Tropes You Avoid

Are there certain conventions with characters, plots, or otherwise that you'd personally rather not touch? Why not? Keep in mind that clichés are also considered tropes, but the main purpose of them is to be avoided so whatever.

I personally dislike the trope of character names being on-the-nose with regards to their personality, appearance, or abilities (e.g. Denki Kaminari having electric powers, or Callie and Marie being squids). Maybe a few of my characters fall into this trope, but it really depends on what you consider "on-the-nose".

In terms of bad tropes that are too common in Pokemon fangames: self-inserts. I never liked them, they almost always come off as cringey, it feels too out of place to self-insert in my own game, so I never do it.

I don't really consider tropes either way when I write. My focus is on writing good, strong characters and if they do or don't fit into certain tropes, so be it.

The Chosen One^TM and the Female Lead Who's Initially Cold But Ends Up Falling For Male Lead. You guys probably know what I'm talking about, but it's been overdone and so badly so many times that it just feels painful to watch.

Which is why I'm doing it for my story! I realise it's a really strong challenge for someone who's like never written anything serious, but I just found lots of inspiration and ideas from existing works that twist these tropes on their head. For example, The Lord of the Rings has that plot twist at the end where Frodo ends up succumbing to the Ring but Gollum appears out of nowhere and inadvertently completes the quest the Fellowship set out to do. As for the issue of the cliche female lead thing, I think it can make for a powerful character development arc not only for her, but for the others around her and how they end up (or don't) tackling the inherent racism in their society. Not to mention the planned Red Herrings so the conclusion doesn't seem immediately obvious, although by pointing it out now I guess it's now expected... 😳

Firebolt said:

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You're kind of touching on something that I've felt for a long time there. Tropes and cliches often carry a negative connotation, and for good reason, but if you write the character/plot point well, it doesn't necessarily matter if it technically falls within an established cliche or common trope. An example from my fic on here, my protagonist is a naive farm boy - that's been done to death in just about every genre. But I've gone outside of the norm by making him actually very well-informed about much of the world around him, confident in his abilities and in the way he reads things (sometimes too much so) and over all, fairly intelligent and competent. Still fits the cliche technically, but in my opinion anyway, he's a strong character beyond that so it doesn't actually matter that he falls into that class of character.

People worry too much about what tropes/cliches their characters do or do not fit into and I feel like that energy would be much better spent on focusing on writing a good character in general because if the character is good, nobody is going to care if they are technically a part of a generic base archetype because their qualities will differentiate them from the rest of the pack.

Strong female leads had their time but I'm just sick of them. You know how they are: they don't been no man but they always have one, most do things to prove they're stronger then men, and they sometimes have a feminist message for no reason.

Also, bad guy become good. Easy way to keep a character alive when they should have been punished a lot. I have seen villains go without punishment because they help the heroes in the end... The worst part about it is that it's mostly one way. Sasuke is the only good guy to go bad I know of and he goes good in the end too!

One more: I'm sick of fake out deaths in Disney films. As some YouTuber I don't remember said, it could have a negative effect as kids believe someone in their life who died could come back.

TLDR, Disney keeps doing bad tropes and I'm tired of it

Pure Essence said:

Sasuke is the only good guy to go bad I know of and he goes good in the end too!

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I feel like you haven't seen/read a lot of media. In basically any story with a five man band, there's a solid 40% chance that the lancer turns evil for a while.

gimmepie said:

I feel like you haven't seen/read a lot of media. In basically any story with a five man band, there's a solid 40% chance that the lancer turns evil for a while.

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I mean, I haven't read a lot of books recently....

Also, new trope i dislike: Narrators. Unless you have a narrator in a story where they are a character (The Name of this Book is Secret and its sequels did this) you probably don't need them. Have other ways to do your exposition. Frozen, for example, had no narrator, and it worked out fine for the story, you didn't feel like you needed someone to tell you more.

Is it weird that I don't actually follow tropes? Like, I've never actually been bothered by them. I used to try to find ones that actually fit my characters at one point, but I stopped doing that for quite a while now.

shut your what said:

Is it weird that I don't actually follow tropes? Like, I've never actually been bothered by them. I used to try to find ones that actually fit my characters at one point, but I stopped doing that for quite a while now.

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Not writing to fill tropes is a good thing, so not weird at all.

Ah, right. I just remembered that a trope I really dislike is the concept of fate. Something about being a slave to destiny, not being able to change your future, doesn't sit right with me.

Ah, right. I just remembered that a trope I really dislike is the concept of fate. Something about being a slave to destiny, not being able to change your future, doesn't sit right with me.

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I agree. The idea that you can't change your future, that you've just got to play along, doesn't seem right or make me satisfied at the end of a story. (That's precisely why I enjoyed Nighteye's character arc in My Hero Academia, but that's off topic.)

One of the tropes I dislike is "MC can't fail with the power of friendship!!1!1" Sure, friendship is important. But hey, welcome to the real world, where you have to work hard to achieve your goals, not play tag with your friends. Like I said, it is important, so I like a little bit, but it just feels so artificial and FORCED when it's overdone.

A big writing trope I'm looking to avoid is typos in the final draft.

I do not believe there is anything wrong with strong female leads within stories, as long as the characters themselves are unique and interesting. I find in many cases strong female leads are often written as males, and that makes them come across as tomboyish and more cliché. I find that it is significantly more challenging to have a feminine female lead within a storyline as that undermines a lot of our social values and conceptions. If that makes any sense at all.

Maybe the-chosen-one trope..... I think I included this in my writing when I was younger just because Final Fantasy is that way but as an adult I realize it's a cheap ploy and I'd rather avoid it.