So put a name on one yet to begin to emerge character, say Gen, and then do like wise for a second yet to begin to emerge character, say Brenda, and next have something - probably small scale and apparently minor - happen between them and you've lit the blue touchpaper from vital that spark that has every potential to fan up and flame as…
So put a name on one yet to begin to emerge character, say Gen, and then do like wise for a second yet to begin to emerge character, say Brenda, and next have something - probably small scale and apparently minor - happen between them and you've lit the blue touchpaper from vital that spark that has every potential to fan up and flame as fully fledged story by differentiating these characters, drawing out why what's initially happened between them in the tip of an iceberg under which there lie all manner of meaningful actions?
I do feel I'm increasingly, albeit inching, getting 'inside' how short story fictions work.
Great question... and good to be feeling that while I need to be beware 'tropes', not least starting from one, they can be an original fiction writers friend in some steps in the writing process.
Mind you, I'm now catching up with the pennies dropping into this still mind pond of mine, I never thought about there being a pair of tropes to be aware of, as in situation/event tropes' and 'character tropes'... that's two pebbles setting two ripples of perturbation running out from their splash points across the still and mill pond that mind tends to be.
Really enjoyed reading the question and the answer. “Trope” wasn’t a concept I was familiar with and it made think archetypes, which I think of as universal (psychological?) character types that bob up and down between the air of consciousness and the water of unconsciousness. I think trope, as it’s talked about here, is a better term because it doesn’t rely on general characteristics such as gender, race, nationality, religion, etc. Thanks for enlarging my sense of what it means to be human.
Oh man, "enlarging my sense of what it means to be human..." How's that for a fabulous compliment to George and to Story Club? We are all so lucky to be here...
I googled "Big Book of Tropes" as I was sure someone must have wriiten it. Apparently not...however, there are many books, websites and lists of tropes out there. So no excuse for not staying away from them...
One of those neither shaken or stirred but rather finished by the deft plop of an iceball into the stratified layers of a gently crafted up cocktail concoction 🍹
And the ripples of perturbation are now freed by ice and darkness to spread galaxy-wide and do their mind-numbing work unseen, unheard, and unfelt by time-bound beings.
Should I give way to fear or invest all in hope in riding the ripples now set radiating all about time-bound me and you and we?
Have Martians landed stealthily, lessons learned from the failure to carry the day in their previous machine-age 'War of the Worlds' invasion?
"What? Didn't you realise? H. G. Wells terrifying account was never actually 'mere' fiction but rather a highest grade plutonium work of searingly creative non-fiction... wasn't it? And, surely,
seen through the cloud of disinformation wrapped around Orson Welles radio active rendition of Wells' words? Orson was reporting a real breaking story much more than delivering a creatively confected adaptation of a sci-fi fairy tale... wasn't he?"
So put a name on one yet to begin to emerge character, say Gen, and then do like wise for a second yet to begin to emerge character, say Brenda, and next have something - probably small scale and apparently minor - happen between them and you've lit the blue touchpaper from vital that spark that has every potential to fan up and flame as fully fledged story by differentiating these characters, drawing out why what's initially happened between them in the tip of an iceberg under which there lie all manner of meaningful actions?
I do feel I'm increasingly, albeit inching, getting 'inside' how short story fictions work.
Great question... and good to be feeling that while I need to be beware 'tropes', not least starting from one, they can be an original fiction writers friend in some steps in the writing process.
As in, they draw your story into the universal unconscious, which might then inform it?
Yes David, I think maybe so.
Mind you, I'm now catching up with the pennies dropping into this still mind pond of mine, I never thought about there being a pair of tropes to be aware of, as in situation/event tropes' and 'character tropes'... that's two pebbles setting two ripples of perturbation running out from their splash points across the still and mill pond that mind tends to be.
Give a person enough trope, and eventually they will hang out with more original people!
Really enjoyed reading the question and the answer. “Trope” wasn’t a concept I was familiar with and it made think archetypes, which I think of as universal (psychological?) character types that bob up and down between the air of consciousness and the water of unconsciousness. I think trope, as it’s talked about here, is a better term because it doesn’t rely on general characteristics such as gender, race, nationality, religion, etc. Thanks for enlarging my sense of what it means to be human.
Oh man, "enlarging my sense of what it means to be human..." How's that for a fabulous compliment to George and to Story Club? We are all so lucky to be here...
I googled "Big Book of Tropes" as I was sure someone must have wriiten it. Apparently not...however, there are many books, websites and lists of tropes out there. So no excuse for not staying away from them...
I love, “ripples of perturbation.” Sounds like a part of a recipe for a disturbed cocktail.
One of those neither shaken or stirred but rather finished by the deft plop of an iceball into the stratified layers of a gently crafted up cocktail concoction 🍹
And the ripples of perturbation are now freed by ice and darkness to spread galaxy-wide and do their mind-numbing work unseen, unheard, and unfelt by time-bound beings.
You tear my senses asunder.
Should I give way to fear or invest all in hope in riding the ripples now set radiating all about time-bound me and you and we?
Have Martians landed stealthily, lessons learned from the failure to carry the day in their previous machine-age 'War of the Worlds' invasion?
"What? Didn't you realise? H. G. Wells terrifying account was never actually 'mere' fiction but rather a highest grade plutonium work of searingly creative non-fiction... wasn't it? And, surely,
seen through the cloud of disinformation wrapped around Orson Welles radio active rendition of Wells' words? Orson was reporting a real breaking story much more than delivering a creatively confected adaptation of a sci-fi fairy tale... wasn't he?"
"...wriiten.." of course being that little known variant of "written". Sheesh...