: Re: How can I convince my reader that I will not use a certain trope? Imagine a fantasy story in which there once was a very powerful evil divine being, but it was defeated long before the beginning

This is really a version of the Chekhov's Gun problem. Things aren't in a story unless the writer puts them there, so readers tend to expect significance from important-seeming things that are mentioned. It doesn't really matter if they know the tropes or not.

So the question becomes, why is this detail in here if it's not going to play an active role? Is it just background scene-setting? It's a cool detail, but a potentially distracting one. Can you do without it in the text? It can still be a part of your worldbuilding, but as we all hopefully know by now, not all of your worldbuilding needs to make it onto the page.

I would encourage you to think Iceberg Theory on this one. You aren't "writing this out" or even "not using it," it's still an important part of how you built this world, and an available background detail if you need it. You simply aren't foregrounding it, emphasizing it, or shoehorning it in where it doesn't belong (only to say "Don't pay attention to this!" afer you do so)!

Load Full (0)

: What are the indentation rules for the paragraph introducing a bulleted list? I'm writing a formal document for my company where it'll be shared and used by a number of teams. Unfortunately,

@Kevin153

Load Full 1 Comments

: Motivation - or how can I get myself to do the work I know I need to? There is worldbuilding and/or writing that I know I need to do, and even want to do on some level, but I keep not

@Kevin153

Load Full 2 Comments

: The initial problem was that writers (mostly, we assume, male) were writing female characters that were thinly imagined, stereotypical, and largely there only to reflect glory at the male protagonist,

@Kevin153

Load Full 0 Comments

: When should the dialogue reference be written, before or after the dialogue? This might be a very trivial question but I don't know what to google to get an answer so asking anyways. In this

: Re: How can I convince my reader that I will not use a certain trope? Imagine a fantasy story in which there once was a very powerful evil divine being, but it was defeated long before the beginning

More posts by @Kevin153

: What are the indentation rules for the paragraph introducing a bulleted list? I'm writing a formal document for my company where it'll be shared and used by a number of teams. Unfortunately,

: Motivation - or how can I get myself to do the work I know I need to? There is worldbuilding and/or writing that I know I need to do, and even want to do on some level, but I keep not

: The initial problem was that writers (mostly, we assume, male) were writing female characters that were thinly imagined, stereotypical, and largely there only to reflect glory at the male protagonist,

: When should the dialogue reference be written, before or after the dialogue? This might be a very trivial question but I don't know what to google to get an answer so asking anyways. In this

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top