Tropes as tools · 12:45pm Nov 26th, 2023
Had a few days off work so I'm actually logged in.
I'm working on an original fiction idea (scifi/comedy/short-short) and was culling TV Tropes to find cliches to to either double down upon, or avert, for laughs.
I ran across Dare to be Badass, which I've certainly read before. I saw this example which I had read originally years ago, but then forgotten about:
Chief Petty Officer Tobin gave what is probably the most succinct real-life example [of "Dare to be Badass"] ever during the rescue of the passengers of The Hindenburg, at just four words, as a fireball the size of a football field was about to fall on them: "Navy men, stand fast!" Not only did his men stop running away, they turned around and ran back into the flames.
This, I think, subconsciously affected me when I wrote With Her Majesty's Coast Guard:
When the Dawn's Light was about one hundred yards from the Safe Harbour, he shouted, "Firm on the anchors! Boarding party, rally to me!"
Dawn's Light halted, just off the stricken liner's port stern, and he trotted to the middle of the weather deck. Twenty-one pegasi—every pegasus of the complement except the admiral—and one unicorn formed up on him. Ten pegasi stood in five pairs, each pair with a canvas rescue hammock harnessed between their torsos. The others had individual rescue slings, carpenter's tools, or medical kits snapped to their lifejackets. The single unicorn, Chief Petty Officer Reef Knot, stood with them, also in life jacket and helmet. East End snapped his harness to her, ready to carry the chief to the galleon.
The princess, standing by the helmsmare's wheel, met his eyes and nodded once. Regulations forbade the master of a vessel from leaving it; rescue sorties were the executive officer's duty, and the regret was clear in her eyes.
Baron, she mouthed silently.
Princess, he mouthed back with a nod.
The team—all soaking wet and miserably cold in life jackets and helmets instead of storm suits—looked at him. Shouting over the wind, his voice making its damned adolescent cracking again, "Foals and injured first, then teenagers, then adults, crew last. We're saving every single pony. Follow me."
Tropes are tools — and history is a rich source of inspiration. As has been said many times, a writer must be a reader first. (You can generally identify "writers" who aren't readers by their New Column offerings' quality.) I suspect I've read three or five thousand books over the course of my life, and stories like Chief Tobin soak into the subconscious and give a writer a deep well to draw from.
My major project at the moment is an original fiction novella or short novel with a working title of "Solomon Islands Destroyer Action... In Spaaaaace!" Needless to say, at the moment, I'm reading every memoir and history about the Solomon campaign I can get my hands on.
(Because a writer must be a reader first.)
Will you share the details of your novel on Fimfiction once it's published? Or do you not want your real name associated with your Fimfiction account?
Chukcha not a reader, Chukcha a writer?
The problem with subverting tropes is the subversions are now tropes in and of themselves. Therefore, can you subvert anything these days?
5756702
Leaning towards Royal Road, although their audiences seem to like anime more... still with a pseudonym.
5756714
Maybe Chukcha neither
5756719
Well, my comedy often comes from exaggerating a trope past all reason. Consider "Ambulance Inspection Rejection" or "Delving too Deep."
5756714
I kinda didn't know that Chukcha jokes had spread out of former USSR
5756740
They made their way to Poland. Same with Latvian peasants.
5756719
If you take that kind of attitude in too serious a way, you might decide that writing is impossible.
Also, I suspect that 'subverting tropes IS a trope!' is probably one of those tropes that are Way Older Than Feudalism...
and yet, if done well, can still work.