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No Title Literature
sisters at a beach house
thing you've had all along Literature
A character goes on a quest, only to find he's had the treasure all along
No Title Literature
girl beautiful
plot convenient contact lenses Literature
this is when a character who doesn't wear glasses is suddenly revealed to have been wearing contact lenses so that there eyesight can be used as a plot device. one example would be in diary of a wimpy kid the last straw where Greg says he wears contact lenses and he lost them, as a result he has to wear backup glasses. his eyesight was never mentioned before or after this happened.
When a book description is wrong Literature
Is there any trope for when the description that a book has in the jacket is wrong about a character or the plot?
Edited by Fireblood
Large Public Gathering Literature
A festival or other crowd-gatherer that the protagonists take advantage of. Or more generally, an event that makes the plot easier to pull off.
In Star Wars: Scoundrels, Han Solo's crew attempts to rob a crime lord's mansion during a week-long festival. Since this crime lord likes to play civic-philanthropist (and compete with other rich bigwigs who do the same thing), his grounds are open to the public on each of the four major festival days, providing an opportunity to get past the walls and several other security measures for The Caper. It would be a lot harder to burgle the mansion any other time of year.
A Heroic Villain/ A Villainous Hero Literature
The spartans had this guy who killed sixty athenians in battle. What a hero/what a villain. Depends on the point of view, no? So what would you call the thing where comments are made on it from a neutral point of view? He's neither a hero nor a villain. He's simply the guy who killed sixty athenians in battle.
Main character in book screams Literature
Is there a trope for where the main character in a book (usually 1st person) hears a scream then realizes they're the one who screamed? It will say something like "I heard a loud shriek and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me" or something along those lines (but hopefully not as poorly written as that.) I feel like I've seen this in books so many times.
Horribly misrepresented job Literature
Okay, do we have any tropes for jobs taken with a workload that is rather greater than advertised? Not necessarily a job you'd be embarrassed to have, like a Burger Fool.
The example I have is of someone taking a summer job advertised as lawn care of a small lawn, only to find out the lawn is massive, the mower is an iron monster he has to fight to move forward(let alone in a straight line), and "lawn care" apparently includes maintenance of the gutters and hedges. Add to that the client is willing to dock a day's wages if he doesn't see any progress. Obviously this isn't an embarrassing job to have, but clearly the job is much more involved than advertised.
Natural Armor Literature
When a character is born wearing armor.
Trying to remember the name of a book with country girl who is cheated on Literature
It had a farm girl who drove a truck who was dating a weird boy who wasn’t the best bf as he cheated on her by dancing with some older ladies. He tries to apologize when she went out to drown her sorrows with ice cream but she shrugged him off, got in her truck with the container of ice cream and slammed the door in his face. He and/or the older ladies might’ve been drunk/high at the time or just high on excitement
The Power Inside Literature
Timmy can use the Spirit Rock to turn into the Great Dino Man and fighting the evil Dracones, but when the Spirit Rock accidentally falls and breaks he discovers he could always turn into the Great Dino Man because the power was inside him all along, the first example that comes to mind is in Thor Ragnarok when Odin tells Thor that Mjolnir was merely a stabilizer for his power, not the source of them.
Living board game Literature
Is there a trope that is all about board games like Zathura and Jumanji? I find it hard to believe that only one author ever came up with an idea like that. I know there are tropes for similar living or possessed objects, but this seems like it might be a case where one company owns an entire genre of story.
I only know about stories that feature those two names, but are there others out there that aren't just Fanfics? I don't want to be sued for writing a story about a similar game just because it turns out that one company owns the idea.
sentry Literature
When a character gets instructions about their quest while on sentry duty by themselves.
Similar words, different context Literature
Alice and Bob fight against each other and Alice tells Bob that he shouldn't even try to win since she's way stronger. They eventually team up and when their enemy Carol attacks them, Bob tells her that since he and Alice are stronger than her, she should just give up and stop trying to win against them.
Is there a trope for this kind of situations- the same (or very similar) words used in different situations, often by the same characters and usually to show character development?
Edited by MagiKat
Platonic Dialog Literature
A dialog between two characters, used to deliver an Author Filibuster or An Aesop. Trope Maker is the works of Plato, but it's pretty common in literature with a philosophical bent.
Backstory written on a wall Literature
Do we have a trope for a situation when main characters learn about the backstory, i.e. prehistory of an alien world or long lost civilisation by finding a conveniently placed wall with carvings or murals depicting it all in kind of a comic strip? This is basically what happens in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, but I haven't found this thing listed there. It's a particular way of presenting an Expose. I guess it would be a sub-trope of Infodump.
More Handy Than You Thought Literature
Is there a trope for when a character doesn't realize that a skill or super power that seems useless or limited is actually incredibly versatile? It feels like a cousin to the Took A Level In Badass trope, except this doesn't include characters who gain more skills, but rather the skills themselves that go unappreciated, underestimated, or unnoticed until the character gains some perspective.
Ex: in a book I read, one character's power was a mystery and seemingly useless until someone died near her and she realized she can capture ghosts, while another character who could grow flowers realized her true power is coaxing life into things, which can be used to heal the injured and can even work in reverse (coaxing life out of things).