When a reader thinks about their favorite genre, they’re usually thinking about a collection of tropes that they enjoy. Don’t write tropes off they’re a valuable addition to any writer’s toolkit. If you ate nothing but apples every day, they’d get old fast (clichéd) but cut them up and put them in a pie, and suddenly they’re exciting again. I’d argue that a cliché is a trope that has become tired from overuse, whereas there are plenty of opportunities to use tropes in new ways, and that they can even help your writing. Some people use trope and cliché interchangeably. The second kind, which I’ll talk about here, are the ideas that writers use again and again. In the academic sense, they’re figurative language, such as words, phrases or images, that is used repeatedly for artistic effect. In fiction writing, there are two kinds of tropes.
Some can fall out of favor, and some can even lead to instant one-star reviews. However, some can be overused or tired and may need freshening up. They can be a shortcut into immersion, and good plain fun, too. To the reader, tropes are the lingo of the genre, and they feel familiar, comfortable, and easy to understand. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel if you’re writing with intention and have a fresh take. Tropes are devices that storytellers use again and again, because they work. Meeting and exceeding readers’ expectations
0 kommentar(er)
