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little-peril-stories · 4 months

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My Most Common Tropes

I was tagged by @i-can-even-burn-salad in this post. (....in August, lol.) Thanks, Elli!

Rules: Look back on your work, both past and present, finished and unfinished. What are five to ten narrative elements or tropes that continuously pop up in your work?

OPEN TAG

My most common tropes and narrative elements are....

Angst

Girl Power

Violence & Power Dynamics

(Sad) Family Stuff

Slow Burn

Classic Big Bad Villains

And because I'm me, find four billion examples below the read more. :)

✨ Angst

What more can I say? I love it when my characters are sad. And hurting. And feeling hopeless. And helpless.

No matter what I do, I can’t move. I can’t get to her. I’m helpless. I’m useless. Maybe that’s all I’ve ever been—failing Jamie, failing IA, and now I’m going to fail Bree, too. - TPOT

What difference did it make? He would take her home, and she’d be his pretty possession once again, and every choice she’d made to escape the fate she’d so foolishly chosen for herself four years before would mean absolutely nothing. - TQOL

Yes, the thief thought, he was lucky. Lucky to have had Bree—who didn’t even know him—and her gentle hands on his skin, taking care of him for reasons he didn’t know or understand, doing something for him when he could never, ever pay her back. [...] Lucky that she was real, and that she had been there. Lucky, most of all, that she was gone, and that he would never see her again, because if he did, he’d have to face all over this alien, unwelcome pain of farewell. - TQOL

Being dead and suffering through some kind of purgatory was the least palatable option he’d come up with, yet the scholar half-hoped it was true. If he had died, the hell he was living through now was the false reality. It would eventually crumble into oblivion, blown away on the wind with his ashes, or buried in the ground with his decomposing corpse. - Man of Letters

✨ Girl Power

Action Girl / Plucky Girl / Determinator

Pour one out for my girls Bree, Colette, Alice, Fen, Ivy, Bridget, Nalia, Oriana, Ker, and Balain. Even when they're fucking up, which they do a lot, they're making it through and, in some cases, saving the day. Girls rule, boys drool. (shhh I'm just kidding)

Those same fears come back, renewed and armed with sharper, more vicious teeth than before. But so, too, does that promise. And even though the wind is just as cold as it was that night, and even though what I am leaving behind is infinitely more precious than what I abandoned four years ago, the taste of freedom on the wind is just as sweet. - TPOT

“Put the princess in a pair of pants and watch what happens.”- TQOL

“I chased a fucking wagon across this goddamn city. And then I chased a carriage across it again. I nearly got trampled twice. Do not fucking start with me.” - TQOL

They didn’t know what they were getting themselves into when they decided to kidnap me. I hope I get the chance to make them regret it. - TCOR

“I may be dying,” she said, her voice trembling with fury, “but I’m not dead. And I’m not going to lie around waiting to die, either.” - Book 1

✨ Violence & Power Dynamics

Violence is the Only Option / Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique / No-Holds-Barred Beatdown / Restraints / I Will Punish Your Friend For Your Failure / Defiant Captive

No respite—the rope grew tight again, accompanied now by Baden Hatchett’s hand on his chin. “Tried to take what wasn’t yours, and when she was rightfully repulsed by you, you thought you’d get to me another way instead?” - TQOL

I can’t suppress the cry that escapes as he twists and presses his fingertips against the wound. - TPOT

“Answer me,” the prince said softly, tightening his grip just enough that the scholar’s jaw began to ache. - Man of Letters

“Try to run away and I’ll let him drown your friend,” she said, digging her fingers into Nalia’s arm. - Book 1

✨ Family Stuff

Annoying Younger Sibling / Disappointing Older Sibling / Dead Parents / Abusive Parents

When Will kept bouncing, seeming not to hear their mother’s question, Jamie picked up one of his brother’s abandoned socks from the floor, crushed it into a ball, and hurled it at his head. - TPOT

“No one says anything. No one. Even you. You got arrested and you never fucking told me and he had that old record and that’s how he knew your name, and I can’t believe you never said anything, for fuck’s sake, and that happened when Ma was still alive—” - TPOT

The entire time I was in jail, truly believing and even hoping that my brother had skipped town and saved himself and left me to die, I never wanted to hurt him as much as I do right now. - TCOR

A knife under the ribs. It was Bridget’s fault. “I didn’t—I should’ve—I know I waited too long to go to the feds. I’m going to regret it forever, you know.” - Fen and Freddie

“Keeping me here to suffer more because your mother died on you, that’s not fair.” I know these words will hurt her. I don’t care. “I watched my ma die, too.” - TPOT

“My mother…she used to. She lives in the country now.” A distant look came into his eyes. “My dad’s dead. Of the fever. When it came here.” - Book 1

The soft words of her mother often came to her in such moments—the gentle but fragmented counsel that had helped Cecilia Cooper through her own marriage to Silas Cooper, a bitter man prone to temper and partial to drink. Stay with me, my love, she had whispered so often, and I will keep you safe. A mostly empty promise, untrue but well-meant; Breanna had known even then that her mother had tried her best. Let’s practice some sums, she would sometimes say, smoothing away her daughter’s tear-damp locks, watching the door with a frantic eye in case the handle began to turn. - TQOL

✨ Slow Burn

Make them go through a billion and a half awkward moments and almosts before they kiss!

Almost Kiss / Rescue Romance / Sleep Cute

I bet that hair practically glows red when the sun hits it just right. Especially in the light of sunset, when the sky turns to pink and orange flame. - TPOT

Dawn, of course, does not reach us inside our cell. Its rays can’t drift inside and wake us gently, can’t illuminate our fingers that remained entwined through the night; perhaps it is some innate, natural understanding that it’s almost time to rise that makes my eyes flutter open. A pair of hazel ones stares back. - TPOT

Are we closer than we were a minute ago? Can I better see the flutter of her eyelashes, glittering with tears, as she looks up at me, her cheeks pale, her lips parted to let every frightened breath pass, her hair brushing against her skin in perfect disarray? - TPOT

This was different: lovely, potent, thrilling. Like silken threads woven with bronze, like some entity of creation had crafted this man from warm earth and molten metal. - TQOL

This gaze burned like sunshine—like spring, like warmth on meadow grasses, like the glint of golden light off a pond. It burned, and it didn’t waver, and she knew where he was looking when he shifted a strand of damp hair away from her neck. - TQOL

He fixed her with that annoyingly penetrating gaze, like she was a book he wanted to read. - Book 1

✨ Big-Bad Style Villains

Big Bad / Lack of Empathy / Blaming "The Man" / The Chessmaster / Implacable Man / Evil Gloating

“Mouth off to her again,” he said softly, “and I’m going to make you very sorry.” - Book 1

“Oops,” Brockhurst said. “That might have broken a rib. Or several.” - Fen and Freddie

“Look at you. You’re no hero,” Hatchett says. My eyes fly open again. “A thief is all you are—a terrible one at that. Iustitia aecum, indeed.” He bares his teeth. “You and the others, you wear your guise of honour. Still, you are nothing more than lowlife, thieving criminals. Her, just as much as you.” He scoffs. “She says you saved her, once upon a time. Today, you will not.” - TPOT

“I most certainly am not mistaken,” says Jean Regent. “I did hope we could be civil from the start, but if you continue to be evasive and spout pointless lies, then I am afraid I shall have to resort to more barbaric measures rather quickly.” - TCOR

“Remember this, will you?” Regent lifts the poker from the hearth. “Remember that I could have ended your sorry life and chose not to. Remember that I showed you mercy. And remember…” His smile widens to a grotesque, gaping grin. “Remember that if you anger me again, the girl pays the price.” - TCOR

OH MY GOD THIS WAS SO FUN THANK YOU FOR TAGGING ME IN THIS AHH

#not me dropping TQOL and TCOR tidbits in here like it's nothing 😅#tag game #my most common tropes #tropes #lps the prince of thieves #lps the queen of lies #lps the court of rogues #lps fen and freddie #lps man of letters #Book 1

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