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Post by whdean on Nov 11, 2015 17:10:18 GMT -5
Share your favourites here. Some of mine: I really dislike this one when I see it: If you kill him...These range from hilarious (when unintentional) and from hamfisted to excellent when done right: Family-Unfriendly Aesop |
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Post by Victoria on Nov 13, 2015 14:40:21 GMT -5
Oh, man, I LOOOOOVE TV Tropes. I won't be sucked into going there now to look for my favourites, though. I won't, I won't...
*four weeks later*
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Post by whdean on Nov 13, 2015 15:14:57 GMT -5
Oh, man, I LOOOOOVE TV Tropes. I won't be sucked into going there now to look for my favourites, though. I won't, I won't... *four weeks later* I know. It's a blackhole. Before the forum crashed (way back when) I reported on the trope “hang a lantern on it” (sometimes “a bell”) in Watchers by Dean Kontz. Hanging a lantern means drawing attention to something in order to defuse the suspicion it might otherwise have drawn. That’s convoluted, I know, but here’s an example. Two characters have to meet at the right place and time in a story to keep the plot together. The coincidence is just too big to be plausible. What do you do? You hang a lantern on it: Have the characters say something like “Wow, what a coincidence meeting you here!” As paradoxical as it sounds, it actually works. You’ll see it used all the time. The only reason I read Watchers was to see whether and how Kontz got around the big problem of a super-intelligent dog. Even as the result of an experiment, it’s pretty hard to buy. What did Kontz do? Instead of trying—and no doubt failing—to persuade the reader that such a dog is possible, he had his MC go on at length and in physiological detail about how it was not possible. And it worked. I bought it even though he didn't once explain how the dog's brain could become as intelligent as a human's. |
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Post by lindymoone on Nov 26, 2015 4:14:27 GMT -5
On the one hand, it's fun and informative to dive into the tropes...
On the other hand, it's paralyzing when you try to get back to writing, for fear of treading on a trop everywhere you go.
On the other hand...
What makes you think I don't have three hands? Doctor Who had three hands...
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