Thanks. Now to waste more time on TVTropes.
Noooo. Dang it I lost about three hours to that site...again.
Skewering the Trope!
- Thread starter Parataxis
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Noooo. Dang it I lost about three hours to that site...again.
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I don't care if it's a trope, I just LOVE the 'Romeo and Juliet' scenario in YA. Because most teen romance in real life has conflict centered around rather mundane subjects (at least, me and my friends' romances) that would be super dull in a book.
The idea of a boy being totally off-limits is always going to be a pull for a teenage girl (you always want what you can't have, right?) and the whole secret-romance thing is pretty saucy.
Plus, anything with family feuds is book catnip to me. Because family shapes, influences and defines you in so many ways. The ms that got me my agent revolves almost entirely around family, with only a light romantic subplot that is again influenced by the family dynamics in the book.
Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent! Just my two pennies worth
Lady A, I completely agree! I am a sucker for the common tropes done slightly new/interestingly.
Also, I want to note that I LOVE that your tag line says that you are listening to Bastille on repeat. They are my FAVORITE band and I listen to them on repeat when I am writing my current WIP!
So awesome to find another Bastille fan! They are one of the few bands you can listen to on repeat without getting fed up, because all their songs are so good but they can do so many different types of song (angsty ballad, indie-folk, pop, dirge even!). Have you heard of Years & Years? They're a good soundalike to Bastille
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So awesome to find another Bastille fan! They are one of the few bands you can listen to on repeat without getting fed up, because all their songs are so good but they can do so many different types of song (angsty ballad, indie-folk, pop, dirge even!). Have you heard of Years & Years? They're a good soundalike to Bastille
I have not heard of Years & Years but I will definitely check them out!
Well, Dracula was not a romance, despite the last few decades of movies trying to claim it was. He was a dangerous predator, and all the non-vamps were out to kill him.
This is one of my greatest concerns about my current WIP. It's a fantasy story that deals with the "Chosen One vs. Ultimate Evil" trope, and I'm worried readers will check out before the plot takes it's turn. (I'm working on making the characters, subplots, and setting as compelling as possible, but still...)
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With twists there are always risks--I am actually worried about the opposite side of the spectrum: Will people who like my story before the turn feel cheated when it turns out to be less "scrappy super powered teens solve a mystery to clear their names while being hunted by a Government conspiracy" and more "teens involved in a psychological thriller fight with supernatural forces for the ownership of their own bodies while struggling with the idea that the Conspiracy was right to try and kill them"? I started with the second and worked backwards to the first so it feel natural to me, but what if people just get super turned-off by the reveal?
It's a delicate balance to strike.
The way to prevent disappointment or evacuation from a book before its big twist is to be unpredictable from the beginning, in those subplots, or whatever. Give the reader the feeling anything can happen.
Yeah, TV Tropes has this page full of examples of "Misaimed Fandom." Every time you create and put anything out there, you run the risk that someone will take the wrong moral from it.
I also have a "Chosen One vs. Ultimate Evil" trope in my WIP and to boot it starts with a prophecy. Duh duh duh.
So I twisted it immediately and the prophecy isn't about chosen one defeating ultimate evil but chosen one (or maybe it's ultimate evil, prophecies are wierd like that) destroying everything the world holds dear because of the conflict.
That and as the story progressess it will hopefully become more and more clear the protag AND the antag could fulfill it and keep everything interesting
I think Harry Potter was a nice take on the Chosen One trope. Yeah Harry's the Chosen One but he still has to work to achieve his victories and he still pays dearly when he screws up.
Awesome topic!
My current WIP was inspired by a few different tropes and wanting to play with them. I really enjoy the humor of subverting expectations. It's good to read that there are others doing this. With fairytale retellings it's very popular to play with expectations, and that's where my WIP is coming from as well.
There's a little bit of insta-love skewering (inspired by my intense ridiculous teenage crushes); feminist subversion (making "male by default" characters female, and portraying male characters as the softer, kinder people in the story); and a hokey plot twist based on fairytale conventions (girl thinks she's a princess, and cursed, and heir to vast power...nope! She's adopted, a decoy. Parents hate her. No curse. Womp womp.)
My current WIP was inspired by a few different tropes and wanting to play with them. I really enjoy the humor of subverting expectations. It's good to read that there are others doing this. With fairytale retellings it's very popular to play with expectations, and that's where my WIP is coming from as well.
There's a little bit of insta-love skewering (inspired by my intense ridiculous teenage crushes); feminist subversion (making "male by default" characters female, and portraying male characters as the softer, kinder people in the story); and a hokey plot twist based on fairytale conventions (girl thinks she's a princess, and cursed, and heir to vast power...nope! She's adopted, a decoy. Parents hate her. No curse. Womp womp.)