Monday, August 31, 2020

Tropes Not Copies

 I know I have talked about this in some version in the past, but it might be time for a reminder. I have seen a ton of projects lately where, after I read it, I am immediately think, "Wait a minute! Did I just read a synopsis for X Movie." or "Isn't this just X Novel?"

What these authors have been doing is making an attempt at using tropes, or idea starts from other texts and movies. While this is an approach many successful authors use, these new authors fail because they ARE just copying.

Getting ideas from snippets of others whether it is something in the news, a commercial, a novel, a song or a movies is always a great approach. But here is the thing. Notice I sue the word snippet and I always talk about this being a start to a story. These are nothing more than inspirations. 

Try it this way. You go to a restaurant and try a dish. You love it, but then there are things that you know the rest of your family is not going to like. You know you are the only person who likes chicken but your family is a beef family. So what do you do? Do you copy the recipe and just change out the chicken for the beef? No! You look at the concept of the recipe and build up your own version. You do create something new based on that inspiration. 

When we talk about tropes in writing, we are focusing in on common universal themes that we know work really well with readers. These are stories that have always worked really well. Secret babies. Lost and rediscovered siblings. Unconventional marriages... the list is endless. But this is again, just a start. You build a story 100% around that idea. 

If your story is too close to that original story, you have just written an automatic story set up for rejection!


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