General writing discussion thread

[SirMustapha]

I believe it's high time for me to come to terms with an ultimate conclusion. Tropes aren't bad.

... they're TERRIBLE.

And notice, I'm not saying that a trope itself, or an instance of it, is essentially bad. What I mean is, the concept, the idea of tropes, is fundamentally wretched and pernicious for any act of creating. I believe it instils a set of problems that really aren't helpful for an artist, and I believe that's best illustrated by the phrase I used at the beginning: "tropes aren't bad".

That's one very old mantra used in the infamous TV Tropes website, to try to convince people that finding "tropes" in a piece of medium isn't a bad thing, or a form of criticising or diminishing the work. And, you know, it's very telling when you have to constantly remind people that what you're doing isn't a bad thing ("oh, this thing I've decided to do isn't bad, you just don't understand it"). And even though this text is inspired by a conversation I had with May a couple of weeks ago, I decided to go look at the page that describes exactly why tropes aren't bad, and helped convince me that they, indeed, are. And there's so much to say here that I don't even know where to begin.

I guess one of the reason why the tropers have to constantly remind other tropers that tropes aren't bad is that tropes are often confused with cliches. And they're totally not! There's a bit, huge difference between a trope and a cliche, and it's that a cliche is... bad. A cliche is a bad thing by definition. According to Oxford Languages (yes, I'm using Google for this), a cliché is "a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought". ... but who defines that? Also, I don't think everyone uses "cliche" as an inherently bad thing: it's often said that any recurring idea is a cliche, in the sense that "it has been done before". And we know that ideas reappear a lot. And, well, tropes are recurring ideas. And so are cliches. But tropes aren't bad because cliches are bad by definition, while tropes aren't. Isn't that... a little flimsy? I mean, you can reasonable say that some tropes are cliches (i.e. if something is a cliche, it automatically is a trope as well), and when you have a list of tropes that includes things that are clearly cliches, how do you draw the line between what is and what isn't good? Also, are cliches always bad? Are cliches only good when they're subverted? What about things that are cliche in fiction, but that actually happen in life? So, yeah, this is very much a rabbit hole, but it's a rabbit hole carved by the very idea of a trope itself: it creates these very blurry, fuzzy lines in its very essence, and it's just silly to think that repeating the "tropes aren't bad" mantra could solve this. It's like using a sieve as an umbrella.

Second, the very definition of a trope is, honestly, kinda non existent. Tropes are recurring ideas, right? And there's no commonly agreed boundary for what is too specific or too vague to be considered a trope (in that page I linked above, "Action Girl" is used as an example of a trope; it's just a "badass character who is female". I think that's almost falling off of the "generic" end of the spectrum, to the point of ridiculousness). I know that it's kinda unhelpful to use music examples for non musicians, but imagine if I were to say that the 4/4 rhythm (that is, the rhythm that's found in the overwhelming majority of popular songs in the West) was a "trope". ... oh, wait, IT FUCKING IS.

Now, the thing that really calls my attention to how tropes are seen in the creative arts (mostly literary arts, let's face it) is that, as the link above says it, they're "tools". They're things you apply to the work in order to give it a shape. And that... really bothers me. Really, really bothers me. A tool is an object with a specific purpose that you utilise to create something. The chisel and the hammer are tools used by the sculptor, but, when you look at the marble statue, you don't see the chisel and the hammer in it. A brush and a palette are tools used by painters, but, when you look at a painter, you don't see them. Microphones, amplifiers, compressors, mixing desks, etc., all of those are tools used in music recording, but you don't hear those things in the music. You can see of course the effect of those things in the work, like you can see the chisel marks, the brush strokes and the particular timbre of certain mics and amps, but those are the effects created by the application of those particular tools. Now, in the writing, "tropes" are "tools" that you can see in the finished work. I really don't like that idea. When I listen to a song, I don't hear "tools". Yes, I can pay attention to the key, the rhythm, the chords, the scale degrees, the intervals between bass and melody, but the music is the result of how all those elements (and many others) interact within that particular piece of music. Also, there are things that can't be possibly described in technical terms (the tiny, but perceptible details of how the singer enunciates and articulates, or the phrasing of each instrument), but those can be even more important than the things you can name. You can list the names of all the notes and chords used in Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, but you can't name what it is that makes that "thin, wild, mercury sound" he talked about, but you just hear it.

And that's the problem with tropes: they are a dissection of a living, organic piece of work. They're the analysis of an organic being not in terms of how it lives and breathes, but in terms of what "tools" it's made of. And yes, I'm using that contradiction on purpose: according to trope theory, a piece of writing contains its own tools. To me, that's profoundly disturbing and bizarre. And keep in mind: that criticism also applies to how some people talk about music. You'll sometimes hear people praising some song because "it has lots of music theory in it". That doesn't make sense. Music theory is an analytical tool, it's not a property of the song. Yet, that contradiction is the soul of a trope: it's the fusion of the work and the analytical tool into a mangled monster.

And there's another very eye catching phrase used in that page I linked: "Writers understand tropes and use them to control audience expectations either by using them straight or by subverting them, to convey things to the audience quickly without saying them." I guess that can vary from how each writer operates, but I can say one thing very clearly and confidently: as a writer, I'm 100% perfectly aware of the fact that I don't control anything. Hell, I hardly even control my own creations! Often my stories will go off in unpredictable directions, and characters will make their own spontaneous developments (and I'm confident that this is because artistic creation is largely an unconscious process). If I can't properly control what I do, imagine if I can control the audience's perception? I can't! Controlling the audience is a fucking illusion! You can influence them, you can suggest things to them, you can point them in a direction and tell them to look, but you can't decide what they'll see. And personally, this lack of control is something I cherish deeply. I praise the fact that my creations are open to free interpretation; they belong to the reader as much as they do to me. And I think trope theory, or trope mentality, is a direct result of the artist's delusion of control, or of the audience's distorted impression that the artist controls anything. My money's on the latter: it feels like most tropes are coined by people who never tried to create anything, and they have a hunch of how the process happens, informed only by romanticised ideals or Hollywood bullshit.

But there's another problem: tropes embody, by the very definition, the concept of looking at something in terms of something else. Imagine eating an apple and thinking, "mmm, I love this not orange". That is trope mentality. You're looking at a piece of work in terms of how it relates and how it doesn't relate to things that it's not. And that is why it's so disheartening to look at any work and see an endless list of little labels in it: you're inevitably looking at a piece of work in terms of other works, instead of just looking at it. And yes, that is a form of diminishing a piece of work, maybe not intentionally, but it is. And the excuse given to that mentality is that "nothing is new under the sun". Well, if that's true, then stop reading new books and watching new movies, then! But no, you read those books and watch those films because, yes, things are new. Every breath I take is a new breath. Every time I hear my name, it's a new name. Yes, I've taken breaths before, but this one is special, because it's happening right now. Yes, I've heard my name before, but this time it's special, because you're saying it in this occasion for this specific reason with this specific intent. When you call my name, I don't think of all the other times I've heard my name: I just want to know what you want right now. I thing works of art demand that hereness-and-nowness in their experience, and tropes fundamentally break that.

So how does that all relate to the process of creation? Well, I think it's very, very annoying when a writer comes up with the idea, and then is kinda led into wondering if that's a "trope" and where and how it was used before. I hate that. I believe writing, more than anything, has to be an organic process, because writing almost always relates to some kind of version of tactile reality, which is organic in its nature. Music, for example, is an entirely abstract and intangible thing; there's no "verisimilitude" in a chord progression, because that's an arbitrary fabrication. But your character probably relates to aspects of real people you've met or heard about, so they have to be thought of as people, not as tropes. An event in a story has to be thought of as an event, not as a trope. An object that appears in a story has to be thought of as an object, not as a trope. Stories have to be mushy and sticky, like a swamp: you put your hand in it, and it comes out covered in mud. Thinking of stories in terms of tropes turns them into a ball pit: you jump in and come out with nothing on you (presuming it's clean, that is).

When you take a story and list the tropes, it's like dissecting a cat: yes, you'll have each organ neatly conserved in a jar with a clear label beneath it, all clearly sorted and catalogued in a fully rational manner. Great. But the cat is fucking dead.

Now, after all is said and done, if you are looking at stories in analytical, more academical terms, do tropes make sense?... well, just think of a serious academical study which uses the technical term "Everybody Has Lots of Sex".

[c_nordlander]

"... What's in it for the cat?" - Dave Lister, Red Dwarf

I agree with most of this. I don't think tropes are at all useful for writers (except to use as a starting-point for the imagination; at least, that's happened to me. And I'm just one person.) What I really relate to is your third-to-last paragraph: the analogy I used is that writing is more like growing various plants together into a hedge than assembling a wall from discrete building-blocks. Probably still a flawed analogy, but there you go.

However, they can be useful to the literary critic/student, if handled academically. Conflating the two doesn't work.

[SirMustapha]

I don't think tropes are at all useful for writers (except to use as a starting-point for the imagination; at least, that's happened to me. And I'm just one person.)

That's one possibility that I hadn't conceived, and it's a totally valid one. And these discussions are great because there's always something to learn from each one of you, right? That's always nice.

What I really relate to is your third-to-last paragraph: the analogy I used is that writing is more like growing various plants together into a hedge than assembling a wall from discrete building-blocks. Probably still a flawed analogy, but there you go.

Yeah, I know what you mean there. A hedge makes a lot of sense as an imagery, because, even though it's made of living organic things, it's still a construction, after all. There are still elements of architecture and engineering in any writing, but I think the overall goal should be to make those elements look transparent, if not invisible. I remember, back in school, reading a fragment from a piece of Brazilian poetry (I forgot the poem and the author, sadly), which said you should not see in a poem the remains of the poet's effort, just like you can't see the scaffolding on a finished building. I think it's more or less like that.

I think it's maybe interesting to mention the context from which this whole reflection has grown. As I said, it came with a conversation with May, and she mentioned a video analysing what the author believed was one of the best (if not the best) Simpsons episode, Lemon of Troy. The video listed ten points that made the episode brilliant, and the first one was that the titular tree was a "McGuffin". Well, I already bump into two problems with that. The first one is that just breaking off the lemon tree from the episode and labelling it as a "McGuffin" doesn't really mean anything. Okay, so, under that terminology, the tree is the object that drives forward the plot. Okay, so what? Is that a reason why the episode is good? No, it's not. Having a "McGuffin" (yes, I'm using quotes out of sheer pedantry--I refuse to use that term with a straight face) is not a guarantee of anything. And second, under the TVtropian definition of the term, a "McGuffin" has no significance in itself, and could be exchanged for anything else with no detriment to the story--and that's not true for the lemon tree! In reality, the fact that the object is a lemon tree leaves a huge imprint on the episode, with many gags relying on that (the most famous one arguably being "there's a lemon behind that rock!"); also, with the way the episode is written and played out, the tree is more like a damsel in distress, and that connection gave me the realisation that the lemon tree is a character in the story. Calling it a "McGuffin" not only is pointless as analysis, but it grossly oversimplifies its significance. You could say, calling it a "McGuffin" makes the episode look less brilliant than it really is; anyone can create a "McGuffin", but turning an inanimate object into a character is something that "trope mentality" cannot express.

And this is the gist of my rant: the problem is not with a misapplied term, but with the mentality that those terms inspire. You know, there's a reason why we give names and labels to things: it eases communication. I'll bring the music parallel back: the reason why chords have names (C major, E minor, F dominant, etc.) is that it lets us write down our ideas and talk to others. Just from my own band experience, it can be hard to communicate when you don't have terms for things; saying "after you play this thing that goes like this and sounds like this, you should do that thing that goes like that" is a lot, lot harder than "play an A minor 7 after the B-flat major". Under that lens, what's the communicative advantage of calling the lemon tree a "McGuffin"? For me, it's none; saying "lemon tree" is clearer, more specific and more expressive than "McGuffin" if we're discussing Lemon of Troy. The only advantage of that word I can think of is if, at the time of writing, the nature of the object itself hasn't been decided yet--but doesn't that really highlight the artificiality of such a writing process? I guess that style of soulless writing is fitting for an "assembly line" style of creation that's desired by big companies, but it's not the "hedge" style that Chris mentioned (yes, here's the hopeless romantic idealist fighting against the evil, cold corporation; is there a name for that trope?). However, when we're looking at actually finished works of art, I believe a "McGuffin" only works when it doesn't look like one. One of the examples that's best brought up is the briefcase from Pulp Fiction; but I believe that example is mentioned exactly because it has a personality of its own and is not interchangeable! The image of the characters peering into the mysterious yellow glow from the unknown contents of the briefcase is one of the things we tend to remember from the film (and one of the stills you'll always see in articles discussing the movie), so, again, the briefcase is sort of a character (though not as fleshed out as the lemon tree, in my opinion). So, again, calling it a "McGuffin" obscures its significance within the context of the film, and giving it such a generic name hides the things that makes it so different from other "McGuffins". Again, you could argue that it's just a misapplied term, but I counter-argue that this is a problem of mentality.

A term like that has fallen into TVtropian tradition not because it's useful, but because it's catchy. It's a fun name, it was popularised by Hitchcock (though neither the name nor the concept were created by him), it has a more or less understood meaning, so it's perfect for Internet lingo--but not much else, I believe. And that's the spirit of tropes: they're catchy and useless (ok, again, Chris mentioned being inspired by them, so I'm saying useless here only in pragmatic terms). I believe such terminology, if it should have actual analytical power, should either be generic enough to represent a concept bigger than the entity itself and can be framed in a more abstract discussion (e.g. "plot device", or "protagonist"), or it should be specific and contextual enough to identify some kind of unique trait of a group of works (e.g. regional characteristics of the works from a given country, elements within a well defined genre or artistic movement) and allow meaningful, contextual comparisons and groupings. The way I see it, tropes are too specific to be abstract, and too generic to allow contextual analysis; in other words, you spend more time discussing whether a concept fits a trope than actually applying that trope in a useful discussion (and isn't that the perfect summation of the Internet?). At best, at very best, I could think of tropes as the scaffolding: things that might be necessary for the construction of the building, but aren't intended to be seen in the finished product. Yes, maybe at early stages of writing, you'll have a "McGuffin" in the story, because you have the plot and characters and settings, but wasn't able to come up with the object itself; but, if you look at a story and you can point at something as a "McGuffin", it means the writer/director was too lazy or too incompetent to remove the scaffolding. On the other hand, if you look at the briefcase from Pulp Fiction or the lemon tree from Lemon of Troy and point them as a "McGuffin", then I dare say you're not admiring the building. Or the hedge.

(I realise that it might be a little silly to come up with such a hot take and lengthy rant from an analysis video that's arguably pretty wrong to begin with; e.g. the same video points to the episode's "three act structure", but it conflates the division of the episode in blocks due to time constraints and ad blocks with the traditional three act structure of storytelling (so the video claims the third block is the third act, but the third block actually begins with the end of act two according to the traditional structure). And that actually also brought to mind that I almost never think of stories in "three act" terms, you know? I think of my stories more like a long string of many connected events,and I don't care about any kind of simplistic "macrostructure". I believe a story like The Formicide Gang--and arguably even The Ponyville Rag--would be impossible if I followed the three act style of writing, and I don't see any kind of superiority of that kind of structure over any other.)

[c_nordlander]

I took a long time to get around to responding, but I agree with you. Your referring to the lemon tree as a damsel in distress is beautiful (it's based on the story of the Trojan War, after all!). So yeah, pretty much what you just said.

And I don't see why some people think a three-act structure is a positive thing. It's not a negative thing, either. It's just a format. Splitting up a show episode so companies can sell more stuff isn't an artistic choice.

Many classic Simpsons episodes have pretty unbalanced structures, to the point that "the unrelated first act" is a running joke in this fandom. And yet, I rarely heard anyone describe that as a bad thing. If the episode is good and funny, most fans seem pretty okay with a lumpy plot structure. I certainly am. It wouldn't work for every work of fiction ever, no, but it works for this show.

[Nidotamer]

Ah, most of the stuff I think has already been covered by you two... buuuut while maybe the site itself isn't too helpful (usually I just go on there for ymmv pages to see if I'm, say, the only person that really hates a particular boss from a game or something. I can't say it's entirely unhelpful in one way though. That is, the general format of the character pages I actually find way more helpful than most if not all other bios and whatnot. Like I've actually found making notes in the style of their character pages actually nice and helpful.

Granted, going exactly by it with the names and everything is probably still reductive. It's just that going by the general idea of the pages makes it easier (least for me) to get a lot of information out in a way that's waaaaay more easily digestible and easy to remember than run-on bio paragraphs. Mostly because I feel a character *should* be checklistable in some form (having to memorize a mini novel when it comes to writing someone is... rather inefficient) while it still leaves room to elaborate a little. Then the written bit can be a nice and easy to manage blurb and all the tiny details can be easily sectioned off. As an idiot with a bad attention span, it works really well for me.

[c_nordlander]

No, I see what you mean.

I find that tropes work as a starting point. Our minds can't start straight from zero, after all. But I prefer to move on from there.

[Nidotamer]

Oh, that's why I said not just using tropes as is. Again, talking purely about character pages rather than actual writing (in which case yes definitely)

Though, in terms of moving on from there, any advice for that? I might've already said but I tend to find more prosey character bios hard to do and harder to memorize. I kinda feel like going for the bullet-point+explanation/elaboration is the only way I can wrap my goldfish brain around it, and potentially make it fun. Like, an example:

Not that bright: If there was any way to sum her up, it was that she liked walking on fences, was missing at least four teeth and only just figured she should hold her arms out for balance.

Just putting things in little bitesize points like that. Also found the opportunity to add little jokes here and there unlike most typical bios makes it feel like less of a chore (I mean, things have to be written down somewhere! Don't want to make a blunder as bad as the magic xylophone, we could get fired for that one!) I do wanna know if there is some good advice to doing something more... I guess professional? Last time I tried it took me ten paragraphs to just sum up on character and that didn't even feel like enough.

[c_nordlander]

I must admit, I find that question a bit hard to wrap my head around, since I hardly ever write character bios as such. (I do jot down ideas about characters as I get them, but that's about it.) I come from a mindset where character bios aren't for readers at all, they're for the writer, and in that case it hardly matters how you write them, as long as it's legible and pleasant to yourself.

I do realise that some people put up bios on, say, deviantArt, or as webcomic background material and so on. I don't have much of an experience doing that: I guess making it clear and not too spoilery is the watchword. (Oh, and don't rely on it to transmit character information that should appear in your comic/stories.)

By moving on from the tropes, I meant essentially: let the characters develop. Get to the point where they're a unique individual, like a real person. Maybe mundane, maybe unusual, just something more specific than a character trope (like, for example, "Action Girl") that could describe a lot of different characters.

Hope that was at least a bit helpful.

[Nidotamer]

Ah sorry! For someone who has an interest in writing (however poorly motivated I may be) I'm ironically pretty bad with words. And yup, these are definitely just for my benefit than anything else!

And don't worry, letting things develop was always the plan! I think I tend to be a little paranoid when it comes to keeping things in character. Especially when writing for a show that's become infamous for bastardizing its cast the way it does. It's probably informed my worried about this sorta thing. There's just something strange and appealing about how they're handled in the good seasons though. Like there's a certain room for stress-testing their characters depending on the situation but when done well, they still feel like who they should be. Kinda like how Homer was oddly brilliant as the "Beer Baron" but still felt very... Homer. If I'm gonna be a big enough loser to try writing for OFF I might as well try to capture that spirit too.

[c_nordlander]

Ah sorry! For someone who has an interest in writing (however poorly motivated I may be) I'm ironically pretty bad with words.

Don't worry, I didn't have a problem understanding what you were saying. I just had a bit of a problem with the concept of wanting to write better character biographies, since I see them as something that is primarily for the creator's benefits.

Characterisation is probably the hardest part of writing, in my opinion. A lot of it is just instinctive: it's not something you can get better at through conscious effort. Just write and think a lot about a character, let them develop at their own pace, put them through different situations, and eventually you'll have a character that can be put in any conceivable situation and still be themselves.

[SirMustapha]

I believe character bios are important for works that are written by a team, like TV shows and series, so that everyone can be at the same page. And, in those situations, I guess the "prose bio" style is important for delivering nuances and details more profoundly than a bullet list of points. However, if you're doing it for yourself, you should just devise your own method, whichever works best for you. If it's not something others need to see, who cares if it's professional or not?

[c_nordlander]

I believe character bios are important for works that are written by a team, like TV shows and series, so that everyone can be at the same page.

Very good point, I didn't think about that. That's an area where they're important.

[Nidotamer]

Guess now my brain's stuck on a few other things, mostly because it came up in a few chats I'm having. Buuuuut, dark themes and stuff. Admittedly not the easiest point to talk about depending on specifics. I spose the easiest one to mention in public would be balancing. I mean, it's obviously popular for a good reason but even a dummy dumbass like me knows there's also a pretty important limit. There's only so many times you can shoot the cute little kitten before people stop caring. I guess there's no hard line for knowing when that dropoff point is but it's still something I wonder about. It's hard to figure out when it's being laid on too thick at times. I suppose black-comedy would be one way of adding some levity (and I suppose by default would be the way to go for stuff like Futurama or OFF fics doing dark subjects) but I spose sometimes that can also take away from the overall tone. If it's not already something with comedy as a part of it, it can risk turning the whole thing into a clownshow.

I spose there's just a lot of things that are actually really interesting grounds to explore but have been misused so much and so badly that it's near impossible to think it could be done well.

[c_nordlander]

This one is hard. There's definitely not a clear answer that I know of.

Black comedy is definitely not a catch-all solution to the problem. Yes, there is a place for it, but remember, OFF and Futurama are comedies for a reason. If you're introducing black comedy in a primarily serious work, it should be something that comes naturally either from the situation, or from the character making the joke.

All I can say is: if writing about a dark subject, treat it with the weight it deserves (i.e. don't throw in some horrible event just to pass the time or because "it's the kind of thing that usually happens in stories like this). Show the impact the event has on the victim, don't just have them shrug it off and be completely unaffected by it (kind of hearkens back to our discussion about backstory), or have the victims be some nameless NPCs who only show up to suffer and are either killed off, or just never mentioned again.

And give the characters happy moments, too, or at least some breaks. Again, don't force it, but the plot will probably lead to them getting some rest and relief at least occasionally.

[Nidotamer]

Ah, well, it's still a little encouraging to hear, and now I'm getting a better idea for some stuff. In particular been thinking on AU-fics or pic subjects that kind of accidentally went down that route. One being based on the spacesuit-twin sketch. Essentially the AU being one based probably on Elon Musk's wet dream, Earth's gone and everything is off planet and controlled by monopolies, old money types that got it from billionaires that got away from Earth (replace Celebrities in that one THOH with the likes of Burns and Scorpio...). And well, for some issues, I think for something that wasn't *meant* to be so heavy, maybe the right call is to push the crapsacky-ness so far that it's funny. Or at least some other levity (for instance, if I go through with this the focused villains - Skinner, Chalmers and Burns) probably not going to be fairly played for laughs or at least inept and way up their own arses compared to the footsloggers.

Hm, never thought of using one-offs like that. Again, might be handy for the above idea (I mean if everything's comedic, then nothing's funny. A lesson people who make spinoffs about comic reliefs should probably learn). Though I spose there's overdoing that too ("Here's this cute ophan, see her? Isn't she cute NOW SHE'S DEAD, FEEL BAD!" ad nauseum...) If anything the thing about spinoffs and whatever could be it's own paragraph but maybe later.

If we're on the same page, that's also something I've been thinking of, and definitely agree there.

Spoiler

Especially when it's treated as a cheap blurb for why this female character is angry and out for revenge (women can be angry about dead nieces too!). Or why another female character who seemed like a "bitch" is secretly a sad widdle pookie that needs a man. Or worse, thrown in because "it's a bad thing men do to women and is super eeeeeevil" (ugh).