#don’t plant your sequoia in a sippy cup

[ring-a-ling-a-lune]

Scrolling Instagram is always a mistake, but I’ve been seeing a lot of focus on tropes lately. Writers selling their stories using a bulleted list instead of, like, snippets or summaries, people who only consume media with certain themes while never bothering to branch out, stuff like that. I don’t have particularly strong feelings on tropes, but I do feel that reducing a piece of media to neat little boxes is kind of limiting.

It’s like looking at the foundation of a house. You can build something on that? Cool. But you haven’t. It’s not a house. It’s a slab of stone. One with potential, yes, but a slab nonetheless. I don’t care if it’s “friends to enemies, morally gray” if you CANNOT give me any characterization or depth outside of that.

You need to build on these things. A trope is a foundation. It is the base. YOU build from there. YOU put in the legwork to create. Use other tropes as the supports and cornerstones, but flesh out the walls yourself. Give me something that is hand crafted and made with earnest, even if it’s a shack.

“Ahh this work is shallow and falling apart!” In your attempt to remodel the house (you forcibly put things in boxes), you removed a load-bearing wall (erased important nuance), and now the structure is sagging (it’s narratively weak and cannot hold its own).

Maybe I’m being dramatic. If that’s the case, feel free to call me a goober and a loser and a fun-void. I don’t think I’m (entirely) wrong tho. Who knows.

#writing #writers on tumblr #writers #writing advice #writeblr #writing tips #a slab with potential #a slab nonetheless #branch out #be creative! #don’t plant your sequoia in a sippy cup #<-prev: don’t limit yourself to how you think you should be #instead of embracing your potential #emotions are running high for me rn