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Post by Mazulla on Aug 14, 2023 12:57:34 GMT -6
In your opinion, is it possible to write an entirely original story? And should we strive to avoid common cliches or tropes and to subvert expectations?
I've had this argument come up several times and I'm curious what other writers think.
Personally: Originality is great! But I'm not sure it's possible for a story to be entirely original. In moderation, I think it is okay if you include a common cliche or trope and make it interesting, make it your own.
When I've presented a story idea, if there is any aspect of it that may be cliche or trope-y, I feel that the people (that I've argued about this with) always want that part to be changed.
I'll often stand my ground if it is a cliche or trope that I want to include, that I think fits. I don't necessarily want to sacrifice a cliche or trope simply for pure originality's sake, if that makes sense. Especially if that "original" alternative is not as good and doesn't fit my vision, or changes my vision entirely.
Yet, I also want to be receptive to feedback where cliches or tropes should be changed. How do you gauge whether they should be kept or not?
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Post by Valhalla Erikson on Aug 14, 2023 20:38:43 GMT -6
Nothing is entirely original. The majority of the time a story is usually lifted from something else. It’s what you do with it is how you make a story unique
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Post by saintofm on Aug 15, 2023 1:27:45 GMT -6
Tropes are not bad. They are tools, and sometimes a hand saw and a hammer are just as good as a skill saw and nailgun. A cliche, a trope that has been overused to the point people literally forget the point of it, becomes a problem because its its been over used. TO deal with this is to find creative uses of them to make them fresh. You don't have to subvert them, but you do need to find an interesting take to make them fun again. I literally got one audio book at one of the Mormon Heavy bookstores in Utah simply because the cover had me at Steampunk robot dragon being ridden by a couple of teenagers, and I doubt other peopel when they go into genres or subjects they like they won't be easy lays either.
Most stories, as Valhalla Erikson above, and in other places have stated, nothing is truly original. People have had other elements of stories added to their stuff, its what you do with the kit you are using.
Say three people become unexpected parental figures to a baby? This was used in the "Three Godfathers" a western novel from the early 1900's that eventually became a John Wayn film. But the premis has also been used for Three Men and a Baby (three perpetual bachelor roommates get a baby literally on their doorstep), Tokyo Godfathers (an anime where three homeless people find an abandon baby in a dumpster in the Christmas season), and Ice Age.
Enemies to lovers? Thats like 75% of the Hallmark romance movies my roommate watches, to Romeo and Juliet, half the women Batman interacts with, Samson and Delilah, and even Jason and the Argonauts and the legend of the Minitour. In this one its how its used. Is it going to be played strait by today's standards and the strait laced one is pared up with the tsundare/or two tsundare's hook up by the end of it? Is it a tragedy because the world around them won't let the lovers be? Can they fight their way through it say in Underworld 1 and 2? Are they on a rocky on again/off again relationship like all the women Batman has dated? Will the one use the other then leave them on a deserted island with their only rescue being in the form of the god of Wine and Partying marrying them (Yes, this is what happended to the princess that gave the slayer of the Minotour a ball of yarn)? Etcetera and etcetera.
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Post by havekrillwhaletravel on Aug 17, 2023 8:10:44 GMT -6
*spins around in a swivel chair, holding a glass of wine in the way only villains hold glasses of wine*
I don't like tropes or cliches in prose. You see, I wasn't always like this. Back when I was a boy, the books I read constantly described things as tendrils/tentacles and people were constantly releasing breaths they didn't know they were holding. These cliches add absolutely nothing to the story; they just end up making the writing feel dull and generic. I do like it when writers put a spin on or expand a cliche. Like in John Fowles' The Collector, the antagonist's point-of-view is drenched in cliche phrases and imagery, to emphasize his banality and dullness.
Like you, I don't think a story can be entirely original. I'm a simple man, with simple pleasures, so I don't mind at all cliches/tropes in storytelling or characters. I don't think writers should be going out of their way to avoid a certain trope if it feels natural and right to a story, if it's for the greater good. So Mazulla, we're not so different, you and I ... keep those tropes!
What I do hate is this recent trend of inserting a trope just for the sake of subverting it five seconds later, which just feels self-congratulatory and obnoxious.
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Post by Valhalla Erikson on Aug 18, 2023 6:58:11 GMT -6
Oh yeah. I'm all for flipping the script but I do hate how modern writers feel like subversion for the hell of it makes an interesting story but instead it handicaps you without you noticing it. Before you know it you'd be spending way to much time concerned with subverting expectations as opposed to just crafting a story that will captivate an audience.
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Post by saintofm on Aug 19, 2023 0:13:32 GMT -6
Oh yeah. I'm all for flipping the script but I do hate how modern writers feel like subversion for the hell of it makes an interesting story but instead it handicaps you without you noticing it. Before you know it you'd be spending way to much time concerned with subverting expectations as opposed to just crafting a story that will captivate an audience. I remember an old anime review Jacob chapman did back when he fronted female as Jesu Otaku. At one part h was talking about how Madoka Magika was being lauded as a subversion as if that was worthy of praise alone, when being a subversion should not be a positive or a negative. The best subversions I think come from people who love the genre. Much like how the best spoofs come from people that go: yeah its stupid, but we are having fun. Pokemon probably a big subversion in its tournament arks as Ash basically loses all but 2 of them (been a while since I last watched it) but the part that is awesome about that is it also shows good sportsmanship. The kid doesn't mope about his loss; he accepts it, and had fun being pushed as far as he could go. Or to use another Tournament Ark Deku loosing halfway through the School Festival. The first girl that talked to him (and therefor the one that most of us want him to be shipped with hard) had a brutal beatdown where she gave as good as she got against Deku's main rival. Convention says he must finish what she started. But he over did it. WHaat makes it fun, as seen y the Animelee video on the Mother's Basement youtube channel, is that we had a set or rules and expectations of what the two fighters could and could not use, and then break that expectation in a creative way that gets us pumped up. But when you are so focused on subverting expectations, you end up subverting the expectation of a good experience (looking at you DC movies in the last 10 years) |
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HeRoCoMpLeX
Smoke
"If one drinks much from a bottle marked poison, its bound to catch up with one sooner or later."
Posts: 7
Preferred Pronouns: He/Him
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Post by HeRoCoMpLeX on Sept 9, 2023 23:27:30 GMT -6
I hesitate to say anything is impossible, but I think a completely original story without a single element that's ever been used before in the history of storytelling is probably pretty close. I heard a quote once, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it or who said it. I posted in another thread that I thought it was Stephen King but after a bit of googling I'm not sure anymore. Here it is anyway:
There are no new stories, it's our job to take an old story and make it look new.
I think there is a lot of truth in this statement, whoever said it. I also strongly believe that there is nothing wrong with a little cliche or trope if it fits into your story.
I'm Fantasy nerd/junkie. I'll pull an example from one of my favorite (I don't care what anyone says it will always be a favorite) TV shows.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
A horror cliche old as time. Enter the monster, monster chases pretty girl, pretty girl stumbles and falls, monster kills pretty girl. In this case, the pretty girl not only chases and kills the monsters, but she's got comparable strengths and abilities, she's the leader of her monster fighting group, and as a bonus most of the monsters are actually scared of her!!!!
What??????
That show ran for seven years and was rife with YA and horror trope/cliche and yet the story held, in my humble opinion, because one simple horror concept was turned around.
If the cliche fits, write it.
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