Jennifer Hilt
Description
Crafting beloved fantasy or science fiction requires a plan.
Sure, we can create gorgons and gargoyles who control gravity (especially when our curre
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nt manuscript is waiting), but getting from a concept to a finished story requires persistence and a plan.
Let me help you with the planning part by using tropes.
Tropes? Yes, tropes.
Tropes help us hook readers because we entice them with a promise of an emotional journey. Tropes are the breadcrumbs that pull our readers deeper into our stories because they are familiar concepts. As authors, we need to embed tropes into our stories.
How do we do that?
Think about these tropes: orphan, forced proximity, and forbidden love. Gideon the Ninth, Star Wars, and Guardians of the Galaxy share these exact tropes, but their story flavors differ vastly.
Their stories demonstrate found families, conflict, and transformation. These relationships resonate because we struggle with these same human emotions daily. Reality sucks. The fantasy and science fiction genres help us transcend the grind but retain the relationships. That's the key. It’s how the tropes are developed that makes the difference.
Don’t just use tropes; own them.
They work for you, let me show you how.
In The Trope Thesaurus: Fantasy and Science Fiction, we’ll explore how Goal, Motivation, and Conflict work with tropes. We’ll discuss the reader's expectations for fantasy and science fiction. After all, we need to know what our audiences expect so we can deliver the goods but with our unique twists!
Plus, we’ll examine the following:
1) How to avoid dreaded stereotypes and cliches.
2) How to layer tropes to create more conflict.
3) How analyzing tropes makes them our storytelling superpower.
The Trope Thesaurus: Fantasy and Science Fiction examines how popular genre movies, books, and streaming series use tropes. We’ll look at how tropes are developed in the specific examples to fit that particular story and ways we can identify those tropes to use in our work. It’s an essential guide to creating your best fantasy and science fiction!
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