prime example: my dad, who doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
context: I am autistic (my parents refuse to acknowledge this). I take things people say at face value. example of this: one time, I was about fifteen years old and I was carrying something for my dad. he said, “you can drop that right there.” so I did that. I let the thing fall out of my hand and drop to the ground. my dad had a moment of “what the-!” and then he caught himself. he laughed a little and said, “well, I did say you could drop it.” then he said, “I’ll be more careful with how I say things in the future.”
and he has been. he laughs a little as he does it (it’s become an in-joke in the past few years), but every time, he says, “gently place [insert thing] on the ground.” and I know exactly what he wants me to do.
it’s not hard. figure out how people work and do your best to work with them.
Life isn’t about getting there the fastest. Life is full of beautiful and messy stops, bumps, and detours, and that’s part of what makes it interesting. 🐌✨
A writing PSA: tropes are not bad. I repeat tropes are not bad. They are simply the building blocks which you use to craft your stories. Every story uses tropes. You need them. We figure out genres based on what tropes are present. The reader decides what to read and what not to based on what tropes might be there.
What’s bad is cliches. Trope is not interchangeable with cliche, cliches are tropes that have fallen flat and are 2D. You don’t want to write 2D characters or setting. So develop it.
But stop telling people that tropes make their work bad. It doesn’t! Tropes are not bad. Tropes are great, they’re fun!
