Fiction tropes

[eretria]

So, while I dive back into crime law, here's a question to everyone out there:

What are (or rather: What do you consider to be) the most overused fanfiction tropes / plots / themes?

What would you consider fresh and new?

What makes you roll your eyes and go "Yes, yes, been there, done that, next?"

Asking because I've seen a lot of repetitive themes in stories (and books and movies) over the past half year, and wonder if this is a simple matter of overexposure on my part or if this is a broader phenomenon.

Comments

[enednoviel.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I think the answer to this one depends very much on the fandom, don't you think?

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Sorry about not answering this sooner ... I can think of lots of them! Overexposure probably does have something to do with it; as with books and movies, it's pretty rare in fanfic to get plots that are genuinely new and different. I've been reading less fic for SGA lately because I'm craving something different, and it's really hard to find stories that aren't like all the rest.

And of course it varies somewhat between different fandoms, and also between slash and gen. SGA is mostly what I've been reading lately, so it's the fandom I'm currently most familiar with, and the one in which I'm most aware of the cliches.

A few of the more egregarious offenders in SGA:

- characters getting turned into animals
- AUs in which the characters (usually Sheppard and McKay) are...
... in high school or college
... enacting the main roles in a well-known movie, story, fairy tale, etc.
... cast in classic romance-novel roles, e.g. rich man and prostitute, arranged marriage, slave owner and slave, yuppie and boy from the wrong side of the tracks, etc.
... in Hollywood or in a band
- character getting turned into a child
- stories in which Sheppard is starved, beaten, tortured, etc. while nothing happens to anyone else
- Trinity tags
- stories dealing with Rodney and/or Sheppard's allegedly, and horrifically, abusive childhoods
- a character suffers a horrible trauma and is restored to psychological health through the Healing Power of Great Sex (TM)
- stories involving a sentient Atlantis which is mystically connected to, or in love with, John

And just let me note, stories that use these tropes can certainly be good -- for most overdone plots there *are* at least one, if not more, really good stories that use them. But there are just so MANY of them out there ... the good stories tend to get buried.

These are also a lot of little (non-canon) tropes that crop up in SGA stories to the point that they're really starting to bug me, e.g.:

- Zelenka's still
- John being summoned to the labs to activate Ancient devices (even though in canon, there's no evidence that the ATA therapy is any less effective on Ancient tech than John's natural gene)
- characters getting back at each other through acts of mild sabotage, e.g. turning off the hot water to someone's quarters
- John being able to use his gene to override security measures in Atlantis (which, since all the Ancients had the gene as well, MAKES NO SENSE ... why even have locks if anyone in town can unlock them?)

Dang it, I had a really long list of these, once upon a time, but I'm having trouble coming up with examples; however, I know them when I see them. *g*

(Reposted to fix formatting)

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

And since I didn't answer half of the question...

I think the #1 and #2 things that make me think "Wow, that's new and different!" in fanfic, are:

- Stories in which I don't know what's going on, and have to figure it out as it goes along. I realize that stories in which the characters are amnesiac/drugged/tricked/dreaming/stuck in an alternate reality are a cliche of their own, but I really appreciate twisty stories in which I can't figure out where it's going from the first five minutes. Even if it ultimately turns into a cliche later on, that initial uncertainty about where it's going, and the sense that the writer has really planned out each turn of the plot, is very important to me.

- Stories that take fanfic the extra step to address serious themes and subjects, e.g. growing up, growing old, racism, loss, etc. Again, this can easily degenerate into cliche (deathfic, mpreg, etc) but fic that takes a good hard look at the real world, and makes me *think* ... it's very rare.

[eretria.livejournal.com]

Some, yes, others, no. Take the tortured anti-hero, who does bad but isn't bad and comes around to do good in the end and then gets killed for his efforts for example. That's a trope that's universal.

[carmen-sandiego.livejournal.com]

Well, most overused trope, sitting as I currently am in Bones fandom? Surprise pregnancy. BOO. I mean, if you're going to lean on the same device, why not shake it up and have people actually WANT to have the kid and PLAN for it. Oh RIGHT! That takes too much thought.

[eretria.livejournal.com]

I think I love you. That list (apart from Zelenka's still, but only because the wifey once wrote me a story with the self-same title) could have sprung directly from my head. And, you know, I never once thought about the gene override from that point of view, it just always annoyed me, but, yes. It really does make no sense. If it was keyed to a specific room, say, the person's living room/quarters, it would make sense to open and close at will. But apart from that - yeah. It makes absolutely zero sense.
You know my rant on AUs, so let's not even get me started.
John's magical gene activates Ancient technology. Have we ever once seen Rodney calling him to the labs to activate anything?

And a big fat yes on the abusive childhoods. I'd much rather see stories in which their childhoods were good. Okay, so Rodney's not so comfortable childhood is canon, but John's isn't, and who says that he even had a bad one?
And, healing sex. Grah.
Overdone emotional / physical trauma. Seriously. PTSD, anyone? You don't just bounce back from severe stuff. Especially not through coming out and have The Best Sex Ever and Swearing Off Women For Lifetime. Rah. Grah.

[eretria.livejournal.com]

Good one. It seems rather inconceivable these days that maybe people would want to have children, doesn't it?

[eretria.livejournal.com]

Mmmh. Yes. But very hard to find, because sometimes, writers have a great start, but they seem to get lost in their cool idea and cannot tie up what they started quite brilliantly.

Could we sum stories that get your thumbs up up with: A good, juicy plot? Because, good Lord, yes. That would indeed be wonderful.

[eretria.livejournal.com]

Ahahah. Uhm.

stories involving a sentient Atlantis which is mystically connected to, or in love with, John

Whoops. Repeat offender here. Done so twice. Possibly even three times. Good thing you mentioned this. It's time to find a diferent playground than this one, really.

[carmen-sandiego.livejournal.com]

Well yeah. Plus, I find it hard to believe that the main character of the show, who is a top-ranked scientist and probably has at least 4 degrees, suddenly forgets to take her birth control and ends up accidentally knocked up. Or whatever. Le sigh....

[eretria.livejournal.com]

Well, even if she did forget, there are things like the pill after? Seriously.
But I'd much rather see the story in which the baby was planned for. Because, heck, why not? It's just human, and children are wonderful.

[kuwdora.livejournal.com]

dude, the ones where Sheppard is a mathematics professor and McKay is a pianist. I read one like.. three years ago, and never again. I see it everywhere.

[eretria.livejournal.com]

Old one are ... the worst, really, aren't they?

[kuwdora.livejournal.com]

Yeahhh..like... I would read one again if it were presented as future-fic, you know? post-Atlantis, post-Wraith, whatever. They end up going these routes after years of chaotic fighting in the Pegasus and end up together that way, but I just want to yack all over people's shoes when they give me uber-mathy brain Sheppard. 'Cause I want more canon support of Shep's knack for numbers before I can buy him as math god extrodinare.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Actually (as someone who is plotting something like that in some fiction somewhere that might see the light of day at some point), I went the drug interaction route, and yes super smart people are probably more likely to catch it but to me that's just-- really likely. Especially because a good number of people trust that when their doctors ask for any drugs that they're taking that maybe they would consider that.

I think my other one involves the birth control itself being defective. *shrug* I mean I know what you're saying, and really I'd bet the WAY people are doing it is sad and boring and tiring, but it can totally be believable.

[carmen-sandiego.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly, it's possible to do a surprise pregnancy and have it well-written. I believe plot devices themselves don't determine fic quality. But honest to goodness, Bones fandom is absolutely overrun with surprise pregnancy fics - which is itself remarkable since the character herself has said in 2 episodes that she's not interested in having children. And 99.9% of these fics are absolutely poorly written.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Er, oops myself, because I have a terrible memory for who writes what in this fandom!

But I think everyone has a few tropes that they just love to read and read, even though it's been done to death. Like, for me, stories in which the team gets care packages from Earth, or warm fuzzy team-hanging-out stories. This has been done and done and done, and I'm sure there are readers out there who want to barf at the idea of YET ANOTHER story with the team toasting marshmallows offworld, but I can read them all day long and still want more. Or team road-trip stories -- that's another one that's been done a bazillion times, but I've written one, and I think either you or Auburn wrote a really gorgeous one, and I can just happily read about the team getting kicked out of restaurants and visiting small-town carnivals 'till the cows come home.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

"Zelenka's Still" is really a perfect example of what I said above, about any given trope having some really good stories that use it, because that one was a fantastic story and may actually be the reason why the meme spread through the fandom the way that it did. For any cliche, there's always someone who did it first, back when it wasn't a cliche.

The ATA gene thing was actually pointed out to me by someone else, awhile back; like you, I'd been bothered by it, but could never put my finger on exactly why, but that made so much sense and made me vow never, ever to use that idea in a story. Because, yeah ... the Ancients were pretty clueless in a lot of ways, but I doubt if they were clueless enough to design their security systems to be easily circumvented by anyone in the City.

The thing about Rodney and John's childhoods is that they certainly could have been bad -- and in Rodney's case we do know that it was at least unpleasant -- but I'm tired of everyone doing the same thing with it. In fact, that's true of most of the items on my list; for the most part, they're not inconsistent with canon, but they've just been done so very many times ... I'd rather see something different.

[enname.livejournal.com]

*gags self*

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think "well-plotted stories" is what it reduces down to. Which is, of course, very nebulous and very much in the eye of the beholder, but I know them when I see them. I am so very tired of stories that seem to cast about randomly for 30 or 40 chapters with no real plan.

The other thing that I've been looking for in fanfic lately is a lot harder to pin down, though I think it could best be summed up with "stories that are ABOUT something". Liketheriver's recent The Therapeutic Properties of Coffee (http://liketheriverrun.livejournal.com/11390.html) hit that particular sweet spot; if you haven't read it, it's an AU in which Rodney goes ahead and marries Katie Brown, and the story itself is about the impact that this has on everyone's life over the next few years -- as Rodney tries to juggle married life with his career and existing friendships on Atlantis. It's just about life -- getting married, having kids, trying to maintain friendships long-distance -- in a way that most gen fanfics aren't, at least not in this fandom. I would say "I want more stories like that!" -- except of course, I don't, because everyone doing the same thing just ends up with another cliche; I want different stories that have the same general feeling.

[eretria.livejournal.com]

*removes gag, sits back and waits*

[enname.livejournal.com]

*stuffs in new gag fast*

[eretria.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not saying it's unlikely. It does indeed happen a lot in real life.
But that wasn't my point. My point was just asking for overused plotlines. And those are different from fandom to fandom.
Like "Aliens Made them Do It" in SGA.

[eretria.livejournal.com]

*removes it again and puts the new ones out of reach*

Spill already, sister.