Favorite/least favorite tropes

[KloKandall]

Actually I almost like all the tropes of the story, as long as the story can be interesting although the tropes are common and widely used. That is all.

 

[KloKandall]

But I think i found the overrated tropes, like bad boys (mostly at Wattpad) and nonsense misunderstood which mean thats how you get the conflict. thats for my opinion

 

[Timebender]

One of my favorite SF tropes is the "long path": involving time travel, either when one character goes forward in time instantaneously and the other character has to wait out time like normal, or when one character goes back to the past and has to wait for the present to "come again". I just love playing around with time like that. Couple it with an immortal character for even more mind-blowing time journeying. Two good works for reference are Doctor Who (especially the Steven Moffat era) and the Hitchhiker's series (poor Marvin).

I also LOVE multi-alien cities. This is more of a movie/TV thing I suppose but I'm always fascinated by seeing all the different species and how they move around each other. The Star Wars franchise does it a lot.

 

[luriantimetraveler]

One of my favorite SF tropes is the "long path": involving time travel, either when one character goes forward in time instantaneously and the other character has to wait out time like normal, or when one character goes back to the past and has to wait for the present to "come again". I just love playing around with time like that. Couple it with an immortal character for even more mind-blowing time journeying. Two good works for reference are Doctor Who (especially the Steven Moffat era) and the Hitchhiker's series (poor Marvin).

I am also a fan of this! There's elements of this type of time travel relationship in Connie Willis's Black Out/All Clear duology.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Favourites:
Haunted House investigation
Found Footage

Dislike:
Drug or Alcohol Recovery/temptation of slipping back into addiction
Forgotten asthma inhaler
Dropping Keys/Falling over when running from a monster/Car not starting. (Typing this one is actually making me angry)
Kids disobeying parent's/other characters to be quiet when a monster is stalking. NO. Not just lazy but unrealistic.

 

[Astro Pen]

Like:
The thing in the middle of the place, which holds the secret if you line up the Edwardian lenses, add the last technocube, or recite the incantation. Linking to far away, long ago, powerful forces that can make the world a much better place by airbrushing the bad people out. ( I made the last bit up.)

Dislike (and there is a lot of it out there):
Green screen
Frantic typing with ACCESS DENIED every 5 seconds
"It must be something he would remember"
"What's the name of his dog?"
"Farquarson."
Can you spell that?
"Yay WE'RE IN"

 

[.matthew.]

Frantic typing with ACCESS DENIED every 5 seconds

Don't forget static from a digital output

 

[Thiswriterinme]

When it comes to tropes, I too think that if the writing is good and the trope is executed in an interesting way, then I can be happy with just about any of them. There definitely are some that have been overdone, but that doesn't mean they still can't be done well. I think one of my favorite things is to see a common trope with a cool twist (The White Witch instead of a Dark Lord in the Chronicles of Narnia, for example). There are a lot of ways tropes have been "remade" that are captivating.

There are a few tropes/cliches/development tools that do turn me off pretty quickly though:

• The girl (or boy) that every other character is attracted to or falling for (more common in YA)
• Miscommunications to inspire drama - especially in romantic relationships (again, I think this is more common to YA)
• Time loops. I can tolerate some time travel, but if the word "loop" shows up, they start talking about "fixing their mistakes" or a moment of "we've done this before" happens, I'm out
• The lead female protagonist who is independent, headstrong, impulsive, a fighter, and totally "kickass" (I'd love to see lead females that portray "softer" traits but are still seen as strong, because there are a lot of ways women can be strong and this one gets old fast)
• Every character in a story pairing off in a romantic relationship in a non-romance book, even if romance is among the subplots