My Favourite Tropes

Hey guys!

So a few weeks ago, several blogs I'm following all talked about their favourite tropes in books/films/tv and I thought. Hey. I'm a trope-loving human. I could talk for hours about that. I want to do it!

Quality content here, guys. Quality content.

This post has actually been planned since back in November - in fact, my initial draft talked about NaNoWriMo, which just tells you how long I left off finishing it. But it's a post I've been planning, so I'm doing it. Bear in mind that after this, I'm taking a brief break from posting for Christmas and I'll be back on the last Saturday of December with my Wrap-Up!

But that's in the future. Right now, let's talk tropes. On we go!

 Found Families

I just...I literally cannot describe to you how much I love this trope. I mean, it turns up in every one of my stories, it's in an awful lot of my favourite books/films/tv shows and I just...I love it. 

It's that friendship thing again, I'm just a total sucker for friendship and platonic relationships and this allows me to fully bask in it. I just. I love it guys. I love it. If you pop this one into your stories and it's well-written*. You've sucked me in. 

*eh, who am I kidding. I'll love it even if it isn't well-written.

Other tropes that I also love, but that are kind of too connected to this one to get their own category would be - the Ragtag Band of Misfits, the Magic of Friendship and True Companions.

Examples: the Leverage team (Leverage, obviously), the Straw-Hat Pirates (One Piece), the Batfamily (Batman comics, DC), the Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel)

Quick, Act Natural!

Or as it's called on TV Tropes, Acting Unnatural. 

Pretty self-explanatory, really. You know that moment in a film/book/tv show where someone comes into the room and all the characters have to act natural. Naturally, they're all terrible at it and they strike ridiculous poses or do stupid stuff.

I just. It's brilliant. I'll never get tired of it. 

It's a trope that turns up all over the place, but it's a little harder to find a specific example of it anywhere. So, instead, to illustrate my point, I'll just show you a snippet from my NaNo novel, where I used it. 

Dorks, all of them.

Crazy-Prepared

Do you have a character who's somehow prepared for everything? Including, but not limited to, escaped sharks in the middle of London, killer ballet dancers and the invasion of giant snails that we all know is coming?

Then you probably have a Crazy Prepared character. And I will probably love them forever.

Examples: Batman. Do I need to say anything else?

Dysfunction Junction

That group that's completely messed up in every possible way? Who all definitely need therapy? They're this trope. 

There's something about a bunch of messed up kids coming together to heal their broken pieces and fix each other that I love and this trope is a predecessor to that.

And we're back to the Found Families trope. Literally everything comes back to that eventually, I swear.

Examples: the Batfamily, the main characters from Sherlock (BBC), anyone from A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)

The Awesome Normal People

These are your Iron-Mans, your Batmans, your Black Widows, your Samwise Gamgees. 

These are the guys who don't have any special powers - except for sometimes being rich - but they're awesome anyway. They stand up there with titans and no one ever questions that they belong there. They're the ones that prove that you don't need powers to be awesome.

Examples: Other than the examples above, Beren (Tolkien, of the Tale of Beren and Luthien fame), Steve Trevor (Wonder Woman)

Team Dad/Mum

The one slightly more mature person on the team who just parents everybody. The Dads are the slightly more harsh version of this trope, the ones who discipline and tell people off. The Mums are the warm, nurturing version of this trope. Sometimes you'll have one of each, sometimes you'll just have either one.

Then you get the giant messes that are kind of both, but kind of neither and honestly, they've no clue what they're doing but they accidentally adopted a bunch of people and they're trying, okay!

*coughs* Sorry. Got a little carried away there.

Sometimes they're literally parents to the others in the group, other times they just take this role without that. 

Examples: Wendy Darling (Peter Pan), Effie Trinket - Team Mum to an extent (more so in the films, Hunger Games) along with Haymitch Abernathy as the Team Dad, Chiron (Heroes of Olympus), Bruce Wayne (Batman, DC), Jeff Tracy (Thunderbirds)

And that was a not-exhaustive list of just a few of my favourite tropes in literature/films/tv and honestly, if you write about them, I'll love you forever.

What about you? Do you have any favourite tropes? Tell me down in the comments.

The Writer's 'When You Learn More About Me' Questionnaire + Five Facts About My WIP

Hey guys!

So we're into December! And that means Christmas! Exciting stuff. For this month, I've got a couple of posts planned, but for the most part we'll kind of chill a bit, okay? I'm (obviously) posting this week and next week, but the week after that I'm going on break for two weeks for Christmas. And then I'll be back on the last week with my December Wrap-Up.

So I was wondering what I could do for this week and I decided that I'd *cough*finally*cough* get around to filling in a couple of tags that I was tagged in by Deborah Kelty

Me? Fail at everything? Why yes, thank you for noticing.

So we'll start with the 'Ten Questions About Me' questionnaire, then move on to the second one. Here we go.

Q1: What was the first story you remember writing?

I'm not sure, since this was way back when I was three, but I'm pretty sure it was about a king, a queen and a princess who all died in the end. Also, I'm pretty sure there was a ring involved. I hadn't even read Lord of the Rings at this point, for obvious reasons, but I was ripping it off anyway.

Q2: Where do you gain your inspiration? 

All sorts of places. Music is a major one, which is why I make playlists for all of my stories. I love music. Pinterest is also a big one. I can surf Pinterest for hours and I have a special Story Inspiration board on my account where I pin ideas. Taking in media is very helpful too, reading books and watching films and tv shows. I get so many ideas just watching an episode of Doctor Who. 10/10, would recommend. 

Q3: Who/What exactly encouraged you to become a writer?

My family's always been really encouraging, but other than that, just my favourite books and wanting to be able to write like that. I've always loved writing, so I really didn't need much encouragement to do it.

Q4: If you had a choice between past or present tense to use, which one would you pick?

It really depends on the story and on how I'm feeling. If I've been writing a story with present tense for a while, I'll instinctively write everything in present tense, but it works the other way round too. 

But, because this question calls for an actual answer, I'd probably say present tense. It's the one I prefer at the moment, because my main draft is written in present tense, so I'm overwhelmingly spending more time in it. 

Q5: Do you have some type of "kryptonite" weakness?

My physical disability stops me from writing as much as I'd like, but it's probably just making me write a normal amount, so I mean...

In terms of my actual writing...it's those dang villains. How do people not overwhelmingly sympathise with their villains?! I don't understand. I make a villain, then I wonder why they're doing what they're doing, then I over-develop them, then I feel bad for them. 

Dear fellow writers, how the heck do you write irredeemable villains. I seem to be incapable of it. Strange considering that my novels tend to be pretty dark and violent. 

Q6: On the flip side, do you have a type of "superman" strength?

....I mean, I've been told I'm pretty good at dialogue? But I don't know if that's actually true across the board or not. I'm an expert procrastinator, maybe that's mine. 

Q7: Are there any guilty pleasures of yours?

I don't tend to feel guilty over the things I enjoy. If I like something, then I like it. But I guess, maybe I like Disney XD shows and find them ridiculously enjoyable, even though they're actually rubbish.

Q8: Is there a genre of media/entertainment you've not seen but want to try out one day?

I'd love to try out horror at some point. I own Stephen King's IT in novel form, so hopefully I can get to reading that behemoth and then kind of get to grips with the genre. I do love a tinge of horror in my media - my favourite Batman comics are the ones that dip into horror territory. 

Q9: And finally, what is your favourite writing snack?

I'm not sure, probably tea? Because I am a true British stereotype, dang it!

Also, I like olives. And grapes. And coleslaw.

Me? Weird? Whatever would make you say something like that?

Q10: So, would you do more Q&A's like this?

I mean, I'm terrible at them, but sure. Tags are easy blogposts!

And that is that one done! Now onto the second. 

So for this, I have to give out five facts about my WIP. And for this, I'm going to waffle on about my novel Asteria, which...I have not talked much about on this blog for some reason.

I will eventually make a full post explaining this novel, but for now, you just need to know that it's science-fiction (kind of) and it's about a teenage mess of feelings called Minerva who's very stabby and doesn't understand emotions and friendship.

Here, see the Pinterest Board for it:


And on we go!

Fact 1

It's set in a fictional solar-system almost a thousand years after humans colonised it. The system is essentially run by the Valarian Republic, a supposedly-democratic government with elected representatives from each colony and group of people who meet in the Senate.

The Senate is kind of the most back-stabby place ever. Yes, that is poison in your cup, probably shouldn't drink it.

Fact 2

There's a crew of nerds who have no idea what they're doing, all have the most tragic backstories and who all kind of low-key adopt the teenage mess that is Minerva. 

Minerva has no idea how to cope with this.

Fact 3

There's a desert planet called Samoia that has a natural disaster native to it called the Samon. It's basically a planetary monsoon that covers the whole planet and refills the empty rivers and wells. 

The native Ryoans believe that it's sent by the water god, Ryoji.

Fact 4

Ten years before the novel begins, a species of people are slaughtered by the Republic. This has major ramifications on the system as a whole. It leaves the whole place politically unstable.

Fact 5

There's a floating country called Tirvah within the atmosphere of the ice planet, Everarin. It's a cool place, albeit under occupation since their king had no chill and yelled at the Republic leaders in the middle of the Senate meeting. As a result of Fact 4, to be specific. See, told you it had a big effect.


And that is the end of this week's post! A pretty big one, really, but there you go. Sorry, Deborah, for taking literally forever to catch up and do this. I fail.

When it comes to tagging, I have literally no blogging connections, so if you want to do these tags, go ahead and do them. I tag you all.

What did you think of this week's post? Do you have a WIP you're working on? Tell me a fact about your WIP in the comments below.