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story trope list.

Freyrs_stories 🚫

I'd love to see a list of the most overused tropes within the stories here. Not sure how it would work, but stories could be submitted, preferably by Authors themselves. As they're the ones most likely notice such things.

As an aside to the list a second list of the most creative takes on the most heavily trafficked tropes, really creative use or hook within each story that makes them unique.

Perhaps the 'open' Universes could be listed to entice a few authors to dig in and provide some text.

these are just over night musings of someone trying to finish that hard first story. it's at 80k words right now but if I'm nor careful that will blow out to an easy 120k or more. most of the key scenes are down but there's next to no hand off between them so right now unless you're reading my annotated version.

It is very hard to judge time passing unless you're counting as triggers happen roughly every 4 weeks, though some near the end are on a 2 week cycle or even shorter for some of the more time 'sensitive' adventures. This is in a nebulous manner intentional to make the story fit most local setting with some poetic license.

but back to the point. A perhaps voted monthly poll on zealous trope usage. before votes open a census on existing stories. stories grandfathered by the 14 rule would not qualify. perhaps a yearly tally could be a good start.

I'll leave it at that and see what the replies loosen from the bushes as way of game. looking at the more senior (site history wise) posters and lurkers put up for discussion. perhaps even categories similar to the way Clitorades work, just without the need to read all the stories nominated.

Pixy 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

Okay, I'll bite and get the ball rolling...

A (retired) USMC (serving/veteran, doesn't really matter) saves the day. Doesn't matter what it is or how, but they save it.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Pixy

Teen boy is a national sports star, does well at school, is highly qualified in martial arts, gets all the teen pussy he can handle, lands modelling and film contracts, and still has time for charity work and sleep.

AJ

JoeBobMack 🚫
Updated:

@Pixy

Call a Marine, Toby Keith

Replies:   StarFleet Carl
StarFleet Carl 🚫

@JoeBobMack

Toby Keith

He's got a nice house.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Pixy

Boy has an abnormally large penis. As soon as he turns fourteen, someone finds out and spreads the word. All the girls at his school, his sisters, his mother and his aunts immediately queue up for the Colossal Colin Experience, and get the best fucking of their lives in every available orifice despite Colin starting out a virgin.

AJ

Replies:   Pixy  awnlee jawking
Pixy 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Colossal Colin Experience

I like that! I might pinch it....LOL... The name that is, not Colin's colossal cock... Though now that I think about it...

awnlee jawking 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Thunderstorm.

Frightened girl jumps into bed with brother/father.

Bonking ensues.

AJ

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Spaceship has a sentient Artificial Intelligence. The ship is captained by a male 'Mary Sue' character. The artificial intelligence somehow develops a biological female avatar so it can have sex with the captain.

AJ

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

not quite what I was thinking. more like how such a page could be set up, in my idea for the authors to have some sign posts to navigate by. but those examples are right up the ally I was thinking of for stage two. after the page has some sort of form

Replies:   samuelmichaels
samuelmichaels 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

not quite what I was thinking. more like how such a page could be set up, in my idea for the authors to have some sign posts to navigate by. but those examples are right up the ally I was thinking of for stage two. after the page has some sort of form

Sounds like a Wiki, but it would have to be managed pretty carefully.

Replies:   Freyrs_stories
Freyrs_stories 🚫

@samuelmichaels

thanks, that's kinda where I was headed but have no idea how such a thing would integrate to SOL. sort of like a plot 101 for writers to check against, for better or worse.

maybe have two levels of trope: character and plot. what can / do your characters do? and how do they find themselves in the story? divorced dad or unsupervised kids (14+ obviously). those sorts of things. doesn't have to nail them down to a whisker count, but broad strokes that illustrate the point of how (not) to do things.

Replies:   samuelmichaels
samuelmichaels 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

Wiki

Tvtropes is a bit like that, but it's much wider in scope. One just for SOL (or just for erotic stories) would be cool.

tenyari 🚫
Updated:

@Freyrs_stories

The idea that once a guy gets a hard-on he needs relief or he's basically gonna keel over and die.

The idea that a guy can 'hold it in' while he gives multiple women 27 orgasms each. I would have loved to meet that guy when I was younger...

In action stories - the idea that once 'generic bad guy #7' gets riled up, you can only defuse the situation with a gun or a knockout punch or a wrestling hold. That no matter the situation or the conversation - talking it down is 100% guaranteed to fail.

The notion that every teenage boy can accurately gauge 'cup size' on every woman they see instantly, even when passing them on opposite sides of he freeway which each party doing 65 mph.

The notion that every 'action hero' will just naturally accumulate a harem of women with generic personalities but again, breast sizes that he knows on sight from 500 yards or more.

The 'hero' is almost never wrong, not even in little details like "did we plan to meet at 5pm or 5:15Pm". He's just got a superhuman ability to be right about everything.

"Bad guys / antagonists" are never redeemable, and slowly go stark raving insane the longer the story lasts.

The 'survival hero' lost in time / place / world / whatever always has an absurdly detailed knowledge of the minute details of making tools to survive and improve. Almost as if he had access to google while sitting there on 'planet x' with his harem trying to recreate central heating, underwater basket weaving, and iron smelting.

Dominions Son 🚫

@tenyari

The idea that a guy can 'hold it in' while he gives multiple women 27 orgasms each. I would have loved to meet that guy when I was younger...

I've read a couple of stories like that. They involved reality altering supernatural powers that altered the MC's sexual endurance.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@tenyari

The 'hero' is almost never wrong, not even in little details like "did we plan to meet at 5pm or 5:15Pm". He's just got a superhuman ability to be right about everything.

He's supposed to be the most intelligent person in his circle but all his harem call him 'stupid' or 'dumb'.

AJ

Replies:   Michael Loucks
Michael Loucks 🚫
Updated:

@awnlee jawking

He's supposed to be the most intelligent person in his circle but all his harem call him 'stupid' or 'dumb'.

I know some VERY intelligent people who are 'dumb' in everything except their area of expertise.

There's also the question of whether intelligence implies wise choices. I can say from experience, it does not. :-)

And remember, the wisest man in the world is the one who admits he knows nothing.

Replies:   tenyari  awnlee jawking
tenyari 🚫
Updated:

@Michael Loucks

I know some VERY intelligent people who are 'dumb' in everything except their area of expertise.

That's actually so common I'd call it the norm. Not so much because of brain power, but the mix of ego and expertise.

People who become experts in something start to believe they are experts in everything - and over-estimate themselves.

You can see this most starkly in the tech billionaires that rant and rave on various social issues. These are people who are geniuses in engineering, and they for some reason believe that makes them better at solving issues of human behavior. It's pretty much the 'story of Facebook'. The largest 'social science experiment' in human history being run by someone who's entire education on human behavior most likely ended in middle school. Thus the disaster of a mess we're all now in.

Replies:   Keet
Keet 🚫
Updated:

@tenyari

It's pretty much the 'story of Facebook'. The largest 'social science experiment' in human history being run by someone who's entire education on human behavior most likely ended in middle school.

The word 'ethics' is completely foreign to him.

(ETA typo)

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Michael Loucks

the wisest man in the world is the one who admits he knows nothing.

I disagree. I would have thought that the wisest man in the world would admit to knowing a little, that little being insignificant compared to what he doesn't know.

(I guess these days it needs to be said that I mean 'man' in the gender-neutral sense.)

AJ

Replies:   Michael Loucks
Michael Loucks 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I disagree. I would have thought that the wisest man in the world would admit to knowing a little, that little being insignificant compared to what he doesn't know.

That was a reference to Socrates.

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@Michael Loucks

That was a reference to Socrates.

Thanks. I wondered whether that was a quote. But I still think Socrates was wrong.

AJ

Replies:   Michael Loucks
Michael Loucks 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Thanks. I wondered whether that was a quote. But I still think Socrates was wrong.

There is a difference between wisdom and intelligence, and it wasn't about the 'smartest' man, but the 'wisest'.

See Plato's αΌˆΟ€ΞΏΞ»ΞΏΞ³Ξ―Ξ± Σωκράτους (Apology of Socrates) for the full discourse.

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@Michael Loucks

Mathematically Socrates was wrong. The existence of all the numbers, including zero, requires knowledge of the existence of one. Whether knowledge or wisdom, in order to make claims about large quanta of knowledge or wisdom, first the claimant must have knowledge of a single quantum ;-)

AJ

Replies:   Michael Loucks
Michael Loucks 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Whether knowledge or wisdom, in order to make claims about large quanta of knowledge or wisdom, first the claimant must have knowledge of a single quantum ;-)

And yet it has been shown that nothing can be proved, including your own existence. ;-) (*)

Extreme skepticism is, of course, the only response. ;-)

(*) Formal mathematical proofs aside, though they depend on assumptions ('axioms'), which themselves cannot be 'proved' formally.

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@Michael Loucks

And yet it has been shown that nothing can be proved, including your own existence. ;-)

A lot of forum readers will be glad to know that ;-)

Coincidentally, I live in ID poverty. No photo ID, no smartphone. So, to a lot of organisations, I can't prove I exist :-(

AJ

Argon 🚫

@tenyari

The 'hero' is almost never wrong, not even in little details like "did we plan to meet at 5pm or 5:15Pm". He's just got a superhuman ability to be right about everything.

Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris erred only once in his life when he thought he'd made a mistake.

petkyo 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

Nothing wrong with tropes as long as there is a decent character to live and strive in one. Most folks look for tropes when they're deciding what to read

akarge 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

Serial killer/bad guys seem to be able to get 100% of the secret background information on their targets and all the targets friends or family. They can also get into any secure location to assault, harass or spy upon anyone that they want to.

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@akarge

Serial killer/bad guys seem to be able to get 100% of the secret background information on their targets and all the targets friends or family.

James Patterson's Alex Cross character has the best home security money can buy, yet serial killers still wander in and out of his house at will and decide not to kill Alex there and then while he's sleeping, but try to pick off his family one at a time to inflict maximum torment. And it never works!

AJ

Replies:   Pixy
Pixy 🚫

@awnlee jawking

It's a nightmare now when I see the pair of you conversing, my brain gets all confused, especially at how Arkage keeps getting their name wrong...

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@Pixy

Noah had an arkage of one, because he had one ark.

AJ

richardshagrin 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

There are (tropes?) in the Army. They spell them troops, most of the time. Some are para tropers. They jump out of perfectly good airplanes hundreds, even thousands of feet in the air.

Replies:   Pixy
Pixy 🚫

@richardshagrin

They jump out of perfectly good airplanes hundreds, even thousands of feet in the air.

Maybe they found out that AJ was at the controls?

Catman 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

All characters in my stories are born fourteen years old to comply with the LazLaw and do not fit any of the examples listed above.

Replies:   tenyari
tenyari 🚫
Updated:

@Catman

All characters in my stories are born fourteen years old to comply with the LazLaw and do not fit any of the examples listed above.

Funny you wrote that because... As a side project I've been developing a fantasy world where everyone is naked - for some stories I started in the late 90s and never finished but have always wanted to finish... I do have a story here in that setting but it's of mediocre quality.

When I picked up the project a year ago and realized I was no longer comfortable with any minors (under 18 years old) being around any of the 'stuff'. So I started thinking about 'how do I have an entire world with no children...'

So I've come up with some gimmicks that link the magic that caused everyone to be nude to also cause everyone to be adult - which is still being worked on to give them a concept of growing up and of family.

But I've also copied the concept into a current sci fi story that also features a nude civilization - where no one is under 20 for 'reasons' shown in the story.

irvmull 🚫
Updated:

@Freyrs_stories

If you're suggesting a list of common tropes, and a contest to see which author can write a single story incorporating the largest number of them, I'm all for it.

Should be great fun.

irvmull 🚫
Updated:

@Freyrs_stories

I think you'll enjoy my story, outlined here.

In Chapter 1, Frank, an elderly engineer suffering a terminal illness comes home unexpectedly to find his young teenage wife (who he recently rescued from an abusive step-father) in bed with a little green man who strangely resembles Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuck offers Frank a chance to return to age 13 and live his life over again if he will be a contestant in an intergalactic TV show and a high school football star.

Zuck allows Frank to take along all the armaments Biden left behind in Afghanistan, along with a horse, wagon, and his real weapon of choice, a Colt 45.

Or was that a case of Colt45? Whatever.

Zuck fails to mention that the planet Frank is being sent to is populated by un-dead reptilian creatures who strangely resemble members of the US Congress, especially Mitch McConnell and Adam Schiff.

Frank gets even with Zuck for that oversight (and for screwing his teenage wife) by forcing him to drink the Colt45.

In the ghetto.

Where it ain't easy bein' green.

Teenage wife gets an unexpected new position as an entertainer on Epstein Island.

Frank's only chance to escape this planet of horrors is via a stolen spaceship. After single-handedly destroying a couple of space faring civilizations (which inadvertently puts a big dent in the Nielsen ratings for Zuck's TV series), Frank falls in love with the ship's AI which has used nanobots to assemble herself into an avatar who strangely resembles Barbara Eden. Barbara grants Frank three wishes, all three of which involve bedding 14 year old high school cheerleaders.

Unfortunately, this also means dealing with bullies and a high school principal who turns into a werewolf and strangely resembles Bernie Sanders just a little bit (mostly the hair).

Of course, all the students are cute, smart and nude, and not strangely at all, resemble no one whatsoever in Congress, thank Freyja.

Whereupon Barbara tearfully admits that she isn't really a djinn, but is instead the ghost of a real girl who was cursed by an ancient evil witch who strangely resembles ...

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

Thanks for all these good posts. But what I'm really after is how to get a good list of tropes on one of the author pages. so I guess kind of to go in with the writing guides. Still feel free to post tropes here as it may give weight to the 'feature' of a page. Maybe if people could list one well done trope and one poorly done one as examples to list there.

Thanks

F.

mimauk 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

I can remember reading an article many years ago that a researcher/university had done a study about story writing and came to the conclusion that there are only 36 (may be wrong on the number) in total main story lines. Every story ever written is based on one of these with variations in settings, ages etc.

Replies:   richardshagrin
richardshagrin 🚫

@mimauk

main story lines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots#:~:text=The%20Seven%20Basic%20Plots,-From%20Wikipedia%2C%20the

mimauk 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

The obviously missing plot that jumps out at me is - The Love Story.

A meets B falls in love and lives happily ever after but then you get all the modern takes. 'A' can be Male,Female, young male, young female and LGBT etc and 'B' can be also with all the different combinations.

Mushroom 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

I'd love to see a list of the most overused tropes within the stories here. Not sure how it would work, but stories could be submitted, preferably by Authors themselves. As they're the ones most likely notice such things.

Oh, there are a ton of them. Which is why I actually started writing a series that in many ways purposefully breaks the tropes.

Do-over where after starting again the kid lives a perfect life? Middle aged family guy has an affair with a hot Asian girl? Brother boinks his sister or father his daughter? Guy gets a "perfect" sexbot. Adults hooking up with hot teens. A form of "naked in school" program that also goes into sexual orientation. Even going to a "heaven" where the afterlife is an endless string of erotica stories.

In a great many ways, a lot of my writing is almost specifically designed to "break tropes". Largely because I think a lot of erotica to be honest has gotten stale. I read a new story, and realize I already read almost the exact same story almost 2 decades ago.

Replies:   Grey Wolf  tenyari
Grey Wolf 🚫

@Mushroom

Ahh, but intentionally violating a trope is itself a trope:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SubvertedTrope

You can't win for losing.

(Yes, that was all very tongue-in-cheek, if anyone was wondering, though it is true that subverting a trope is also a trope)

Replies:   Mushroom
Mushroom 🚫

@Grey Wolf

(Yes, that was all very tongue-in-cheek, if anyone was wondering, though it is true that subverting a trope is also a trope)

Well, it can and can not be.

As far as I am aware, I am about the only one in erotica that is actually doing such on purpose. So such is not a trope.

Yet.

Not unlike the "Do-Over" genre. I have loved that style of story since I read Ken Grimwood's "Replay" in 1987. And I eagerly read the first many "Do-Over" style stories as soon as they were published here.

But over time, it has grown stale and highly predictable. What was once an interesting genre is now almost "boilerplate" in the predictability. Adult gets to bang a lot of teens, makes their life perfect.

I created an entire series I call "Dark Tales", that are largely dissecting erotica tropes. The "Happy ever after" ending being one of them. In 99% of the stories here about some "middle aged guy/gal boinking a teen", they both have a lot of fun with no repercussions. In mine, they might get caught doing so. Have a fling on your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend? Well, they might find out because you "get the gift that keeps on giving". Or the gal that you shagged silly the night before? She just might be closely related to you but you never realized it until afterwards.

Mostly, I think I just have evolved into trying to "not be predictable" in my writing. Because I know as a reader one of the things I love the most is being surprised in some way.

Like in one where I had a "butch" chick who tries to look like a guy pick up a chick at a club. Only to enjoy writing where once they are ready to "get busy", the chick turns out to be a guy in drag. They both literally fooled each other. She thought she was getting another girl, he thought he was getting a "twink guy".

To me, you just gotta shake things up sometimes.

Grey Wolf 🚫

@Mushroom

Nah, I meant it's overall a trope, not an 'SoL' trope. If TV Tropes has a page for it, it's a trope. (Again, there's a level of tongue-in-cheek for that).

Part of my goal for VoaT has been to avoid quite a few Do-Over tropes (while undoubtedly repeating others, some accidentally and some intentionally). Even for some I know I'm repeating, my intent is to focus on them differently. Different ways to go about things, definitely.

Some tropes have an interesting 'gravitational pull' that I've had to navigate (and likely others have, too. Sometimes you work with that gravity (because it's taking you somewhere you want to be), sometimes you plot a course that avoids it entirely, and sometimes you dive in close and use it as a slingshot to wind up where you actually wanted to go.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Mushroom

As far as I am aware, I am about the only one in erotica that is actually doing such on purpose.

That surprises me. Any decent creative writing course should teach about the balance between including enough standard tropes to attract fans of the genre, while breaking enough of the tropes to make a story fresh and innovative.

Pre-covid, this subject was discussed several times in my Writers' Group meetings.

AJ

Replies:   Mushroom
Mushroom 🚫

@awnlee jawking

That surprises me. Any decent creative writing course should teach about the balance between including enough standard tropes to attract fans of the genre, while breaking enough of the tropes to make a story fresh and innovative.

Well, look at some of the most common ones. I already said how I broke those.

I did my own do-over, and indeed started it as most do. He was able to get his car replaced before it died as it originally had. Then managed to bag the hot girl he had been interested in his first time through, saving him from her first boyfriend who turned into kind of a looser. Then they both died in a car crash, his having changed things (like having a working car) set his live on a completely different path where his assurance of "growing up" was no longer there.

I even did a variation of "Groundhog Day", but from the point of view of another person. She becomes the obsession of the person who is repeating the same day over and over again, and he tries to orchestrate each day so he can have her. And she realizes right before everything resets he is quite insane. But wakes up in the morning, the same day, oblivious to what had happened before.

In several I have adults banging teens, and as is almost always a rule in erotica they rarely get caught at it. In two of mine they are, and law enforcement gets involved.

Or what I call my "accidental incest" ones. Where the couple does not know they are related when they have sex, then the trauma they go through once they realize what they had done.

Of course all are full of tropes, but I also set out to break many of them on purpose. But only when it makes the story work (for me). And I noticed, a lot of people hate having tropes broken.

tenyari 🚫

@Mushroom

I think a lot of authors intentionally work to break story tropes.

Their stories might not always sit at the center of popularity though.

Replies:   Grey Wolf  Mushroom
Grey Wolf 🚫

@tenyari

Depends on how many they break. If you break some and run with others, it's probably fine. Break too many, and perhaps not so much.

Mushroom 🚫

@tenyari

I think a lot of authors intentionally work to break story tropes.

Their stories might not always sit at the center of popularity though.

Oh, I do not break them all the time. In fact, most times I run with them myself, even if in a way not always expected.

And the ones that usually break them the most fall in what I call my "Dark Tales" series, as they almost always fall under that category.

Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@Freyrs_stories

How many tropes does it take to make a troope?

Replies:   richardshagrin
richardshagrin 🚫

@Dominions Son

troope?

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages Β· Learn more

troopΒ·er
/ˈtro͞opΙ™r/
Police
Rank
Military
noun
1.
US
a state police officer.
2.
a private soldier in a cavalry, armored, or airborne unit.

muyoso 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

1. The hero in the story is loved by everyone and no one questions him murdering tens of millions of people.
2. The enemies in the story are over the top evil. Child molesters, rapists, etc.
3. No real conflict in the story, just the main character going from one thing to another and always winning (this one pisses me off the most)

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