Story Structure is my Jam
I'm a USA Today Bestselling Author who is obsessed with tropes and genres expectations. It's the how and why of story that excite me. Let's filet a story.
Why I Gotta Talk Tropes…
I’m not entirely sure why I’m so fascinated by tropes but I have a few ideas on the subject. I’m in the fifth book of my Trope Thesaurus series, and I’m still excited to learn about them! (Right now, my Kickstarter Campaign for Trope Thesaurus Fantasy and Science Fiction is live.)
Here are a few reasons why I’m trope-obsessed:
1). Tropes are signposts for readers.
Think orphan, warrior, or forbidden love. You already know what these words mean.
2). Tropes are building blocks.
Hooking the reader is key to sucking them into our world. We need to do that ASAP and that is a function of tropes. Then, we can mold them into our story.
3). They are relationships.
The power of tropes is that they are all about the relationships embedded in them. Take the orphan trope again. The orphan is vulnerable. But that orphan will embark on a series of relationships in any story they are in. Think Harry Potter and Jane Eyre.
TropeTalk Time!
Talking about tropes is popular these days. And that’s great because that makes our exchange of ideas easier. But digging beneath the tropes for their how and why in my jam. Let’s explore how we create characters by connecting with these symbols, building blocks, and relationships.
Be empowered to create our best stories.
That’s all we want as writers, right? To do our best work. And we do that by reading, writing, and thinking about how stories are put together. Don’t ask me to do a jigsaw puzzle, but I will happily deconstruct a story structure. If this sounds like a good time, you are in the right place. Welcome to TropeTalk!
Here’s the Plan:
I’ll be posting on Fridays with my thoughts for the week on what I’ve read, seen, or heard. Books, movies, and series are all fair game to dissect in any genre. I love variety!
I’ll dissect a story and show how it works using tropes and genre expectations.
I’ll take a trope and show how it works across genres.
Plus, as a language nerd and linguist, I’m always down to talk words, words, and more words.
Thanks for reading TropeTalk!
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