Trope/Convention Breaking: Share Your Series

joannekwan 2019-10-27 23:20:39 UTC #1

Here's a different way to advertise your work as I'm fond of promo threads that require some thought to the posts~

What makes your story stand out from others in its genre?
List different tropes and conventions that your series breaks or changes drastically and explain how you do it!

I figure this is a decent way for people to find something different to read.

For my webnovel Secunda, a historical fantasy monster romance:

The protagonist: She's not a damsel in distress, but she's not a "strong independent female character ©" either. She's not always helpless, but isn't a writer-certified badass. Patience just does her best to get by. She's also not beautiful nor "only thinks herself ugly but in real life is a 7+/10". She's got a significant burn and has a mundane face overall. This young woman also enjoys her sexuality and is not directly shamed for it by others.

Patience also has dead parents, but at the age of twenty-five it's not nearly as tragic. However, their deaths and old age beforehand play an integral role in how Patience approaches her two human 'love interests'.

The monster: Unlike a lot of gentleman monsters I've seen, Anax is pretty crass and far from romantic. And unlike in a lot of paranormal 'shifter' romances, he can shift shape, but still holds onto his inhuman qualities. He does not have a passable human form and never will.

The romance: Light on fluff and heavy on the physical aspects, if other romances sweep people off their feet, this one will sweep the floor to clean the kitchen so people can bang on it. It's wholly practical.

And as sort of a spoiler, but I know people appreciate it as a solution to love triangles, so I find it acceptable to announce, there will be polyamory! But between who and how it gets to that point, one will just have to read to find out.

rmdooley 2019-10-27 23:38:43 UTC #2

For Legio Arcana a supernatural contemporary fantasy:

The trope of the necromancer being a pale, dour, dark-haired loner doesn't fly. This is the protagonist necromancer:

Werewolves: No full moon necessary. Shape-shifting is triggered from fluctuations in the endocrine system (mainly progesterone and cortisol)

And the trope Men Are the Expendable Gender is a no go. There are women victims from superantural evils as much as men (the first victim of the comic is female). And deliberate effort is made to name as many of the victims as possible to keep their humanity in focus regardless if they are male and female.

Which also ties into subverting the idea that men can't be vulnerable. Not only do men need to be rescued at times, they deserve to be. The current chapter focuses on one of the male protagonists being caught in a sort of Lotust Eater Machine trope and needs above mentioned necromancer to come to his rescue

Rodimus13 2019-10-28 00:26:35 UTC #3

Hmm lets see.
End of world comic: Check
Robots killed humans maybe:Check
Somehow humans survived? No check. There are only robots. (occasionally we toy with the idea there are humans in space but we've decided mostly against this except as an AU). So there will be no random human that shows up, or clone babies, or somehow a real baby, or an alien race. Just. Robots. Well and Kitties.

We have robots with odd speech patterns but they aren't going to go crazy on us. They are just like that.

We have ships, but out of them we aren't spelling out hard and fast. We just kinda leave them there for people to find out about.

We have traumatized robots, but it doesn't make them "hate all humans", just have bad flashbacks and really dislike certain ones that are long gone. Almost all of them had some humans they felt positive or neutral about. You know, not a dramatic oversimplification of their feelings on humans.

TAMAnnoying 2019-10-28 01:00:15 UTC #4

Imma cheat and list off all the things that surprise people when they read my comic

The evil empire that must be destroyed: Our little Kingdom isn't made to be destroyed. its made for the main character to learn to understand, instead of going on a crusade he has to learn that some people are satisfied with their lot in life and that he needs to connect with people in order to make changes.

Humans are the powerful race in control of everything: No so much. depending on the environment, advantages and disadvantages, some places have the Lizardmen in control and some places have Humans in control.

The strange animal people are just animal heads on human bodies: I like animal anatomy and mashing it around with some crazy shit. So we have the Szards and other sentient creatures that are not very human but not so strange that they would be completely alien.

There's more that my editors have pointed out but thats getting into some spoilers many many years into the future

Rasp 2019-10-28 01:04:47 UTC #5

Well seeing as my current novel is a Yakuza novel there are quite a few tropes I've ignored.

My protagonist is a young woman, low level in the organization. I did this deliberately for two reasons first, its good to have a protagonist who you can explain things too and it not feeling like unnecessary exposition. Second because most writers putting women in these types of stories tend to put them into one of four piles. The arm candy, the black widow, the assistant. the overbearing crimelord.

The first three are so overdone even trying to subvert them is played out. The forth has potential but all two often good intentioned writers putting women in leadership roles tend to... overcompensate. I call it the Janeway problem over Star Trek: Voyager's captain. In case you're not familiar there seemed to be an unwritten rule on Voyager that no one was allowed to seriously the captains authority and on the rare occasion when someone did point out a horrible decision she'd made the response was one of these:

Janeway is right and we will bend the plot back in on itself if we have to.
Even if Janeway was wrong, it was because she was adhering to the federations principles ignoring any additional context and was therefor right.
Even if Janeway was wrong she was right and you're wrong for implying otherwise.

The whole writing staff seemed terrified that the slightest suggestion of incompetence would cause the audience to totally lose faith in her as a leader. In their mad scramble to try and maintain her image of the strong female captain they inadvertently made her look like an authoritarian despot.

I may have gone on a tangent there.... Uhhh... I got around the issue by not making my MC the leader of the organization just one of the grunts.

Another unique aspect is the higher than average fantasy elements. Crossing crime fiction with urban fantasy isn't totally totally unheard of but its not done often.

Iris-Grimoire 2019-10-28 02:04:08 UTC #6

Hm, let's see a few...

Villain learns to do good and adjust to heroism: Not applicable here. Mortimer isn't discovering the meaning of Christmas and finding out petting puppies is neat like Skeletor, he's always had it in him. His real struggle is with the guilt that makes him act self destructive, and that other people don't care if he doesn't struggle with the temptations of evil and treat him like garbage anyway.

The plucky sidekicks/villain's sidekicks: Spinelthorn and Berylclaw weren't spoiled teens and aren't perfect young adults. They lived in horrible conditions and if the first person in years to treat them like people is asking them to steal or be perfectly nice youngins who work for their keep, either one will do for them. But they're not just a switch going on or off - they aren't so oblivious anymore with letting Mortimer do stupid things just for them at his own expense, and slowly but surely having the realization that they grew up too fast and kept unchildlike beliefs that weren't relevant when they were criminals.

The pretty strong woman: Veriesin isn't a walking fantasy of a woman who's above average with strength and anger to spare. She struggles with anxiety, she's foolishly got herself into relationships simply because of peer pressure, and is in an inbetween of both extremes because the label of a rose with thorns has been repeated for a long time. She wants to reach out, but at the same time, she wants to be given space that few even notice is needed.

The fantasy adventuring world: Aeolia is fun, until it isn't. Semi-medieval technology, strange weather, and many MANY magical artifacts sealed away might make for memorable strange events and there's always a niche someone can study without being replaced by a machine, but also death after death to beasts, illnesses, destroyed towns on the regular, and the sensation that no one will ever be truly safe.

xabelmind 2019-10-28 12:29:50 UTC #7

"Under Satyr's Orders" has an asexual main character and noone tries to change that.

Despite he's in love with an allosexual.
Despite he has a therapist.
Despite he investigated/learned some skills to have good sex.
Despite it took him years to find out about asexuality.
Despite he had parents that rejected everything about his personality and existence.
Despite...

I could continue all day.

burginlewis 2019-10-28 13:43:32 UTC #8

Great idea for a thread, @joannekwan. As a reader, I'm a sucker for new ideas and new twists. I'll be checking out more than one of the above.

My novel, Unveiled, is a Native American fantasy, specifically based on Shawnee legends, history and customs. I researched for a long time and am being historically accurate wherever possible. Examples: there are animal spirits as part of the fantasy, but the animals it's possible to have are the 20 animals that were historically listed as sacred. There's something of a treasure hunt going on, and the items being sought (bundles) actually exist IRL. The only way to access one's powers and abilities is to be in contact with Shawnee land: their original territory in and around Ohio; drop my dudes in the Bahamas and they'd be useless. So, yeah. More than just the usual tropes of turning into wolves and owls.

Other unusual things: in addition to animal spirits, my characters have one or more random powers, but only during their reproductive years (puberty to 50-ish), after which they "transition" to being elders, who are the clan leaders. And the more powers they have, the weaker each one is, so there's no spoiler guy running around with insane amounts of power. There's a romance, there's more than one actally, but the biggest love story in the novel is between siblings (not like that! perverts). And one of my major themes is how everyone has a good and a bad side... so, by the end of the series, it's kind of hard to pin down which characters are "good guys" and which are "bad guys" in a lot of cases. It depends on how you look at it.

Juneasinjuly 2019-10-28 14:18:55 UTC #9

Great thread! I’ll check everything, even if I’m too bad in English to really understand novels ahah!

I’m a true begginer here but I try some stuff with my comics, even if I’m really not sure if people will like it, I’m open to all advices!
I decided to do two comics : https://tapas.io/Juneasinjuly

One is the main one, « While waiting for April » each chapter will follow different characters and stories, imagined by a girl from another world, « Lilanim » where the first chapter take place. I want to change my art style for every chapter. In Lilanim, it’s all colour pencil and there’s no cold color in this world, only « Little » the human from earth, can have blue eyes and cold colors on him. The next chapter will be about an alcoholic sweet Lolita who live in a pastel world, so the style will change a lot for it.

Also I did a second comics « how to do a comic » which is basically me freaking out about doing a comic, so some comic strip and work sheet from the main comics.

Hope it’ll make something good in the futur ahah

xabelmind 2019-10-28 14:37:57 UTC #10

Meta is something that really hits on people feelings and you do it really well

If you keep that "telling the experience of creating the comic" surrounding the very comic, you'll have a catchy story there.

Because it's you telling comically how you tell a tale about a girl telling fantasy tales

(Wow, I sound like my tutor )

Also, welcome to the community

Juneasinjuly 2019-10-28 18:03:57 UTC #11

Thanks a lot! That really cheer me up ️

vfinnigan 2019-10-29 00:03:20 UTC #12

Given that I write nonfiction, I don't deliberately use or subvert tropes. It just happens. It's a World War II comic, so I'm going to specifically focus on World War II movie and comic tropes I'm breaking.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is quoted correctly.

The Babi Yar massacre is acknowledged as part of the Holocaust.

The Chinese invasion is acknowledged.

French and Chinese resistance movements are acknowledged.

Also, while the Axis powers are still the big baddies (and thanks to Diego Palacio's sketch, Hitler does get punched), they're far from the only problems the women I profile face.

I can't even list all the 1940's and female-specific tropes that crop up and then are put down.

Oh, and in this comic, a gremlin, usually the bane of the superstitious pilot's life, is actually a force for good. She even appears on the cover.

Sosofellow 2019-10-29 01:06:46 UTC #13

Neat idea! I just posted my second episode today so I may not have my trends out yet, but some things on where I know it will go. (Also in a bit of a weird spot because it is a loose adaptation of a classical tale)

Leave it in the ring: Nah. With this being an adaptation of an ancient Chinese war epic using pro wrestling, you would think the fights are the be all end all. The truth is, of course, wrestling is choreographed and pre-arranged by talent, writers, and producers backstage long before the lights go bright - not too dissimilar to battles in war being decided by strategies away from the battlefield long before the drums sound. The series will place a much bigger focus on the "war room" drama and things that occur outside the ring.

Strong Female Cast: Toyed with. Again, being an adaptation of a story/time period that was incredibly unkind to women, I had to modernize it a little bit; there are gender flips for some of the characters. But it all takes place in the microscopic insect world, a place where females reign supreme, especially from both a physical and hierarchical standpoint (queens of bee and wasp hives, for example). So the flips aren't just a modernization, but also a bit of an investigation.

Everything's Worse With Bugs: Because they suck and they're hideous, but I hate drawing people, so you get cartoonish bugs instead. Also will include some cool bug facts every now and then so maybe you hate them a bit less.

Don't wanna get too far ahead of myself, but those are the ones woven into the premise, I think.

DiegoPalacios 2019-10-29 01:19:27 UTC #14

For my comic Rocky the rock:

The ridiculous overpowered protagonist is a rock.......yes, an actual inanimate rock.

He is the chosen one to save the world and everyone (save for one exception) treats him like the protagonist. His friends admire him, his enemies despise him. And somehow is able to beat the forces of evil despite being an inanimate object.

borzoiteeth 2019-10-29 02:46:09 UTC #15

Mine breaks conventions in a very niche (and annoying (to me) meta) way.

Instead of another PMD comic promising grand adventure that then dies in perma-hiatus, Anamnesis is an anthology set to deconstruct the isekai elements one tiny story at a time. But also to highlight the transhumanistic elements that are in the series but never got touched upon. All the human characters (from the original games) just instantly adapt to their new bodies and new cultures as if they were born there. As much as I love the series and the many fan-works based on, this never explored element has always driven me up the wall. With the most recent story in Anamnesis, a human ends up in a new body that has chronic migraines.

Other stories play with elements such as: memory's values based on limited save states, when the one who is suppose to be your best friend is just a stalker, and when everything goes according to plan which means your partner leaves to return back to their world- therefore dying in yours.

Supernatural powers aside, saving the world is no longer straight forward when you have to learn how to live within the new flesh you are trapped in.

somekh 2019-10-29 03:22:45 UTC #16

"Don't write a Mary Sue" is an age-old, awful abomination of the deep corners of the internet, spawned by sexist men who found women writing strong women in fiction to be too threatening to their masculinity. It's true, look it up! The phrase was created to target female writers and put down the idea of a woman-centric power fantasy, while things like Superman never saw criticism by the same people.

And while Yora, the protagonist of Cruorwrought, is nonbinary, they're still going to be a "Sue". I don't care about following the expectations of others -- I'm going to write something self-indulgent as all get-out, and it's going to be fun.

They're a half-elf, bred to be a super-soldier by their father and their culture, from another world, serve a god, and wield blood magic. And if that wasn't enough, there's a good chance they may become a god before the end of the story.

CW isn't a story about some spunky kid showing up and having the solution to everything, though. CW is about abuse. About people who, against their will, have been pitted against the world and have no say in their fate. People who others have put down, beat up, and ruined. People who are, by any metric, "too far gone". This isn't a story about someone who clung to their morals and made it through.

Cruorwrought is the story of a broken person, too hurt to be "saved", trying to save others instead. They're not morally upstanding. They bear their abuse as plainly as the [[SPOILERS, read the story]]. And still, the world rejects them. Because abused people are rejected.

It's vindictive, as a person who's been hurt, to see someone who's also been hurt be a badass, and not be expected to be "better than their abuse". It's a mantra that people who have been abused or hurt hear constantly, in real life, all of the time. "Be better than your abuse". "You're stronger than your abuse". Sometimes, it doesn't work that way! You don't have to be a good person to be validated in your pain. You don't have to behave the way society wants you to.

So yeah. Talk shit, get hit. This is the victim fantasy Mary Sue story in which revenge is godly and the world doesn't get a say in your personal healing.

CodeMonkeyArts 2019-10-29 06:10:43 UTC #17

Well, Birth of a Sin is a Dark Super Hero/Villain Romance with a (spoiler) firm Stockholm bent so...ooof. I guess if I were to compare it to a mainstream story of similar nature...it would have to be 50 Shades of Grey and it's ilk:

The Female MC is a Complete Virgin: HAHAHAHAH!!...HAHAHAHAHAH!!! AHHHHH no. She is not. In fact, Ira is the 'Christian Grey' of the book. A good chunk of the story is from her POV, and she is ruthless, charismatic, volatile, and also very experienced. I don't really like writing about virgins or women who are exceptionally innocent, so I wanted to have a powerful, rich, sensual heroine. She has the same possessiveness and anger as many of the male love interests in BDSM dark romances. However, I also wanted to balance that with her femininity, her volatile passion, and her beauty.

The Male Love Interest is Super-Experienced: This is also a bit of a no, though not utterly opposite, as the above trope. Tristan is also sexually experienced and a bit perverted. He is confident in his ability to please, and his flirtatious nature is contrasted with his 'angelic' appearance. However, Tristan is definitely the more naive of the two, and his own insecurities and desires cause him to ignore some SERIOUS red flags. He knows there are red flags, but he also has a White Knight Syndrome as well.

The Relationship Must Be Shaky Until the End: Part of what makes this story so dark and tragic is that I open it up with a relationship that IS pretty strong at first. There is very little tension, there are no arguments or will they won't they back and forth...mostly cause I find that tedious and not really part of the story. They actually start off having a conversation, showing they are interested in each other right at the beginning and have what people might say is an adorable relationship. I find that most relationships, in reality, have a honeymoon period. Everything is perfect and sweet. The sex is great, there is no flaw, birds are singing, etc. However, after this period is where the actual test begins. Cracks begin to show. While I do have a sudden break instead of gradual cracks, I definitely wanted to put a lot of early emphasis on the honeymoon before the mirage crashes down.

Third Act Miscommunication Leads to Breakup: My story has miscommunication and a bit of a breakup early on. This is a red herring. The miscommunication is truly serious, deal-breaking even. Tristan and anyone else would want to end the relationship. The problem is that Ira has no intention of letting that happen. Unlike Christan Grey, she is truly evil and ruthless enough to make Tristan hers and does not make excuses for it.

The 'Happily' Ever After: There will be an ending where no one dies. However, I want there to be a question. I can't really make this story end happily ever after considering all that has happened in it. Things will be ambiguous. There is a power-shift that is uncomfortable. Everyone in the story will recognize just how wrong things ended up. Ira gets precisely what she wanted, and so does Tristan. But are they pleased about it?

The story is definitely putting some other tropes on a pedestal though: 'More Than Mind Control', 'You are Worth Hell'. 'Amazon Chaser', it does reinforce some tropes, even some bad ones. However, it definitely will break a lot of them and hope folks enjoy that and will check my story out

ratscout 2019-10-29 07:36:39 UTC #18

For Inheritance, I really liked to play with a bunch of different tropes and audience expectations using the high fantasy genre.

The Protagonist: I played with the princess locked in the tower cliche and made it a prince locked in a tower instead. Because the fantasy genre doesn't play enough with fantasy creatures for my tastes, I made him my own wacky version of a fairy. I feel like princes and princes and princesses tend to be beacons of light and goodness in fantasy so I wanted to play with that trope, too. Despite being locked in a tower most of his life, Eory still has wicked thoughts that he can't help due to an evil heritage that runs deep in his veins.

Warrior Maiden:I wanted to play with the tough-as-nails warrior maiden cliche by making Pollyanna literally invincible. I dunno, a lot of modern stories tend to like to paint women who shed everything feminine about themselves as a good thing, but I wanted to show that traditionally feminine traits have as much value as male ones by making her mentally broken and equating her only value to that of an invincible weapon rather than having any social value.

The role of magic: Magic is sometimes the hardest thing to do in a fantasy story. I didn't want to make it practically nonexistent like it is in other adult fantasies, but I didn't want to rely on it too heavily either like children's novels do. Basically, I wanted to incorporate magic in such a way that it has meaning to each of the main characters. Some of them rely on it like a crutch (like Eory) some of them practically worship and would die to be able to use it, but can't (like Them) and some of them just view it as a useful tool to make life slightly easier (like Kori).

Zemoore 2019-10-29 09:03:37 UTC #19

Its a gore/thriller that follows the villain a good chunk. I love the villian and want others to love her in the morally grey way I love her. Shes not just there to scare people but is a person with their own motives, issues and family.

azzy-m 2019-10-29 10:20:37 UTC #20

coughs I can't share anything specific or it'll be spoiler-y, so here's my attempt to share tropes that I've broken (because that's what I like to do, utterly shatter tropes) without really spoiling anything:

The Protagonist: I really like protagonists that weren't inherently "pure" or "good" in the beginning and have clearly had done something before, or have had something bad happen TO them. I've hinted at this in EP4 of my comic, but again nothing specific.

The Entire Cheerleading Squad: Cheerladers in typical American stories are really... really poorly written. They're usually air-head blondes and are paper-thin, and typically play the role of antagonists. They aren't really characters, I guess. The cheerleaders in my comic comprise of a freckled-red head, a chubby yet kind teenager (albeit she doesn't look like it, I'm not good at drawing other figures - I'm working on it!) and the uh "bitchiest" of them all is black. (Don't worry, there are a lot of POC characters in the cast, the protag is afro-mexican actually)

Casual Platonic Friendships between Girls and Boys: WHY IS IT THAT IN [most] STORIES, WHEN A GIRL AND A BOY INTERACT IN ANY MANNER IT HAS TO BE WROUGHT WITH ROMANTIC AND/OR SEXUAL TENSION. I like it when soft bois support their platonic girl friends, dammit! Why don't we have more of it?! Anyway, I just feel like we don't really get enough of kickass platonic boy and girl friendships so I made a couple.