WIP Challenge Day 6, Monday

[jagnikjen]

Howdy Y'all ~

How's the writing going?

~ It's great.
~ It's coming along.
~ Very slow.
~ It's not.

Discussion topic . . . share some of your favorite and least favorite tropes.

Comments

[sharpiefan]

I posted a chapter that's been bugging me for ages! :D It's been a great day!

Tropes. Um. If I manage to include any tropes, it's generally by mistake. I do have a character who's an officer and a gentleman, which was deliberate - but then, I write historical stuff, so it fits.

[dhae_knight_1]

Nice! Congrats. :-)

[sharpiefan]

Thank you! :D \o/

[eve_doodle]

Congrats!

[crowdog66]

Wrote ~1400 words today and finished the last chapter of "Lost in Translation"... in other words, it's great!

Tropes... oh God. XD One of my favourites is the idea that "light" and "darkness" can exist in balanced and mutually beneficial polarity (some of my favourite pairings to write, such as Neo/Smith, Bob/Megabyte, and Bashir/Garak reflect this). One of my least favourites is the "hero/heroine who everyone thinks is perfect in spite of some fairly obvious shortcomings" trope (aka the Mary Sue), because it makes for boring rather than exciting/conflict-driven stories IMO.

[sharpiefan]

Conflict is great. Mary-Sues should be shot.

(Thank God I'll never be able to dig out my own personal Mary-sue fic... which was, strangely enough, a Star Trek fic. I might have to resurrect the character as a more flawed, more realistic version though. One day.)

Garak/Bashir. Yeah, I can see that. :D

[dhae_knight_1]

Awesome! :-D

[roane]

I'm in the Sherlock fandom. "If it's You, It's Okay" (from TVTropes.org) is our motto. :D

I am not a fan of the whole "true love conquers all" thing, because in real life, it doesn't. Not always.

Writing is going so well it's burning out my brain. I'm stuck at work for a few more hours, and I just want to go home and WRIIIIIIITE. Revised a scene this morning before work, and if all goes well, will finish my WIP tonight. SO GEEKED. :)

[samecgh]

I agree on the 'true love' one also.

Writing. Sounds familiar.

[eve_doodle]

Ugh, totally agree on true love. It's so prominent in the animanga fandoms I play in that it's a little disturbing.

[lacerta]

Good luck with your writing! That sounds great :D

[dhae_knight_1]

It's coming along. Slowly. I just realized, just before sitting down to write, that maybe I actually needed to figure out just how Hotch and JJ meet... XD

Anyway. I love tropes. Any kind of tropes. As long as I can get to play around with them, turn them on their head, or take them in unexpected directions. Tropes are fun, because once you start using one, you know your readers will have a certain expectation, and you can shatter that with relatively little effort.

Seriously. I can look at lists of tropes and glean inspiration. I'm weird that way.

[sharpiefan]

Coming along is better than not. And tropes are fun... though I've spent way too much time stuck in TV Tropes recently to be entirely good for my health. :D

[dhae_knight_1]

TV-Tropes; better known as the black hole of the Internet. Once you enter, time dilates and nothing escapes. ;-)

[sharpiefan]

Absolutely. Many hours wasted quite happily in there. :D

[dhae_knight_1]

I'd be happier if I didn't have a tendency to wander in there half an our before I really need to get to bed in order to be halfway functional the next day... XD

[roane]

Tropes are fun, because once you start using one, you know your readers will have a certain expectation, and you can shatter that with relatively little effort.

YES. THIS. :)

[dhae_knight_1]

Slap a label on me and call me sadistic; I love to mess with my readers' minds... XD

[roane]

*whistles innocently and hides current WIP behind her back*

[lilly_c]

I'm having an enforced break today. Had minor surgery this afternoon so I've been good and resting. Will be back to the fic tomorrow though.

[dhae_knight_1]

Good girl! If we don't take care of ourselves we can't create. :-)

[lilly_c]

:D exactly

[eve_doodle]

I hope you feel better and that it wasn't anything serious!

[lilly_c]

I'm feeling better, have rested. Nothing serious, just another ingrown toenail that needed taking out.

[lacerta]

Hope everything went well!

[lilly_c]

It went well :)

[eve_doodle]

Did something quick for fan_flashworks for Bleach which I'm happy with; it's for one of my favorite pairings, so it was easy work. Sent off what I wrote for Chapter Nine of WIP off to beta and tried not to think about how awful the action scenes were.

I love tropes. My favorites have to be Bunny Ears Lawyer and Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass. I despise Faux Action Girl so in my fics, I try to include as much action and character development for the female characters as possible (yay passing the Bechdel test!). I don't know what it's called, but I hate the idea that strong women can only be super powerful and can't like girly things like bunnies or boys or frilly things. That just gets on my nerves- women can like whatever they want and still be awesome.

I do have a weakness for May-December romances. /hides

[dhae_knight_1]

Crouching moron, hidden badass is always good! XD

And the women-thing? I can't *tell* you how happy I am to have found Criminal Minds after years and years and *years* of watching shows with little more than token females (tm).

My very first ship? Was Buffy/Giles. *crouches into hiding beside you* ;-)

[eve_doodle]

Oh gosh, now I *really* have to watch Criminal Minds! Sounds like a show right up my alley. I'll need to put the DVDs on hold at the library, haha.

(I'm not alone! Soon, the legion of May/December fans will take over the fanworld!)

[dhae_knight_1]

I'm just corrupting people left and right into watching CM. :-)

Start with season one and give it at least 6 episodes. So far everyone who knows CM agrees that ep. 6 is the one that hooks you. It was the one that hooked me, gave me my favorite pairing and cemented my love for Hotch, all in one, fell swoop. :-D

[eve_doodle]

Is each episode an hour long? Doesn't sound too bad and I'm sure the episodes that lead up to six are great as well.

I've seen you Hotch icons and I don't think I'll have a problem falling in love with him. *laughs* He looks like the attractive, competent and reliable type (pressing all my buttons!).

[dhae_knight_1]

Add smoking hot with a gun and obscenely cute daddy and you've pretty much summed up Hotch... XD

[eve_doodle]

.../runs off to find torrents

[roane]

OMG, yes. That IS the episode, isn't it? But it won't work if you haven't seen the ones leading up to it, so.

That reminds me, I am SO FAR BEHIND on the series right now. I need to catch up.

[dhae_knight_1]

It is. I'd watched a few episodes here and there and eventually (after watching Damaged) thought; "I've got to see more of this." So I got season 1and sort of casually trundled my way through the first five episodes, finding it okay, but not obsessively good. And then - wham - LDSK came along and I went *flail* and slammed all six seasons in about three weeks... xD

I... Feel like I should friend you. :-D

[roane]

YEEEEES. Watch Criminal Minds. A more awesome ensemble cast does not exist anywhere.

[eve_doodle]

/won over

What else can I do when everyone's ganging up on me. ;)

[lacerta]

I threw some words at one of my guro squares and while it's not guro yet, I also managed to not make myself sick, so I'm counting it as success. I should probably do some research for the guro-parts, but... not sure if I want to have all this anatomy knowlege. This is all so much creepier when you have to write it yourself instead of reading a fic through your fingers >.<

[dhae_knight_1]

... what is guro?

[lacerta]

Oh god you probably don't want to know! Uhm, it's all the gross and grotesque kinks, with plenty of body horror and the like. I thought it'd be cool to push myself as a writer, but.... Hm, it's definitely stretching my comfort zone, let's put it that way.

[lullabymoon]

360 words of big bang. Wasn't what I had planned on but I'm pleased, especially since one of the remain hows of the plot slotted into place.

My favourite trope is probably banterous BFF's though there are far too many to mention. I don't generally write many tropes (that I am aware of anyway :D) but I love reading them, especially if they are done well.

[enemytosleep]

~250 words today, and some organizing of research notes (plopping relevant bits into remaining outline, etc.). Today was a long work day, as are the next couple days, so I hope I can maintain a little bit of writing each evening. ^^;

Brain is too fried to dig into tropes (so many to choose from).

[snowynight]

I wrote another 2K on my wip, but the plot seems to go out of my control, so I'm worrying.

My favourite trope is pining. I can eat it up with a spoon.

My least favourite trope is woman in the refrigerator, so I try my best to avoid it.

[bay_alexison]

So I decided to try writing a fic for Porn Battle and at the moment I'm close to 650 words. I still got some time today so I'm hoping to finish it either before I go to bed or tomorrow. Bleh the prompt I was going for someone else already posted their version of it so I'm a little worried for being called out on stealing ideas and such. My story is slightly different though, so I think I'll be fine.

I don't keep track of trope names, so can't answer the question. XD;

[lacerta]

The same thing happened to me last year and I felt the same way. Ultimately, though, I guess more porn makes everyone's happy :D

[insignia]

I spent this day obsessing over Marble Hornets instead of writing. I meant to write later, but had to go to bed early because I haven't slept enough the past few nights >__>;