Cliches To Avoid Like The Plague?

sharkbait said:

Kvothe isn't The Chosen One. He's the main character, he's a hero, but that doesn't make him The Chosen One.

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But he carries the blood referred to as important in the verse (according to most readings of it.) Which makes him the chosen one. Although I like very much what Rothfuss has done with it.

Springs2 said:

But he carries the blood referred to as important in the verse (according to most readings of it.) Which makes him the chosen one. Although I like very much what Rothfuss has done with it.

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I never considered him a chosen one, particularly, but he's certainly an enormous marty stu.

"So... it was all just a dream?"

I can't stand, can't STAND, love triangles. Doesn't matter who it's between. If I find out the book I'm reading even suggests that, I drop it like a hot potato. I have no idea why it irritates me so much. Makes me almost sick...

Liosse de Velishaf said:

I never considered him a chosen one, particularly, but he's certainly an enormous marty stu.

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Except he was kind of a doofus with women. And he had red hair, which gets picked on a lot these days (and red-haired guys have never gotten a lot of love from the media, as one of my exes, who had read hair, was fond of pointing out when I got grumpy about how under appreciated brown-haired women are).

But yeah, a genius and good at everything. Of course, so was Ged, and that didn't bother me as much, for some reason.

Roxxsmom said:

Except he was kind of a doofus with women. And he had red hair, which gets picked on a lot these days (and red-haired guys have never gotten a lot of love from the media, as one of my exes, who had read hair, was fond of pointing out when I got grumpy about how under appreciated brown-haired women are).

But yeah, a genius and good at everything. Of course, so was Ged, and that didn't bother me as much, for some reason.

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Red hair has and probably always will be a marker of "special" in fiction, especially fantasy, whether or not it's currently popular or picked on in real life. A couple ginger jokes hardly balance him playing the hardest song in all existence when his lute was three strings short.

I cannot see how using something that was used before in the Matrix would necessarily make your story trite and something that was done to death. For starters, when the Matrix came out, one of the primary comments that its fans made about it was how original it was, or at least, how original it was for a Hollywood action movie. The fact that it had the Chosen One cliche, if we are to call it that, really did not draw away from its original image at all. At least that's my empirical evidence and I'm most likely not alone. There's probably hundreds of ways you can use the Chosen One and make fans react the same way they did in the Matrix.

Being knocked unconscious cannot really be called a trope or a cliche. It is too short a section of a plotline to really be called that. Nothing to worry about here.

Original for Hollywood /= original. There's a saying in SFF that you know a trope must be ancient if it appears in a sci-fi film.

justlukeyou said:

I'm not sure what your getting at.

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I do get what she/he means, and I get why it was probably a mistake for me to say "at least for a Hollywood movie" Nonetheless, I certainly think the point still stands that The Matrix was more likely to be praised for its sincere attempts at being unique by fans and critics than it was to be derided and ridiculed as yet another rip off, clone movie. And so if the Matrix was able to take the Chosen One trope and avoid being ridiculed for being a derivative copycat, then it is possible for the OP to do the same.

justlukeyou said:

I found this articles which had these cliches in.

http://litreactor.com/columns/top-10-storytelling-cliches-that-need-to-disappear-forever

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Are you still on this tropes are bad kick, really? That article shows nothing except the writers own views and biases. Only one I can really agree with is the noble savage/magical negro tropes, they are lazy. The other ones can be used effectivly if the author spins it the right way.

Seriously, I'm going to say this again and in bigger letters so you can see it. Trope does not equal cliché.

Every genre has conventions, most of these conventions also happen to be tropes. That in no way makes them bad, stories are labeled by the conventions and tropes they use.

justlukeyou said:

I'm not sure what your getting at.

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I was responding to emax. My bad, I should have quoted.

justlukeyou said:

Yes but aren't you going to get further with an original story. For example a completely new way of presenting zombies or vampires.

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No. Not particularly.

Sci-fi movies and written SF don't really have that much in common and if you drew a Venn diagram of the two fanbases you wouldn't find complete overlap in the middle. The Matrix was shiny and very violent and people loved it. That's fine. But it doesn't make it original. SF writers have been playing with virtual reality for a long time.

justlukeyou said:

Yes but aren't you going to get further with an original story. For example a completely new way of presenting zombies or vampires.

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Uh, see my previous post and these list of tropes:

Zombie Tropes

Vampire Tropes

Nothing is entirely new, even things that subvert tropes still rely on peoples knowledge of what is being subverted.

Buffysquirrel said:

Sci-fi movies and written SF don't really have that much in common and if you drew a Venn diagram of the two fanbases you wouldn't find complete overlap in the middle. The Matrix was shiny and very violent and people loved it. That's fine. But it doesn't make it original. SF writers have been playing with virtual reality for a long time.

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I concur with that, but I think as others such as Lilith have said, nothing can ever be classified as entirely new and original so it may also be about creating a story that feels original to an extent that fans don't see it as another mindless derivative. That seems, to me at least, more important than whether or not it is actually something that has been done before, particularly since chances are overwhelmingly high that it has been done before more than once. And so with the Chosen One trope, or vampire and zombie tropes if one were to go that route, it is about being able to convince readers that there is an original aspect to it even if the trope or trope subversion is not actually completely new.

emax100 said:

And so with the Chosen One trope, or vampire and zombie tropes if one were to go that route, it is about being able to convince readers that there is an original aspect to it even if the trope or trope subversion is not actually completely new.

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Absolutely. The same, but different .

Buffysquirrel said:

Absolutely. The same, but different .

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Yup. Before Twilight plenty of vampires fell in love with humans (human teens included, Angel anyone?), drank animal blood, and even had children, superpowers, or were stone-like. What's different about the Twilight vampires, is the sparkling thing. Even the combination of everything but the sparkling isn't original, and as much as I hate Twlight, Meyer did manage to add that tiny thing which makes her vampires unique.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Red hair has and probably always will be a marker of "special" in fiction, especially fantasy, whether or not it's currently popular or picked on in real life. A couple ginger jokes hardly balance him playing the hardest song in all existence when his lute was three strings short.

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But we see the juxtaposition in Kote that makes it all a little less gagworthy. But it's a good example of how a trope doesn't matter if the writing is great. (But if he says he's Edema Ruh to his marrow once more, he'll have no marrow left.... )

Springs2 said:

But we see the juxtaposition in Kote that makes it all a little less gagworthy. But it's a good example of how a trope doesn't matter if the writing is great. (But if he says he's Edema Ruh to his marrow once more, he'll have no marrow left.... )

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I don't think there's much to distinguish him from a classic marty stu. What marks many stus/sues are traits that differentiate them from more "normal" characters, whether positive or negative. Kvothes red hair isn't particularly remarked upon in the story itself as an individual trait bringing him a great deal of anguish, so I'm not sure saying gingers get picked on in real life has much relevance to his stu-ishness.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Red hair has and probably always will be a marker of "special" in fiction, especially fantasy, whether or not it's currently popular or picked on in real life. A couple ginger jokes hardly balance him playing the hardest song in all existence when his lute was three strings short.

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Lol. True, though it's rare for male protagonists to have it (women are another story). You're right that his hair isn't one of the things he's bullied for. It's more because of his being poor, and young for his level of skill, and because some people are jealous of him being so much better than they are at things.

Whenever there's a prodigy type character who is a genius and good at everything but is bullied by stupider people, I'll admit I think of them as sort of a "nerd's secret fantasy" character.

Lillith1991 said:

Even the combination of everything but the sparkling isn't original, and as much as I hate Twlight, Meyer did manage to add that tiny thing which makes her vampires unique.

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Now I never read Twilight, so I always thought the sparkling was a joke. You mean they really, literally sparkle? As in, they've been sprinkled with glitter? Or is it more like polished glass?

But why does that make them special? I mean, I could write a story about elves and have them be standard issue, tree-living elves, just like the ones in Tolkien or D and D or whatever, but make them green. How does that add anything?

Roxxsmom said:

Now I never read Twilight, so I always thought the sparkling was a joke. You mean they really, literally sparkle? As in, they've been sprinkled with glitter? Or is it more like polished glass?

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Think in the way a diamond sparkles, Roxx. Sparkle scene, just so you can see it. And it's the exact same way in the book too, only the scene doesn't feel quite so stake worthy in the book. Only by a little though, I still wanted to stake Edward through both of the Twilight books I've read.

But why does that make them special? I mean, I could write a story about elves and have them be standard issue, tree-living elves, just like the ones in Tolkien or D and D or whatever, but make them green. How does that add anything?

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No clue, all I know is that it's the only thing remotely unique about her vampires. They're pretty standard except for the sparkling when you really think about it. When I want to rationalize why they sparkle, I try to think of them as dart frogs. But even that doesn't make sense as an adaptation to me. Never seen another vampire that sparkles personally, and I'm glad of it.