On Writing -- Fresh tropes for experienced readers will also please the newbies.

[alfreda89]

I was visiting sartorias's page where she mentions a post on truepenny's LJ about "Scullery Boys and Fantasy Expectations". I enjoyed her comments on how newer readers still adore those conventions we longtime readers immediately recognize and could be bored by. (I.E. Eragon, etc.) Is there a way to use some tropes that will satisfy both new-to-genre and longtime fan readers?

Finding the word to explain what we're doing ("second-world story" as opposed to "epic" or "high" fantasy, for example) is often difficult. Many of us seem to have simultaneously thought: "Need a new word, here". I have a "big book" fantasy that has epic and high elements, but is really about a people who would just as soon not have anything to do with all that crap -- they just want to live quietly in their part of the world and let the idiots deal with the rest as they wish.

Of course, that doesn't work. And how it plays out is the story. Just recently I realized that I couldn't write this book years ago -- I had to reach a point of maturity that I could see where it was going, and still bear to go there.

And still have a hopeful ending.

And that will have to tide folks over until I get back on that story.

(This appeared in a slightly different form over on sartorias's journal.)

Comments

[6-penny.livejournal.com]

The use of tropes with a predetermined ending harkens back to the Greek tragedies. The chorus commentary somehow helped maintain the suspense.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

The use of tropes with a predetermined ending harkens back to the Greek tragedies. The chorus commentary somehow helped maintain the suspense.

I remember a few of the ones we still have left -- how they were all narrated, as opposed to acted. I actually saw one of the Greek plays performed in the archaic manner. It was quite engrossing, despite the distance of narration.

Anything with a good story can pull me in. If it has good characters, it might even be re-read. Tropes echo for me. The question is, does the echo sound like it's in tune, no matter what kind of chord it's building?