a scene, write that, then write the start and end of the story.
"Where are we? OK. How did we get here, and how will it end?"
So I might have a fantastic Letter K. Once I have that pivotal scene, I write A and B, then Y and Z.
At that point I will be able to see the shape of the story. I'll then write (say) P, then wonder how it connects to K. Working that out will give M and N. I'll have an idea which I will write in a separate document, which is obvious it comes before K, but I don't know where. That may be edited in at some point, or it may exist as part of a longer section. Then I will find how I got from K to M, followed by a realisation of what T is. T to Y may get W, then I'll work out how I connect T to W and then W to Y.
Basically it is pantsing, with plotting structure in between; I work out what the section needs to say (except the 'K'), then pants it as I write. I once wrote (originally on a TYPEWRITER, because it was the early 90's) a short SF story based on this idea.
I knew nothing else when I wrote that.
Circling back to my title, I wrote this 10-15 years before tropes were a thing. However it is tropable- not because I knew, but that is how it hangs together better; Valentine/Zarathustra are very much blue oni/red oni, for example.
Actual writers, pre 21st Century - Dickens and Shakespeare, for instance - are notably trope heavy. They did not, however, know of Tropes, there would have been little way to discuss them. They did what we would call 'writing to a trope', but that is not what they aimed for; experience and practice had taught them worked best. Dumas wrote the '3 Musketeers' 12 years before Freud was born.
This is why I say don't use tropes. Not knowing of a trope, and averting it because that works, is better than forcing the story into the trope. 'Promises' is a romance, but unbeknown to me it is based on how the Trio's 'Superego' copes when the 'Id' is killed.
With 'Backups' it started as a rom-com, and writing it was helping me in a difficult period of my life. Its an Oblivious to Love with lots of Shipper on Deck . Last week, with 70k words written, I realised it is about Izzy, the female lead, maturing over the course of 25 years (and I'm a man). It was writing it in full that has made me find that. I have a spreadsheet that tracks the two leads, so I can make sure it all appears in the correct order note , so I know what happens, but actually typing it from plot to prose throws up 'Oh!'.
Do any plotters (or at least think of them selves as on the 'plotter' side of the spectrum) get that?
Edited by Last_Hussar on May 29th 2022 at 10:20:41 AM
Ah, that's an interesting process!
I think that I've written in a similar way, if not quite so desultory. While for the most part I think that I tend to write from beginning to end, it's not all that uncommon, I seem to recall, for me to have certain scenes already known at the outset.
For example, in one of my current projects, I know more-or-less how it will end, and I've more-recently written the beginning, but beyond some of the generalities and a few bits and pieces I don't yet know how the middle goes.
But perhaps the biggest example of such writing for me is in one of my larger projects: That one I've essentially written as a series of short stories, and I haven't written them all in order at all.
I'll admit that when I do write that way within a single text—when I do end up with scenes from one part, scenes from another, and nothing in-between—I historically have a tendency to feel intimidated by the gap.
I'm not convinced that—normalised for bibliography size—they were in their time all that more tropey than other authors. However, those particular authors might seem trope-heavy due to having a large output, and an output that has had a significant impact on works that followed.
I will say that it might be useful for one as a writer to know about tropes. This is not because it's wise to base one's writing on such—I've argued against doing so in general above, I believe. However, knowledge of tropes may help one to analyse one's own writing, and the writing of others—and thus, potentially, to improve.
I wonder, by the way, whether we shouldn't post a request for "plotters" in one of the general threads—it may be that they haven't thought to look in here.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 29th 2022 at 9:11:47 PM
My Games & Writing
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
If anything we just need to stop thinking about these things as "tropes". My work is indeed trope-heavy, and that's only because I have a lot of characters and settings and dynamics... So there's a lot of things that just happen to fall under particular tropes, especially because the more time passes, the more comes out of TLP. What might've seemed like a unique idea at the time is suddenly just classified as one of many other examples of that trope being used. It doesn't mean any particular writers are more or less tropey than others, if anything it means that as time passes every writer becomes more trope-y just because we start to discover and record more tropes.
Edited by WarJay77 on May 29th 2022 at 4:48:40 AM
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I understand what you mean about my examples of Shakespeare and Dickens (et al). Is it possible that they are the codifiers? It took until then for tropes to be effective; you need accessible plays (hence Shakespeare), and then wait until general literacy has caught up (hence Dickens etc) for the forms to harden.
Thinking about it, in a oral tradition, Tropes are a good way to remember how things go. I believe the Iliad has that structure because it is easy to remember for a travelling poet - what Homer wrote may well not be the version we know. (Sorry if this is wrong, its been over 25 years since I listened to Jacobi reading it on my car stereo, and it was post-education, so I was listening as a person to be entertained, not academically. Which is obviously the correct way!).
I don't think you need to know about Tropes to analyse your own writing, or indeed, any writing. Problems with writing will be obvious, even if you don't have the vocabulary to express what the problem is. To me that is what a Trope is, it is the descriptor. Put it this way, you don't need to know the word 'door', to understand the uses and operation of a door.
I disagree: I daresay that if one were to analyse only, say, Ancient Greek writings, one would likely find tropes therein too.
Tropes may be described as long as there are patterns to be found within a body of works.
Indeed, looking at Wikipedia I see that literary criticism has existed since at least the ancient world.
As to a formal body of tropes, I'm not sure of when that came in. But an admittedly-perfunctory look again at Wikipedia suggests that it may extend back to well before Shakespeare.
True. As with most frameworks for analysis, I daresay, there are likely multiple potential approaches.
Eh, not necessarily, and to differing degrees to different people.
And having a body of amassed knowledge to draw on and learn from may make it easier to so analyse—and indeed, reveal problems that one might miss.
I think that this is partially true: Our trope-entries, I would say, include not only the bare description, but also analysis of the tropes in question, and examples of their use. These then may provide more insight than simply knowing that the thing is there.
To extend your analogy of a door, certainly most people know what a door is and how to use it. But to an architect or maker of doors, might it not be useful to know how others have made their doors, thus to provide inspiration towards future doors?
For example, they might learn of a type of door made in another country that they want to try; or realise that the majority of doors have a common problem that they might address; or take two designs of door and fuse them to create something new; and so on.
What's more, there are, I think, tropes that are less clearly-evident than doors.
For example, how many writers, on seeing the a trope-entry describing a lack of a certain minority, might not go into their writing with more thought to including said minority?
To continue the earlier analogy even further, some tropes are indeed like doors—and some are like internal wiring or plumbing, or the skirting around ceilings, or the placement of insulation. How many people know the uses and places of these things? (I know that I know little of them.) For someone seeking to make a house it seems to me that it would likely be useful to have a description of such things, and an analysis of their use, and examples of how others have handled them.
I'm happy to do it, I believe.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 30th 2022 at 10:09:07 AM
My Games & Writing
I understand what you are saying, and you do make good points. The problem I am having is I can't find a good way to describe how I believe tropes *are*.
It feels to me that 'Trope' is the word/phrase we use to describe something, and if you are ignorant of the concept you can still write fiction, whether a plotter or pantser. A 'trope' is a retroactive description of something in a common language (The language is 'Trope').
My 'door' example may not have worked fully here- it feels to me that you don't need the descriptor to have the thing, which is what I was trying to get across with my 'Shakespeare was unaware' comment. Maybe the closest I can get is comparing it with synaesthesia (which I don't have, so apologies here) - "That sound tastes blue".
As I wrote that I was reminded of my own autism (I have the diagnosis). If I was trying to describe that I would use the idea of a mug between two people, but only the neurotypical can see the handle; thus what the neurotypical describes won't match up with what the Aspie can see.
To bring that back to Tropes, we call it a mug - that is a quick descriptor of the item, but you don't need to know its called a mug to make one. You can see better mugs and use them as ideas, without knowing its is a Spanish Mug (or, in my earlier example door).
I think the problem I have in this discussion is I am finding it hard to find the language to describe how I see tropes. Maybe it is like evolution - a leaf doesn't set out to be green, it is just that evolution has caused that, the leaves of different colours didn't work, so fell to natural selection.
Or imagine an artist with an infinite palate, but no names. They don't know they have applied cerise, but the critic can use the knowledge of 'cerise' to describe it. For me a trope is the descriptor of the work, not a building block.
Thinking about it, I wonder how much the expectation of a writer is influenced by when they grew up. I started writing as a teen in the 80s. There was no internet, just what you read in books and saw on TV, as well as what I'd experienced. I didn't have this website, where I could go 'Oh yeah, I need that, that and that, with a side of this.' I might well have done. I have 'written lesbians', but very lightly, because I just don't have the knowledge, and I will show the relevant bit to a lesbian friend, just to check I am showing the relationship correctly.
I wonder now how much younger writers are using tropes as 'training wheels' (no disrespect here). This is how they learn. My contention is that using tropes, rather than describing a written work in terms of tropes, restricts them, because it gives them a template they feel needs to be followed. Even breaking or averting a trope from this direction could put a straightjacket on the writing, because it has a definition.
The example I gave above - the broken Freudian Trio - is still describable as a FT, but wasn't written that way. I wrote it as the examination of what happens to the Superego when the Id is killed (I now realise). But because I wrote uninhibited by tropes, I wrote what felt right, not trying to make it into a form.
I came to writing in the late 70s to mid 80s (I was born late 60s)note , and in terms here it would be described as "Mary Sue fan fic" to start with. However this gave me the tools to write my own (still initially derivative) fiction, and I learnt from there.
I think War Jay 77 has it right with
Edited by Last_Hussar on May 30th 2022 at 4:16:18 AM
(Let me just post to say that I'm not ignoring this thread—I've just been very, very tired of late, and haven't felt up to such a discussion. I do intend to return to this.)
My Games & Writing
Okay, being I think less tired today, I've finally read your post!
And for the first part, the matter of tropes and writing without knowledge of them, I... actually pretty much agree. I have no real argument there!
Regarding the second part, the idea of young writers starting out with tropes as "training wheels"... I have my doubts that it's actually common.
It's likely more common than average here, because, well, this is where we catalogue tropes! It's the site that advances that "tropes are tools that the creator of a work of art uses to express their ideas to the audience". It seems natural that a higher-than-average percentage of authors in our writing sub-fora will have come from or gone through the wiki side and have taken the idea of writing from tropes.
I do agree that—in general, at least—writing from tropes seems unlikely to be wise.
(I say "in general" because different people have different processes, and it seems entirely plausible to me that there are people out there who work best when starting with tropes.)
With that in mind, I do also think that it might be a good idea to go to the "Wiki Talk" sub-forum and suggest that the "tropes are tools that a creator ... uses to express their ideas ..." line be altered.
My Games & Writing
Fantasy writer turned Filmmaker.
In linguistics, there's this age-old debate about "prescriptivism vs descriptivism".
Prescriptivists are the snobs who say that there's one specific set of rules for language and if you're not following those rules you're doing it wrong! Metropolitan French and Esperanto both follow this line of thinking.
When someone uses Buffy Speak, smashes two words together, and asks, "is that even a word?" a Descriptivist will say "It is now!" because they know that language evolves over time and it's not a linguist's duty to control it. Any form of slang is a descriptivist's dream.
On TV Tropes, when we YKTTW a new trope, the rule is that there needs to be at least 3 clear examples of the trope before it launches. Which means you can't just will a trope into existence — it has to already be used by other writers.
We should really do better at communicating to new tropers that This Very Wiki exists to describe what tropes exist in media, not tell people how to write.
Edited by AwSamWeston on Jun 4th 2022 at 3:05:14 AM
Award-winning screenwriter. Directed some movies. Trying to earn a Creator page. I do feedback here.
Been meaning to post here for a while and now I'm finally doing it.
I admit I'm somewhat confused as to what you guys mean when you say "using your tropes," but what I think you mean is intentionally deciding to use a specific trope rather than emerging naturally from the work/writing. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Which I have done. One particular instance I was stuck on the first chapter of my story. No matter how I wrote it, it didn't seem to come out right. What I wanted was a quick intro to my character before she got thrown into what kickstarted the plot. Then I remember watching a video about video game tropes about beginning the game in a cell (though I can no longer find that video. Even though I remember it.) and it hit me that I could introduce my character that way, which would serve my purposes in being able to introduce her quickly and explain why she's about to get thrown into the plot. (I'm being a little vague here, I realize, but the rest of the story and plot aren't important to this particular point.)
So yeah. I also use Meaningful Names very intentionally, in fact I'll probably go and post on that thread after this. In terms of plotter vs pantser, I'd probably lean more plotter, I suppose. I tend to outline in advance or at least have a good enough detail of scenes I want to include.
I hadn't thought to make that connection—that is rather similar, indeed.
(Although I suspect that not all prescriptivists are snobs, as such. For example, I would be very unsurprised if some simply have a strong dislike for the chaos that is language, and want it to be ordered.
But this is an aside.)
I would like to see the message currently being given altered, indeed!
Sort of, but not quite—I'll elaborate below, in responding to the rest of your post:
Hmm... Based on your description, I think that there's a salient difference between what you describe and what we've been discussing.
As I read you above, in the case of your troublesome first chapter, you took inspiration on hearing about a trope. And indeed, inspiration can come from many places!
As to meaningful names, I imagine, at least, that this is simply something that's part of your work—the fact that we have a trope-entry here for it is largely irrelevant.
Conversely, we're talking about those cases in which it seems that an author has the impression that the done thing in writing is to take tropes and to build a story of or on them.
For example, we've seen a few forum-posters start threads here asking things like: "How do I use <insert trope here>?"
Or, to put it another way:
In the case of your first chapter, the question was, I take it: "How do I introduce this character?" And the answer then turned out to be: "Start them off in a cell!" Which answer just happened to have been prompted by learning of a trope.
In the cases that we're discussion, the question is: "I have the trope You All Meet in a Cell—now what?"
My Games & Writing
Ok, provocative title, possibly click-baity, but I think there is a serious discussion to be had here (ie on TVT) about ‘using’ Tropes.
Sometimes you see a thread or post titled ‘What Tropes should I use in my [whatever].’ To me this is the wrong way to look at tropes; you are buying a suit, and then trying to adjust your diet so you fit it.
I will quote the ‘Tropes are tools’ page from this wiki.
I do not see tropes in the same way as spelling, punctuation and structure. If you don’t have those, then the fiction is badly written, and hard to read. But that isn’t about the use of tropes. Tropes are not necessary to the construction of a work. The above quote goes on;
For me, tropes are a descriptor of a work; a short hand. The reason they come up so much, that we can say ‘Those two are Red Oni, Blue Oni’, ‘They form a five man band’ etc, is because we are describing things that already exist. Has a Trope ever been thought up and then the work written to fit that? We use 'Tropes' to describe what is there, not as a format.
The reason the actual tropes are so common is that they work. If you break the format it feels odd. Three men in a story will naturally gravitate towards a Freudian Trio. You don’t have to plan this, it just reads odd if you have, say, an ‘Id’ and two ‘Egos’. In one book I killed the ‘Id’ (knowingly), part of the story being the effect that has on the ‘Superego’. So despite only having two male characters, it is still resting on the basis of the ‘Trio’, and exploring what happens if it is broken. Importantly it doesn’t turn into a ‘Red Oni, Blue Oni’ situation – it is still the ‘Trio’.
I’ve had this post in my mind for a few weeks now, but what has prompted me is a situation that happened today while writing.
I have a female character that is bouncing between two minor characters – one is too self-obsessed, but is outgoing, one is too unreliable (timewise), but she can talk to him. When one screws up, she storms round her (male) friend’s flat and bitches, and he calms her down. You can probably see where this is going!
There was something that felt wrong. I wrote and I tinkered, until I got a balance that felt good; I needed the quieter character in earlier than I planned. It was at that point that I realised I had a ‘Trio’. I didn’t plan on the ‘Trio’, it is just that when written to a point it worked, that is what I had.
This is further exemplified with the group the ‘Broken Trio’ are in. While I wrote the three men in the Trio way, the group fit into at least 2 other tropes.
I did write the 3 of them originally as a ‘Trio’, though without the planning of ‘Who will be the Id?’ etc. The lead character is the Superego, and I needed the Id to pull against that; the Ego is the friend who modifies them. That was planned(ish). However it turns out I also have 5 man band (with the Ego as leader, Id and Superego as ‘Big Guy’ and ‘Smart Guy’) as well as a Red Oni/Blue Oni situation; Lancer and Leader respectively.
These were not planned – it is a natural effect of the writing. Much of the story comes from what happens to the ‘Superego’/’Smart Guy’ when the ‘Id’ ‘has a bridge dropped on him’ (another example of a Trope that can be used without needing to know the trope). This thread wasn’t planned, but is a natural result of the story I was writing.
This brings me on to a further observation. I am bemused by those who ‘plot’ to as near as 100% as they can. This isn’t a criticism, they would probably wonder how I can ‘pants’ some of my stuff. They seem to me to be the ones who include those who need to know what tropes to use before writing (not all ‘plotters’ are ‘Tropers’ though). I do wonder what they do when the story doesn’t go the way the original plot did. I put an entire chapter in, which was originally unforeseen, because when I actually wrote the bit before, the female lead said to the male lead ‘Take me to dinner’, because it was a natural thing for her to say at that point, which I hadn’t planned for – the plot seemed OK until I actually wrote it. This chapter revealed things I didn’t know explicitly until I wrote it.
I will finish by saying this is NOT a thread to criticise those who ‘plot’. It is more my observation about those who write ‘to’ Tropes; my view is they are not the bones of your work, but more a descriptor of a finished piece of writing (even if it part of a larger unfinished work).
I'm interested in your views.