Time for another round of blog chain fun! This round’s topic is brought to us by Kate. She asks:
As a reader and/or a writer what are some of your favorite fiction
tropes? Are you sucker for secretly in love with best friend type
stories, stories set in mysterious boarding school stories, stories
that contain time travel, or something else entirely? As a writer how
do you try to give the tropes you tackle in your own books a fresh
spin?
Hmm…I really enjoyed reading others’ posts on this, but I’m not sure what my response is. I don’t know if I’m drawn to one particular literary device when reading or writing. I suppose I like tried and true stories that take the traditional concept and then do something surprising. For example, GONE, GIRL, by Gillian Flynn, appears at first as a typical mystery. In fact, it seemed so typical that for the first 1/3 of the book, I was tempted to throw it across the room because I was so sure I knew how everything was going to unfold….but then, I didn’t. And as the book went on, just when I thought I knew what would happen, it twisted again. That was impressive to me. And, Flynn is a skilled writer, because I ABHOR plot twists for the sake of twisting and shock. I hate when I read a book and the ending or middle is a “surprise” but it totally does not fit with the flow of the story.
As I was writing, I realized another trope I really like: retellings. I love retellings of biblical stories, in particular, but also like new takes on other known stories (e.g. retellings of Shakespeare, Dickens, etc.). My favorite retelling is THE RED TENT by Anita Diamont. It tells the story of Dina, the story of Jacob’s 12 sons. Such an awesome prospective.
How about you? What’s your favorite literary trope? And don’t forget to read Amparo’s post, and if you missed any go back to Kate’s and start again.