Worried about tropes.

[Toby Frost]

The best way to write a book that is fresh and original is to write about things that really interest you, whether they have been written about before or not.

I agree. Someone (maybe Mark Twain) once said that originality consists not in doing what nobody else has done, but in doing exactly what you want to do. I also think that a book written excessively cautiously, or with too much attention on what an imaginary audience wants, is more likely not to work.

As to characters being aware of tropes, I think it's very much a situational thing. There's a risk of a story becoming too self-referential when the characters compare their situation to what they've seen or heard. That could be fine in something like Buffy, which is inherently ironic, but could damage the immediacy of it all. I once read that The Walking Dead is set in a world where George Romero didn't exist, so that the characters aren't continually comparing their situation to existing zombie films.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Tropes live in boxes.

 

[The Big Peat]

I have a nagging feeling that many readers expect tropes. They help them block up the shape of the story ahead and the arc they are subconsciously waiting for, and satisfied by the arrival of.

Depends on the reader, but for a lot of them, yep. Even those who aren't actively looking for their favourite stereotypes often know enough about stories to know where a lot of them go and while many want their expectations confounded, they'd rather have them fulfilled in a good way than confounded in a bad way.

Also, bonus points for people putting tropes on everything even when it doesn't really fit.

I've found myself strangely happier and less inclined to judge a much-used trope used in a book if the author in some way indicates that they're quite aware it's a trope, and doing it anyway--by, for instance, having another one of the characters point it out (especially if that character has a history of doing that sort of thing.) Playing with our general knowledge of genre tropes, although harder to do, is endlessly entertaining to me--even if it's played straight, if you acknowledge it as a trope, you can get away with a lot more just by calling yourself out on it and essentially promising to the reader that you know what you're doing and it'll all be worth it.

Suppose you've got the good old orphan-left-in-a-basket-on-the-doorstep trope. A character can ask sarcastically if there was a letter and a locket left in their swaddling clothes, too. A bit of dialogue, maybe something more--and now it's been established that you're aware of the trope and you're going ahead with it, and you're promising it's going to be good anyway.

Where as I frequently get exasperated by this type of lampshading and would far rather authors played it straight and sincere and, in any case, at the risk of being too literal, can think of very few orphans left in baskets - or slightly less literal, orphans that know they're orphans with no sense of identity for a lot of the book.

I raise this not to say my views are more valid, but to note trying to think about this too much will lead you into a thorny maze of diverging tastes. Don't overthink this.

 

[Overread]

I have a nagging feeling that many readers expect tropes. They help them block up the shape of the story ahead and the arc they are subconsciously waiting for, and satisfied by the arrival of.

Used right I think tropes help in a great way in helping an author (esp for fantasy/scifi) cut down on huge amount of backstory and world development. If you start to say "elf" in fantasy yes its a trope, but at the same time your average reader can be expected to have a basic concept of an elf in their mind's eye. Just as if you say ork or dragon.

Furthermore because they are terms that are already heavily used and have some preconceptions attached to them they are easier words for your readers to "learn" to read when reading the story. This is important, it lets the reader keep reading rather than having to flip to the glossary (if you have one). It means you can cut out huge chunks of explanation of what those are if you stick to very standard definitions.
This also makes it easier for them to pick up on the unique features of your elves. The word, the term (trope) is already in their mind so you just have to show how you've dressed yours up - standard, fine; totally different also fine. The more standard the less you have to build, that can be key if you were, say, writing a shorter story and you want it to advance and not get bogged down in world building.



Heck I've been reading a fair few Black Library books as of late and they are all based on the Games Workshop franchise and product lines. Because they are based on product lines you get the names of tanks, characters, creatures, machines of the setting and those which are modelled as models are often only described by name and attributes that feature in the story. The writer hasn't got to describe the overall shape, theme and what a Lemon Russ Battletank is - they rely on fans already knowing what it is visually. Meanwhile if you don't know you "Glossary check" on the GW website (likely intentional to encourage you to want shiny models to buy).

 

[Night_Eternal]

Suppose you've got the good old orphan-left-in-a-basket-on-the-doorstep trope. A character can ask sarcastically if there was a letter and a locket left in their swaddling clothes, too. A bit of dialogue, maybe something more--and now it's been established that you're aware of the trope and you're going ahead with it, and you're promising it's going to be good anyway.

I actually didn't realize that I had this trope for one of the main characters in my novel until I read somewhere recently about how it's been done to death by now. Of course, she's an adult in the story and only really mentions it twice towards the middle and in the final act, more as a matter of fact statement than anything else. Her being an orphan is relevant to her motivation as a character in some ways, it's just not the only thing about her. I'm far more interested in focusing on her other traits, like her obsession with inventing (my stuffs sorta Steampunkish), her love of scientific discovery, her treasonous military background, her relationships with her crew members, her need to interact with children, and her training in the illegal (and nearly defunct) martial art of Chiara Lassah: a fighting style developed exclusively by and for women. Her orphan background is still very important, but there's more to her than just that. Before long, you'll find other traits to a character, and if they're good enough, they can make a reader forget all about the trope. Maybe that's the best way to do things: start with an idea and build a real living breathing character around it. We're all a trope to somebody in real life, yet we're all much more than that underneath it all.

 

[Margaret Note Spelling]

I've had that feeling more than once before: the realization that something I've written was in fact, all unknown to me, a well-known trope! I suspect many of our collective dramatic instincts have all been shaped by the same rough group of things. That's why most of us can recognize the same frequent tropes.