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Greetings and salutations. It is I, Graham.

I was going to make a joke about Clevenger hiding away and leaving me to cover this blog, but I’m just too grateful for how he stepped up and covered things while I was in the hospital. This will be the closing post covering tropes, so this weekend we will get back to our normal schedule, with me introducing a topic on Sunday and Clevenger responding on Wednesday.

Clevenger talked about running into The Mentor. That was just one of several that we have struggled with. There are a few big ones that come to my mind, and have caused no end of back and forth with us trying to keep these fresh. The first has been having the MCs plot shielded. Nothing is worse than setting up the enemies with scenes to show just how strong and dangerous they are, and yet every time they come close to the MCs, they become Death Star Stormtroopers, unable to hit the broad side of a barn. Or worse, COBRA, never able to complete a single plan, with or without GI Joe stopping them. So there are setbacks. There are partial successes for the villains, and real problems for the heroes.

In a similar vein, we looked to avoid the staple of the “Dark Overlord” style villain. We knew we were going to have a Big Bad, and that they would have lieutenants. We knew early on that our villains were going to be a bit different than what you normally see in Fantasy. First, they were going to be more grounded, coming on more as military and political enemies, as opposed to a vaguely defined magical or demonic enemy. Yes, it can be fun discovering through your readings just where the BBEG came from, and what their thought process is like, but we wanted our antagonists to be more relatable than that. We wanted them, for lack of a better term, grounded in reality. They are understandable, not just to the reader, but to the protagonists. On that same note, we made sure our antagonists are relatable. They have strengths as well as flaws. While they may not be of the Human race, they are still Human. They have understandable motivations. They love, they have honor, they have their own sense of strength. None of our villains are “born evil”, mustache-twirling monsters. They may not be correct, but their actions are justified to themselves.

Then there is probably the most difficult trope to deal with, in any genre. The briefcase from Pulp Fiction. The Ark of the Covenant. The One ring. The Infinity Stones. Marvin Acme’s will from Roger Rabbit. Merriam-Webster defines a Macguffin as “an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance.” Is it in every single story? No. But it is really close. It is really difficult to write a story without a Macguffin. We knew this going in. So we worked really hard to have our “object, event, or character” mean something. To be important to the story, to have more value than simply being the item everyone fights over, as an excuse to have them fight. That is more difficult than it sounds. And no, I’m not going to tell you what it is. Read the book, you nosy person! Haha.

I’m sure there are more, but these are the big ones we knew we were going to be dealing with, and our thoughts on their directions. Now it’s time to get back to the real writing. Until next time…

Don’t forget to love one another.

Graham

PS. Hello, Readers! Clevenger sneaking in here… hehe. Glad that Graham got his days in the sun again. And all his Tropes that he spoke about were certainly ones we had many MANY conversations about. Another one that I forgot to mention, and one that particularly bothers me, is the Trope where the first Travel between to places is mentioned early in the story and is an arduous journey. Then, later in the story, the MCs romp back and forth between the two locales at whim with ease. I don’t know what to call this Trope, but we have decided to ensure that all of our Travel is justified and comes with it’s own cost.

Now you’ve gotten a glimpse of what Graham and I have put our attention to. Crafting a fresh story that has some of the familiar elements that Fantasy readers know and love, while avoiding some tired cliches. It’s certainly been a interesting road. Thanks for joining us.

Be Kind

-C.