Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:And there it is, on the "Mechanics of Writing" page itself:
No, you're right, we need this. I know there's a passage somewhere where we actually say something like "hack writers use tropes like legos, thinking they're complete elements in and of themselves, but they're really just starting points". We need to find that and expand it.
Quote:The first thing that must be understood is that in the process of creating a story—a good story, at least—a trope such as The Hero or Celebrity Lie is, by itself, not a complete element. It is a beginning—a bare-bones outline that is little more than a placeholder. A hack writer might take this placeholder, drop it into his story as-is, and think his work with it is done, but that's one of the things that makes him a hack. The good storyteller starts with a trope and then customizes it—expanding, refining, even subverting it—whatever is required by his vision and his story. The end result will always be an example in some way of the trope, but is never exactly and only the trope. The Hero is not Luke Skywalker, but Luke is recognizably The Hero.(It may help some of our readers to think of this in terms of object-oriented programming. A trope, ultimately, is similar to an ancestor class or an interface. It is not a fully-functional story component by itself, only the framework on which one may be built. The skilled writer takes a trope and extends it, adding required elements and occasionally overriding features of the original to customize its function to the needs of the story he's creating. The result inherits most or all of the properties of the ancestor trope—and is recognizably that trope underneath everything—but is uniquely configured and implemented for the task at hand.)Whichever of us takes up the challenge, there's a starting point for you.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.