Not My Favorite Tropes

Good Monday,

Last week I discussed the difference between genre conventions and tropes. This week I promised to reveal a few tropes and why I am sick to death of them. Here goes.

-“Super Macho Man”

You know who I mean. It’s the hero who’s no less than 6 ft 5. He wouldn’t be caught dead (or alive…or undead) in anything that isn’t black leather; he rides a magically pumped up motor cycle of some kind; forget a tall building in a single bound, he can get about 4 or 5 in there, and he’s got tats (but no, call them tribal/dark magic markings or suffer his wrath).

Oh, I almost “forgot,” he’s, like, super-amazing in bed. This guy’s been all over, done stuff with women all over (alive, undead, dead), and is an expert in every form of pleasure (way more than any “normal” human male). Best part? He never gets distracted or makes a mistake during sex. Even if the hoard of demons/vampires/zombies/whatevers chooses the hot-and-heavy moment to charge over the wall, his woman is getting off. And, somehow, they’ll still manage to escape the hordes. Don’t even get me started on the body. If I read the words “chiseled six-pack” one more time…. *sigh*

K, who’s reading this and hurling insults at me because I insulted the hot urban fantasy hero? Get over it. Lol. No, seriously. I’m not saying this guy can’t be written well. I’m just saying I’m sick of seeing him.

-Female version of the above

This one irritates me even more. “I’m 4 ft 11. I always wear black leather (which I look smokin’ hot in, fyi). I am an expert at every type of martial arts on the planet. I can wield every weapon on the planet (that’s swords and guns, b*tches). I’m probably blonde (the better for my hair to stand out against my black leather). I’m hot, and you know it, and I, like my male counterpart, am the sh*t in bed.”

Blech. Be a real person. I’m sorry, but even the most trained warrior of the 4 ft 11 variety cannot take a foe three times her size down without earning a scratch. Er, unless she’s in an urban fantasy novel. Then she can. My bad.

-Vampires and zombies that are “emotionally scarred” or “sexy”

I know I’ve ranted on this before. Vampires are undead. THEY ARE NOT SEXY!!!

Same goes for zombies. They eat brains for crying out loud. I’d be really concerned if I got into a relationship with a zombie.
“So, what do you want for dinner?”
“You.” *bashes skull in and feasts*

Oh man, shiver.

As far as the “emotionally scarred” thing goes, I’m all for putting twists on mythical creatures. I do it all the time. But can the twists be different every so often? Emotionally scarred vamps/zombies had their time. They’re done. Let them crawl/shuffle back into their lairs.

-Chosen one

“You are the one. The one who will lead our nation/country/world back to greatness. Oh, by the way, you’ve been living in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere that is far from any trace of magic—the magic that you’ll need to save the world. You’re nineteen, you say? Excellent, the world is scheduled to end sometime when you’re twenty. Get learning.”

While this makes for a lot of tension and stress (and tears) on the protagonists part, it’s the backbone for almost every epic fantasy novel/series I remember reading before college (and a few after). It’s not just epic fantasy either. Poor Harry Potter fell victim to the chosen one fate. But Rowling did a good job with it. And then everyone else tried to do the same because HP was so successful. Point, I enjoy the chosen one storyline. I just want to see it disappear for a little while.

-“The fate of the world rests on finding the magic sword/lamp/orb/talking cat”

I love enchanted artifacts. When I was a kid, I spent hours combing through my dad’s Dungeons and Dragons books in search of cool items I could pretend were real. There are so many neat things in those books.

Unfortunately, I seem to have not been the only one on that band wagon. Writers everywhere opened up the Player’s Handbook and/or Dungeon Master’s Guide and sifted through the myriad of magical items. They found the one they wanted, maybe tweaked it a little, and stuck it at the center of a book. A band of merry heroes was than instituted to find said object and rid the world of the plagues of evil.

This storyline, for me, is similar to the chosen one idea. I enjoy it. I really find it fun and interesting to read. It just started with “Lord of the Rings” and didn’t stop. Maybe if the object was a talking cat I’d read it. For right now, though, I don’t think we need any more all-powerful artifacts that “in the wrong hands could bring destruction on a scale the likes of which we have never seen.”

For more tropes that aren’t my favorite, see this post from back in February.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Mary
@desantismt on Twitter

Book Tour--THE RULES OF DREAMING

THE RULES OF DREAMING by Bruce Hartman
A mystery/suspense

AN INTERVIEW WITH BRUCE
-What book and/or experience made you want to be a writer?

When I was a kid most of my play involved imagining myself in a fantasy world—don’t ask me why—and I think writing fiction is a continuation of that. As a writer, the challenge is to create a coherent, consistent fictional world that a reader can believe in, and still tell an interesting story.

-What genre(s) do you write?

I’ve written a couple of unpublished comedies, then one mystery, Perfectly Healthy Man Drops Dead, which was published in 2008. I’ve got a couple more mysteries in the pipeline, and a couple of comedies. I also write short stories, mostly of a satirical or philosophical nature. In general my writing seems to be heading off in a philosophical direction.

-THE RULES OF DREAMING Blurb

A novel of madness, music — and murder.

A beautiful opera singer hangs herself on the eve of her debut at the Met. Seven years later the opera she was rehearsing—Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann—begins to take over the lives of her two schizophrenic children, the doctors who treat them and everyone else who crosses their paths, until all are enmeshed in a world of deception and delusion, of madness and ultimately of evil and death. Onto this shadowy stage steps Nicole P., a graduate student who discovers that she too has been assigned a role in the drama. What strange destiny is being worked out in their lives?

-Spoilers?

These aren’t spoilers, but I’ll give you a few more incidents that shape the story. It takes place in and around a posh private mental hospital in a small town in upstate New York.

A mental patient with no musical training or experience sits down at the piano and plays a fiendishly difficult piece of classical music…

A young doctor’s life spins out of control as he falls under the spell of three irresistible women…

A beautiful graduate student, struggling with her thesis, suspects that her psychiatrist is ruled by the fantasies of a poet who’s been dead for two hundred years…

A blackmailer stumbles on an isolated town with more crimes on its conscience than he could have imagined.

-For aspiring writers, any tips?

This isn’t practical advice, but I would say: Write the book that only you can write. The reason it’s not practical is that the whole publishing industry—including your agent if you’re lucky enough to have one—wants you to write a different book. They want you to write the book they would have written, which, no surprise, would be a lot like some recent best seller, only better. They are running a business. Still, they’re not necessarily the best judge of what will make them a lot of money. They rejected John Grisham’s first book, and Tom Clancy’s, and Dan Brown’s. So write the book that only you can write, and if they reject it, try to get as much detailed, objective criticism as you can stand before you write the next one.

-What’s your favorite book/genre to read?

I’ve read a million mysteries, but since I started writing them I don’t read many of them anymore. Now that I know how they work, I’m sort of hypercritical and can always see the ending coming at about page 25. But I’m always looking for good ones, especially if they’re funny, or quirky, or literary without being fatuous. Outside of mysteries I read a fair amount of general fiction and non-fiction, history and philosophy, including a lot of classics from earlier centuries and different cultures.

-What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

I think my favorite thing is a story called “Kafka’s Creative Writing Teacher,” which, needless to say, nobody wants to publish.

ABOUT BRUCE

Bruce Hartman lives with his wife in Philadelphia. He has worked as a pianist, music teacher, bookseller and attorney and has been writing fiction for many years. His first novel, Perfectly Healthy Man Drops Dead, won the Salvo Press Mystery Novel Award and was published by Salvo Press in 2008. If all goes well, a steady stream of new books will be coming out over the next few years. The first of these, The Rules of Dreaming, will be published by Swallow Tail Press in May 2013.

Check out his website/blog. Like his Amazon author page, and connect with Bruce on Goodreads.

Buy THE RULES OF DREAMING on Amazon.

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Hey readers,

I really, really, really hope this never happens to me or anyone I know. Heh

Interested? Follow the rest of the tour here.

And don’t forget to comment for a chance at a prize.

Bruce will award a $50 Amazon or BN.com gift card (winner's choice) to one randomly drawn commenter.

Book Tour--CASSIE SCOT: PARANORMAL DETECTIVE

CASSIE SCOT: PARANORMAL DETECTIVE by Christine Amsden
An urban fantasy

BLURB
Cassie Scot is the ungifted daughter of powerful sorcerers, born between worlds but belonging to neither. At 21, all she wants is to find a place for herself, but earning a living as a private investigator in the shadow of her family’s reputation isn’t easy. When she is pulled into a paranormal investigation, and tempted by a powerful and handsome sorcerer, she will have to decide where she truly belongs.

EXCERPT
My parents think the longer the name, the more powerful the sorcerer, so they named me Cassandra Morgan Ursula Margaret Scot. You can call me Cassie.

I've been called a lot of things in my life: normal, ordinary, and even a disappointment. After the Harry Potter books came out, a couple of people called me a squib. Since I haven't read them, I have to assume it's a compliment.

Personally, I prefer normal, which is why the sign on my office door reads: Cassie Scot, Normal Detective.

You have to understand that around here, when your last name is Scot, people are easily confused. Not only are my parents powerful practitioners, but I have six talented brothers and sisters. Plus, my family hasn't always been known for its subtlety. When weird stuff happens around here, the people who are willing to believe in magic are prone to suspect the Scots.

The day I opened for business I got a call from an old woman who swore her cat was possessed by the devil. She also swore she'd read my web site, which clearly stated the types of work I did and did not do. Exorcisms were on the No list, and while I hadn't specified pet exorcisms, I would have thought it was implicit.

ABOUT CHRISTINE

Award-winning author Christine Amsden has written stories since she was eight, always with a touch of the strange or unusual. She became a “serious” writer in 2003, after attending a boot camp with Orson Scott Card. She finished Touch of Fate shortly afterward, then penned The Immortality Virus, which won two awards. Expect many more titles by this up-and-coming author.

Check out Christine’s website and blog. Follow her on Twitter @ChristineAmsden, and like her Facebook page. Connect with her on Goodreads and on Google+.

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Hey readers,

When I was in kindergarten, I hated having to write out my name because “It had three capital letters.” I think I would have quit if I had Cassie’s full name.

Like what you see? Follow the rest of the tour here.

And don’t forget to comment for a chance at a prize.

Christine will be awarding a $10 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

Conventions vs. Tropes

Genre conventions? Genre tropes? Different? Same?

I say different, but feel free to argue with me.

First, definitions.

Conventions. They’re not those things writers go get drunk (I mean, learn stuff) at. (Well, they are but not in this particular situation.) Conventions n. things that make a genre a genre. They occur in the big five as I’ve begun calling them—science fiction (sf), fantasy, horror, mystery, and romance.

Examples: SF – advanced tech. Fantasy – magic. Horror – something disturbing. Mystery – serious crime committed. Romance – happily ever after (HEA)

If you take these elements away, a book doesn’t fall in the genre anymore. So conventions are defining fundamentals.

Tropes. Not those things you vaguely remember from high school chemistry. (Those were isotopes and not related to writing.) Tropes n. things that often appear in works of a certain genre but are not necessary to said genre.

Let’s use those conventions to look at this.

-SF/advanced tech - There are lots of possibilities for advanced technology in a sf world. Tropes are the ones we see most often—faster-than-light travel (FTL), lazar weapons, teleportation chambers, group think machines, etc. Cool, but not necessary. Avoiding these and finding new potential tech (or even putting a new spin on the existing tropes) makes the story more interesting.

-Fantasy/magic – Magic is pretty broad and, really, pretty vague. George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series is fantasy, but for anyone who’s read “Game of Thrones,” you know there isn’t a lot of magic. By contrast, the wizards in “Harry Potter” use magic for everything from chopping vegetables to fighting. That’s a big spectrum.

What are some magic tropes? Well, the “magic school” is one—Hogwarts, Hex Hall, Earthsea, etc. It appears in quite a few places, but not all fantasy novels need incorporate it. The “chosen one” is another trope. Harry Potter, Garion, Richard Cypher, etc. All have been set up for greatness by elements outside their control, and none can shirk their duties because if they do, humankind will perish. Again, seen pretty often but not mandatory.

-Horror/something disturbing – I don’t just mean blood and guts. Actually, I don’t mean blood and guts at all. While that may be part of a horror book, it’s not all there is to “disturbing.” Psychological horror relies on breaking down the reader’s mental defenses. Sometimes horror is more affective when it’s not gross.

Now, tropes. Blood and guts have been done in their various forms. Zombies—oh man. So many zombie books/movies. Heck, even the “nice” zombie has been done. Essentially, the scary creature/scary ooze that will make everyone into scary creatures thing, among others, crops up a lot.

-Mystery/serious crime – Usually murder. Why? Because it needs to be something serious enough for the reader to invest interest, and murder is pretty serious. It doesn’t have to be murder, though. Grand theft of extremely valuable possessions or cash also works, as does child abuse in its various forms. So the serious crime is the convention. Murder is an often-used trope that can be replaced by an equally serious crime.

-Romance/HEA – You need a HEA in a romance. If you do not have a HEA, it is not romance. End of story. How you get there and who you get there with may vary, and there are plenty of often-used options. Alpha males, guy/girl from wrong side of the tracks. I don’t read a lot of romance but setting up a group of guys/girls and then showing a HEA for each of them throughout a series seems pretty common. Just make sure you have the HEA. Once you have that, be creative with the how. I’ve been told by people who have much more experience reading and writing romances that it’s very easy to fall into patterns and formulas but that it’s not impossible to be original.

Side note: Romance actually shows an interesting case of a convention being broken-ish. There’s a new thing going for ya or this “new adult” thing—HFN, happy for now. The idea is that younger characters might not stay with who they end up with at the end of the book. I’m not saying this is a good or bad variation. I’m just saying it exists. Debate at your own risk. It’s just an interesting example of how such a necessary convention of a genre can be altered. “Follow the rules till you make it. Then turn the rules on their head.”

I was up at my June residency for Seton Hill University’s MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program the week before last. Every res, the head of the program poses a question that becomes the residency theme. This time, it was “What are you sick of seeing in your genre?” We spent a lot of time that week talking about tropes, and it occurred to me that tropes and conventions often walk a narrow line. Sitting down to write this post, however, I have revised that statement. Conventions and tropes often can walk a fine line. There are some elements of a genre, though, that just are.

So what am I sick of in my genre (fantasy)?

I feel like a game show host. That will be the topic of next Monday’s post. “Find out…after the break.”

Until then, have a good week and maybe try to guess. Heck, leave a comment with a guess. Five bonus points to anyone who gets one right. (I don’t have a purpose for “bonus points” yet, but I have an exceptionally good memory. Someday, those bonus points might translate into cool stuff.)

I Have Returned

I have returned. Late, yes. But better late than never.

For those who celebrated yesterday, I hope you had an enjoyable Fourth. I went to see fireworks last night. They were awesome.

I was up at Seton Hill last week for residency. I learned a ton. Some of it will work its way into posts to follow. Some of it is irrelevant to writing—for example watching two people eat a peanut butter, bacon, cheddar burger. One loved it. One hated it. It was an awesome moment.

In any event, I will be back in full swing next week. I spent this week recovering from lack of sleep and organizing my jumbled thesis thoughts.

Happy writing, reading, living, and other. Have an excellent weekend.

Cheers.

Messed-up Gifts

Good Friday,

I’ve been absent this week because I’ve been preparing for next week—June res!

Unfortunately for you, this means I’ll be MIA next week. Try not to cry too much. I’ll be back the first week in July.

As always, I leave you with some gifts. In an effort to keep myself writing every day, I resorted to some rather strange writers block elimination methods. I wrote some really weird flash fiction. I give this to you for two reasons...

-So you can see just what writing does to the brain.

-So, the next time you think you’ve written something completely off the walls, you can think of this and know there’s still hope.

Enjoy, and I shall see you upon my return.

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Once upon a time, on a farm long long ago, there lived a demonic butterfly and his gofer, Jack. The butterfly, Mike, spent most of his days eating, flying, fluttering, bothering pizza delivery boys for no apparent reason, and pollinating rhododendron plants. Jack, by contrast, spent most of his days digging holes.

One day, Mike decided he wanted to do something different. He fluttered to Jack and perched on his nose. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “But I’m on the hunt for foreign activity, and you seem like the perfect person to ask about a lifestyle change.” As soon as Mike said this, he questioned it. What did a gofer that did nothing but dig holes know about a lifestyle change?

“Well,” Jack said. “You could dig a hole.”

Mike spread his tiny wings, indicating himself. “And what would you recommend I dig a hole with? I don’t exactly have hands or claws.”

Jack gnawed on his lower lip. “True. Never mind.”

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Addlebon Jacobs Frankforter IV stormed out of his build-it-yourself web and crawled at a rather slow speed toward the giant, fish-shaped creature on his lawn.

“What is the matter with you?” he said, cranking his eight legs in a grotesque parody of the tango. “What makes you think you can just appear here after six months of no contact whatsoever?”

The fish-shaped creature shrugged, or at least tried to. “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll knock first.”

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It was a sad day when Jackarab ran out of food. He lived alone and went by the species title of autodigestiveicious. Eating himself was the norm, which means he’d recently lost himself. Pity.

Book Tour--ISLAND SHIFTERS

ISLAND SHIFTERS: AN OATH OF THE BLOOD by Valerie Zambito
A fantasy novel

BLURB
When your family, your home, and the very land you stand on are destroyed, what do you do? If you are a shifter of Massa, you turn around and fight. You fight, because the blood oath will have it no other way.

The idyllic lives of four elemental shifters living in the exiled land of Pyraan are shattered when a tour of legion duty gives witness to a brutal enemy invasion. Despite the heroic efforts of the shifters, the land falls to the invaders. As the only survivors, the four friends are forced to flee south into the lands from which they were banished to warn of the invasion. Heartbroken and weary, the shifters soon learn that the safe haven they hoped to find is cloaked in danger. Throughout a journey fraught with prophesy, betrayal and peril, an enduring friendship prevails, love blossoms, and a riveting saga unravels.

EXCERPT
The three Dwarves pushed their way back into the pitch-blackness of the palace.

“Dillon, where is the torch?” asked Janin, and Rogan could hear her fumbling around.

Dillon sounded panicked. “I left one right here and it is gone!”

Now that his eyes were adjusting to the gloom, Rogan could see the outline of the two Dwarves feeling around in the dark for the torch. He called forth a flame of light. “Does this help?”

They both looked up at him with a gasp, a mixture of both surprise and anger on their faces. “Do not do that!” snarled Janin.

Shaking his head in confusion, Rogan said, “We need light, do we not? This is light.”

“It is light created from magic which, in case you have not heard, is outlawed on this island,” retorted Dillon.

“Yes, well, the world has changed, Dillon. The Magical Kingdom of Pyraan has been destroyed, we are under threat of slavery at best and annihilation at worse by a rogue Mage, and we are running for our lives from a King who wants to murder me. Against that, you are worried about a flame to light our way?”

“Good point,” murmured Dillon with a shrug.

Rogan turned away from them in frustration. “I do not understand this fear of magic. Please tell me so I understand!”

Dillon shuffled his feet, at a loss as to how to answer his question. Janin had no such qualms. “Have you forgotten that you were exiled in Pyraan for a reason, shifter? Did they not teach you anything about the legacy of magic use?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, and the legacy of magic before three evil Mages decided to destroy the world was inspiring. Magic was used to heal the dying, to create cures for the sick, to defend the weak. Does having magic automatically make you an evil person? If a Dwarf kills another, does it make all Dwarves murderers? If a dog bites a child, does it mean all dogs bite people?” He shook his head in frustration. “You cannot confine the legacy of magic to the Mage War, you just cannot.”

Janin gazed at him with a look he could not identify. “No, and I will admit that there are valuable uses to magic. But, there is also the ability to cause great harm on a very large scale. If one Dwarf kills another, it is one person. If a dog bites a child, it is one child. If an evil Mage decides to use magic for sinister purpose, he can destroy the world. That, my friend, is why we are afraid.”

ABOUT VALERIE
Fantasy author, Valerie Zambito, lives in York, New York with her husband and three sons. After having been involved in a busy sales career for twenty years, a passionate love for great storytelling, world building, character creation, and all things magic have led to the release of her epic fantasy series, Island Shifters, and young adult, paranormal romance series, Angels of the Knights.

Books:
Book One: Island Shifters - An Oath of the Blood
Book Two: Island Shifters - An Oath of the Mage
Book Three: Island Shifters - An Oath of the Children
Book Four: Island Shifters - An Oath of the Kings
Angels of the Knights – Fallon
Angels of the Knights – Blane
Classroom Heroes

Check out Valerie’s website.

Buy ISLAND SHIFTERS on Amazon, B&N, iTunes, and Smashwords.

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Hey readers,

Smart dwarves. I’d be afraid too.

Follow the rest of ISLAND SHIFTER’s tour here.

And don’t forget to comment for a chance at some cool prizes.

Valerie will be awarding several print copies of her book to randomly drawn commenters during the tour (US only) and a grand prize of a $25 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour.