How to avoid tropes and cliches?

Homer Potvin said:
Trope = good
Cliche = bad
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This is basically what I popped in to say. Tropes are fine. In fact, plenty of agents on their MSWLs will have a list of "Tropes I Like" and sometimes a list of those they do not like. Using tropes doesn't prevent one from being original in their work, and it makes the story more accessible to readers.

Clichés, on the other hand, should be avoided whenever possible. Opening chapters with a character waking up, ending a chapter with a character passing out/being knocked out, "it was all a dream," "people were the real monsters all along," etc. That kind of stuff can take a hike !
 
Wow, there are a lot of valuable insights and opinions here. Thanks, guys. Maybe we just have fun with our writing and not worry too much. :cool:
 
Exactly. :) A trope can be anything that works, from the "Chosen One" idea to the "Protagonist is a Shitty Person, so Let's Mess With His Life to Teach His a Lesson" plot.

writersaurus said:
What tricks do you employ to avoid tropes and cliches? Like putting a werewolf on a spaceship? or having vampires in a futuristic world of flying cars and laser guns? Or having zombies possess the ability to perform sonnets? (Okay, that last one was a joke :LOL:).
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These sound like you're trying to avoid tropes to the point where they break completely.

Werewolves, vampires and zombies are not tropes, nor are spaceships, laser guns, flying cars, or sonnets. They're just story elements.

If you have a werewolf in a spaceship, or a vampire with a laser gun, or (for that matter) a sonnet-performing zombie, they need to make sense in your story world. Ask yourself these questions:

- Where did these guys/gals come from?
- How did they become werewolves, vampires, or zombies?
- How does being a werewolf / vampire / zombie in your story world differ from the ordinary werewolf / vampire / zombie?
- How did they acquire laser guns, spaceships, or the smarts to perform sonnets?
- Does any of this break your story world?

As long as it doesn't, write what you like. :)

I'm writing a werewolf and several zombies into my story, but only because my setting is medieval Iceland, so they make sense because Scandinavians are familiar with the notion of being a werewolf or a zombie (aka draugr). But I'm subverting them in little-but-crucial ways that make all the difference. :)
 
I had an idea where a zombie rockstar resurrects the dead with a mystical guitar. A 'Return of the Living Dead' kind of deal.
 
DLC said:
Everything has already been written
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Not really. There will always be something new to write. It doesn't matter if a story has a trope in it. A trope doesn't define the story as a whole. It just means that it has an element found in other stories.

You can totally wrap a trope in originality, not necessarily by subverting it. Whether people will end up enjoying the result is a whole other matter though.

I'm already writing in a bit of a weird way because I'm nuerodiverse. Nuerotypical individuals are not likely to write like me. Not that this is a bad thing in any way, shape or form. We're just different and that's totally okay.
 
writersaurus said:
I had an idea where a zombie rockstar resurrects the dead with a mystical guitar. A 'Return of the Living Dead' kind of deal.
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Terry Pratchett did a similar thing with Soul Music. In the climax,
Death (aka the Grim Reaper) ends up playing a mystical guitar to kind-of sort-of raise the dead,
but otherwise it's similar.

But if you do it in a good, original way, there's no problem. :)
 
So which is it when Han tells Leia, "You've changed your hair." Or is that intentional humor of the self-parody variety?
 
writersaurus said:
What tricks do you emplore to avoid tropes and cliches? Like putting a werewolf on a spaceship? or having vampires in a futuristic world of flying cars and laser guns? Or having zombies possess the ability to perform sonnets? (Okay, that last one was a joke :LOL:).
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I don't avoid tropes, I love them and I lean into them all the time! My only "trick" is trying to use them in fresh and inventive ways. I'll put a handful of discordant ones in close proximity and see what strange music results. Sometimes I'll challenge myself to un-clichify a cliché or make a "writing no-no" work for me. I'm personally super fond of dream sequences, which might be considered cliché, and I'll put at least one in every major project I do. Those are among my favorite chapters I've ever written, so at least to my own mind I'm doing something right.

Another trope I use a lot is necromancy and necromancers, there are three prominent examples across my two main novel series alone, but in each case I feel I've manage to do a unique enough spin to make it worthwhile. They're all extremely unalike in terms of personality, have radically different ethics when it comes to raising the dead, do it for different purposes, have different power levels and so on. The mechanical practicalities of necromancy also vary according to setting. I don't have zombies doing sonnets, as far as I can recall, but I've got things like skeleton dance crews and zombie butlers rattling and shuffling about the place.

I think that you can write just about anything in a way that isn't clichéd. As long as you do it with heart and authenticity and some skill, a measure of originality and minty freshness will naturally shine through. Sometimes all you need is a gentle twist, while at other times you have to give it a good half-hour in the centrifuge. Context is king, I've heard, and the devil is known to reside in the details.
 
I think when someone's trying to avoid "tropes and cliches" they're trying to avoid overly derivative writing. Usually that stems from a limited range of mental source material. Read more fiction, read more history.
 
Stuart Dren said:
I think when someone's trying to avoid "tropes and cliches" they're trying to avoid overly derivative writing. Usually that stems from a limited range of mental source material. Read more fiction, read more history.
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Exactly. :) I had an idea -- one which I didn't pursue -- of a twist on the story of Dido and Aeneas, in which (spoiler alert)
Aeneas (the jerk!) doesn't leave her to found Rome, and she doesn't kill herself, so there's no wars between Rome and Carthage,
and everybody lives happily ever after, the end. =P

I didn't write it, though, because I'm not sure how many people know the original story of Dido and Aeneas ... *worried* ... unless you're European, of course, or know your classical mythology. :)
 
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