A dozen tropes and still a best seller?

This is probably more or less true. What surprises me is that so many authors get inspired by the same old tropes over and over again. I read a lot, think about writing a lot, so it makes sense I recognize tropes and am bored with many of them. Yet there are writers who still want to write about sexy, semi-benevolent vampires and werewolves and girl-next-doors who have the hot hunk on his knees even though they probably know full well how flooded the market is. Some tropes just seem to be really powerful.

 

I've seen blogs asking readers what their favourite tropes are, with hundreds of comments saying "any book that has X tropes, I will buy it!" They're tropes for a reason and whilst I don't like writing-by-formula I wouldn't actively try and avoid tropes.

 

Either the sacrificial pit or the goat pen, depending on where the moon is.

 

I think there will always be vampire stories, but right now is definitely the age of sexy, trying-to-be-good vampires. I admit, I even have a half-finished vampire story tucked away in my stalled stories folder. It is a very powerful trope. I read a book about a year ago by Margot Adler called Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair With the Immortal Dark Side. It was very interesting. She read hundreds of vampire novels across all genres and goes on to analyze the different eras of vampires reflecting the problems of their time. Vampires represent something outside the cycle of life and death, and for many people, death is something they want desperately to understand - especially in Western cultures where we don't mourn well.

She also believes that the allure of vampires isn't sexual, as so many have theorized, but rather existential. Something inside us wants to be the vampire, or identifies with it somehow. Right now, she says a lot of people (particularly young adults, which is where this trope is most popular) are trying to combat their inner demon in an effort to be good. Anyway, I could explain a lot more but it definitely shed some light as to why vampire novels keep going round and round and society doesnt get tired of them.

I suspect some of these other powerful tropes are so powerful for some similiar reasons. They speak to a longing within the communal psyche.

 

Let's look at some of the best sci fi movies in history: Alien, Blade Runner, Star Wars, The Terminator, The Matrix, E.T., Back to the Future, the Thing, Close Encounters, District 9, Jurassic Park, etc.

All of these stories are full of tropes because they are archetypal.

 

District 9? That was incredibly original. None of those really compares to the movie I was talking about.

I don't mean one or two major tropes. It was like this movie stole tropes from a dozen books and that's all there was.

 

How bout a Wamperthack?

Which I totally just (right now) made up from Jabberwocky, werewolf and vampire. Now the image is in my mind of humanoids covered in fur but with a head that looks similar that of the dragon like head of the Jabberwocky (smaller of course or just a smaller dragon/reptile like head) but covered in thick fur.

And instead of drinking blood or eating people.

They instead kidnap people and take them away into their lands to forcibly remove their teeth. They then grind these teeth up into like a special brew of some kind that does ....something.

For now I shall put the placeholder that they consume the teeth of their victims.

Annnnnd that's all I got so far as I am tired but I like how that turned out on the fly for a random rough concept XD

Would you be interested in reading about a Wamperthack?

 

Not so much, but maybe other people would be.

 

Book two is more of the same. And yes, that creepy incest angle persists until the last act of the third book and stays creepy on every fucking page. But the series sets up a cool prequel that takes place in Victorian London. It's rife with historical inaccuracies but is an otherwise nicely distracting read. But unless you're like me and have a taste for terrible literature, my guess is that you won't enjoy it much.

 

Maybe I should read the prequel next.

 

Okay Okay.

Sorry.

I think I came up with a work you'll want to read!

A teen romance set in a world similar to our own but instead of humans everyone is some sort of supernatural being or some anthropomorphic animal. The plot will revolve around a teen goat who enters into forbidden love with a chupacarba.

Two different worlds and only love can bring those worlds together.

And this book shall be called GOAT: Greatest of All Time!

How was that one?

 

I don't personally enjoy anthropomorphic animal stories. I remember my brother telling me how much he liked Watership Down. I was never interested.

 

Well, there's at least one author writing erotica between dinosaurs and humans:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/so-theres-an-author-on-amazon-who-writes-erotic-novels-about#.jvl6bb2oE

So who knows.

 

I feel like I want to read those, but I'm worried that I'll have and erection while reading. Then every time someone makes a joke about how horrible they are I'll have to live with that secret shame.

 

Pandering for a buck, which with that cover probably sells. I'm also going to say, it's nothing but porn with a kinky twist to get noticed in the crowd.

 

I've never actually read one (I don't think, at least outside of picture books hmmm but nope can't really recall) XD, anthro story I mean.

I just wanted to use a goat and a chupcabra cause who doesn't like a good goat!? hehehehe just kidding around.

Nooooooooooooooo waaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Oh man that's just like straight up bizzaro fiction if anyone has ever heard of that? It is certainly the weirdest fiction I've ever seen.

Tvtropes has as a whole section on it.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BizarroFiction