[HN Gopher] Stories We've Seen Too Often
___________________________________________________________________
Stories We've Seen Too Often
Author : ddougj
Score : 121 points
Date : 2023-05-15 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (strangehorizons.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (strangehorizons.com)
| ivraatiems wrote:
| If you're reading this and thinking "aw damn, my idea is cliche,
| I'll never get something published!" or similar, don't worry too
| much.
|
| Once you subtract the ones that are either just straight-up wish
| fulfillment, or otherwise reliant on racist/sexist/ageist
| stereotypes, a lot of the ideas listed here are still perfectly
| good ideas for a story. They'd be more than "original" enough to
| drive an episode of _Black Mirror_ or the plot of a mainstream
| blockbuster movie - areas where originality isn 't as important
| as executing the concept in a way that has market appeal (and is
| hopefully also high quality).
|
| The issue is more just that the audience for these stories are
| the editors of a speculative fiction magazine, and readers of
| that same relatively niche speculative fiction magazine. That is,
| people who spend a _lot of time_ reading fiction. They, in
| particular, have seen all this stuff before. After a while, if
| your _whole job_ is reading stories, of course you 're going to
| get tired of even very good stories about things you've seen a
| hundred times before.
|
| There's plenty of other places to submit to. If you have
| confidence in your work and you think your story is worth people
| reading, but this list suggests these particular editors won't
| like it... just send it somewhere else.
| bombcar wrote:
| Hasn't it been said there's only 7 basic stories in the world?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots or
| something.
|
| But who _cares_ that The Lion King and Hamlet may be the same
| story at the base, they 're certainly different enough to be
| enjoyable each in their own right, and I wouldn't substitute
| one for the other in some strange form of economization.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| The wiki article left off Vonnegut's take on this
|
| https://bigthink.com/high-culture/vonnegut-shapes/
| marttt wrote:
| See also: Soviet folklorist Vladimr Propp identified 7
| typical characters and 31 basic structural elements in fairy
| tales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp#Narrative
| _struc...
|
| Another interesting classification discovered from Propp's
| Wikipedia entry: Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index of folktale
| types: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson%E
| 2%80%9...
| NeoTar wrote:
| I have thought that Sci-Fi / speculative fiction stories
| are in a really good position to be categorised by
| something similar to Aarne-Thompson-Uther index.
|
| Consider some basic stories like:
|
| * a person travels backwards through time to prevent a
| tragedy. - By doing so they cause the
| tragedy to occur. - On returning to their own
| time they discover the tragedy was necessary for their
| society.
|
| * a person travels backwards in time to meet their hero.
| - they discover the person didn't exist and become them.
| - they discover the person isn't as heroic as they hoped
| and coach them.
|
| Just four examples, but I'm sure you can see how many
| stories fit into each.
| lloeki wrote:
| I seem to have understood that this list is about things that
| would get rejected when they're the sole point of the story,
| but they'd be fine as plot devices within a more fleshed out
| narrative structure.
|
| Even then, I can recall very good reads (or watches) that could
| readily fit squarely in one of those boxes but are either very
| well executed that you either don't see it coming, or even if
| you do you continue nonetheless, or that have specific context
| or otherwise build up that makes it very good even if it can be
| narratively distilled down to a simple this or that.
|
| Also also, this list seems extremely small when compared to
| tvtropes.org with which, when I catch myself running down that
| time sink again, I always end up thinking that every single
| plot has already been written though sheer bruteforce.
|
| IOW _execution_ also matters.
| sdwr wrote:
| The list seems to cover 90% of all sci-fi, and, if you squint a
| little, 80% of all stories ever written.
| TheFreim wrote:
| Pure originality is exceptionally rare, but that's not really
| a bad thing. More and more I believe that the human
| experience is primarily defined by rhymes and analogy, trying
| to avoid reusing prior work is futile.
|
| "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is
| what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun"
| (Ecclesiastes 1:9, RSV2CE).
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I think you are right, but also, that it is totally
| legitimate for Strange Horizons to say "we really really
| want only original work." So long as they don't also say
| "only original work is valid to create", which is where I
| (and maybe they, given the disclaimers) take issue with
| this list.
| morelisp wrote:
| Since Strange Horizons publishes far less than 10% of all
| science fiction, that seems fine.
| m463 wrote:
| I wonder if some stories work well with the peer group of
| authors/editors, but not so much with audeiences.
|
| For example, it's annoying to me as a reader when stories are
| straight-up rewrites of say the odyssey or hakespeare, or put
| greek/roman gods in our universe. (same with computer games
| that are hex based and show the hexes, or card-based games
| that show the cards)
| thriftwy wrote:
| My least favourite story is "A lot of things happened to the
| protagonist and the world around him, but in the end everything
| is exactly like it was before all that".
|
| Homer is dead, we live in linear time, can we please _please_
| have some progress for a change?
|
| A notorious offender is Terry Pratchett's Discworld. When the
| world needs to change, it happens between the books. In any book,
| you know you will end up with the same status quo as when you
| started reading.
|
| Even if we are talking about something happening off-world, the
| experience would completely change the character. They can't just
| resume being young, shy and ignorant. Even some PTSD would be
| better than nothing.
| hammock wrote:
| What stories are you thinking of. There are a lot of stories
| that fit your description except that the protagonist is
| usually (implicitly, often) changed in some way, they learned a
| lesson, they have a new perspective, etc
| the_af wrote:
| > _A notorious offender is Terry Pratchett 's Discworld_
|
| The wording implies an _offense_ has been committed, but this
| is not the case.
|
| For one, because it's false: progress happens _in book_ in
| Discworld. There 's a series of "industry/progress" novels that
| illustrate change in the Discworld.
|
| But also, because the timelessness of Discworld is what makes
| it appealing. With some exceptions, you can read a lot of the
| novels in any order. This makes them _good_ , not bad.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| You're forgetting the books specifically about the development
| of the post office and the railways at least.
|
| Edit: and the police, and the telegraph
| cableshaft wrote:
| Sounds like pretty much every Coen Brothers movie to me, at
| least so far as the world not changing at the end.
|
| Isn't that the case for most people, that they don't end up
| changing the world or society around them? At best maybe they
| helped open a hole in the dike for water to seep through for
| future generations.
|
| Obviously that's not the case for superhero or chosen one
| stories, but true for most people in life.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Then go with a simple plot, with no bombast and no world in
| danger.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Are there any specific discworld books you'd like to highlight?
|
| Some certainly fit into that pattern (I'm thinking specifically
| Soul Music and Moving Pictures) but things do evolve in the
| interconnected series.
|
| Especially considering the later 'Industrial Revolution'
| stories - the Truth, Going Postal, Making Money all made some
| incremental changes to Ankh Morpork. The last (and sadly one of
| the worst) books Raising Steam had the biggest potential to
| change the fantasy world with the introduction of railway
| travel.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Equal Rites, these Rock and Opera books, one with the dragon,
| etc...
| kej wrote:
| As an aside, I really like the disclaimer's approach, kind of
| like the Disney+ messages on certain movies, where they say they
| don't necessarily agree with something but still present it in
| the original form.
| derbOac wrote:
| To me, it was a little disconcerting, like "we've stopped
| receiving _these_ things too much, people got the message, and
| now we 're receiving _other_ things too much, but aren 't going
| to update this to tell you what they are, and are leaving it
| for posterity."
|
| Maybe there aren't new overdone stories, people see the list
| and stop. But that seems unlikely to me. In either case, it
| would be nice if there was a list that was updated, or some
| statement about things being better.
| rdlw wrote:
| It's just an old list some editors put together for fun,
| there's no requirement to regularly update something you made
| a decade ago. If anything, I'd say there's an obligation to
| keep the original text available as long as you're
| maintaining the website. I don't find any of this
| disconcerting.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I'm a fiction writer and I don't have such expectations of
| this list.
|
| Some publishers have a short list of things they don't take
| due to having too many submitted. I don't think that's what
| this list it. For one it is far too detailed to keep updated.
|
| I see this list as a subset of bad storytelling they were
| seeing often. It's not a subset of things they didn't accept.
| (There is significant overlap.) It's an important
| distinction.
|
| Lists like these get published occasionally and they become
| part of the history of the internet. They truly are a
| snapshot in time.
| gregmac wrote:
| Something that stuck out to me was a side-note:
|
| > Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as
| they derive naturally from character action.
|
| This, to me, is probably the biggest thing that makes me hate a
| story:
|
| The character is faced with a situation and reacts in a way
| contrary to the way we'd expect them to act based on what we've
| seen so far. It soon becomes obvious they made that decision only
| to move the plot to a specific ending or scene.
| slg wrote:
| This is a big problem for serialized stories now that fan
| theorizing on the internet is so common. A good plot shouldn't
| be completely predictable to your audience, but events need to
| flow from one to the other because characters and their worlds
| should have consistency. This creates predictability and means
| some small percentage of your audience can now guess what is
| going to happen.
|
| That was fine a decade or two ago when a person might guess the
| ending to a TV show and blurt it out to their partner on the
| couch. However, now that small group that guesses the plot
| correctly will share their predictions on the relevant
| subreddit which will be picked up by blogs and suddenly
| everyone knows where you were going.
|
| When that happens, the creatives are faced with the choice to
| change that ending or just deal with the twists and turns
| getting spoiled. Westworld is a memorable example of the
| creators changing the show because fans guessed what was
| happening next. The end result was that the show didn't make
| any sense because it prioritized unpredictability over all else
| and eventually the world and characters didn't make any sense
| anymore.
| bsder wrote:
| > When that happens, the creatives are faced with the choice
| to change that ending or just deal with the twists and turns
| getting spoiled.
|
| I disagree wholeheartedly.
|
| The big problem with every single writer nowadays is a
| complete and total inability to _stick the ending_.
|
| I'm really trying _very_ hard to come up with a TV show, book
| or movie that I thought really stuck the ending in the last
| 10 years (I 'm being generous--in reality I'd even say 30
| years). A whole host of the fan theories are _WAY_ better
| than what practically all current writers crap out.
|
| If I'm being charitable, I'll describe the problem as writers
| lack varied life experience. If I'm being uncharitable, it's
| that most writers are just not very intelligent.
| erehweb wrote:
| I recommend The Good Place throughout, particularly the
| ending.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| ,,Bodyguard", the BBC miniseries, and ,,My Name" from South
| Korea, both on Netflix, as well as ,,Your Name", from 2016
| (now THAT was one final act and ending!).
| SantalBlush wrote:
| Breaking Bad had a very decent ending. It wasn't overblown,
| it didn't have contrived plot twists, and it was consistent
| with the the way the characters behaved in previous arcs.
| slg wrote:
| I could give you a list of endings that I thought were
| great, but if you can't think of a single ending that you
| found satisfying, that sounds more like a you problem than
| all of humanity simply stopped writing good endings.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Seems akin to complaints that there aren't enough good
| movies or TV shows these days.
|
| That's so _very_ not the case that the person complaining
| either isn 't looking very hard, or else have such narrow
| taste that they're excluding most works without even
| considering them.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Show runners and writers giving a shit that someone on Reddit
| guessed their clever twist is the entire problem here. If
| zero people out of _thousands or more_ actively speculating
| online thought of the thing you did, that 's probably because
| _it doesn 't make sense_. Adjusting to avoid anything that's
| been guessed almost necessarily means veering into bad
| writing.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| >Show runners and writers giving a shit that someone on
| Reddit guessed their clever twist
|
| This is what ruined Westworld.
| Animats wrote:
| Of course, all this is because everything has been done. Read
| Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales". Read one story half way, and
| ask yourself how it will end. You'll be right.
|
| In 1483, there was so little published entertainment that plot
| twists were unnecessary.
| ilyt wrote:
| To be entirely fair
|
| > Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject.
|
| This is very real plot that even got some people Nobel prize
|
| https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2005/press-releas...
|
| Interview with some details
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLA69a5OOU
| permo-w wrote:
| also surely "scientist experiments on themselves" is far too
| broad to dismiss out of hand
| the_af wrote:
| I don't think any in the list are dismissals. If you remove
| every item, you're left with nothing that can be said about
| anything in scifi. The items also include plots used by
| acknowledged authors in celebrated stories.
|
| This is like TV Tropes: a trope is neither good nor bad, it
| just is. It can be overused, it can be subverted, it can be
| played straight or played with, but the one thing you cannot
| do: avoid tropes entirely.
| blueflow wrote:
| These are called tropes, and there is a wiki about them:
| https://tvtropes.org/
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| There has to be some irony that this list of plot points has been
| done so many times, from Campbell's hero's journey, Vonnegut's
| shapes, TV tropes, etc.
|
| And still we enjoyed it.
|
| I am sure some English professor somewhere is gnashing his teeth
| saying something about here's another analysis he doesn't need to
| see...
| mcv wrote:
| I've got to admit, there's a lot of inspiration in that list.
| Though maybe use a couple and not make one of these the sole
| interesting thing about the story. Also, execution always
| matters.
|
| And some of these should definitely be avoided at all costs.
| dsr_ wrote:
| What Strange Horizons really wants is a high-quality SF/F/Horror
| story.
|
| They see hundreds or thousands of low-quality stories for every
| high-quality story. And nobody wants to be told that the reason
| that they aren't being published is that their story sucks.
|
| But everyone sane can see that their story might have been done
| before, perhaps too often -- so it doesn't hurt as much to be
| told that your story is being rejected because it's on this list.
| malfist wrote:
| A crazy number of these items seem like incel fan fics. I wonder
| how many crazy people send in stories about their fantasies?
| pwdisswordfishc wrote:
| > The author is apparently unaware of the American constitutional
| amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment, and so
| postulates that in the future, American punishment will be extra-
| cruel in some unusual way.
|
| I am also tired of following American news
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Pretty much all of my favorite pulp sci-fi stories use at least
| two of the items on the list. Of course, that's reasonably
| forgivable because:
|
| 1. They used more than one
|
| 2. They were published long before this list was made.
|
| 3. Pulp
|
| [edit]
|
| e.g. 5,271,009 by Alfred Bester hits at least 4 of these while
| also poking fun at various wish-fulfillment stories
| jandrese wrote:
| Also, several of them are ridiculously broad.
| rcme wrote:
| > Fatness is used as a signal of evil, dissolution, and/or moral
| decay, usually with the unspoken assumption that it's completely
| obvious that fat people are immoral and disgusting.
|
| My favorite novel that uses this trope has to be A Confederacy of
| Dunces.
| bsder wrote:
| "A Confederacy of Dunces" struck me much more as a chronicle of
| weird people and their foibles with a large dose of regional
| flavoring--sort of like Napoleon Dynamite but focused on a city
| underbelly.
|
| I don't remember "fatness" being a signal of evil, and I don't
| remember any of the non-fat people being any better than the
| fat ones.
|
| However, it has been quite a while since I read the novel, and
| I really didn't like it very much. So, my memory may be faulty,
| and your mileage may vary.
| rcme wrote:
| The main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, was extremely fat,
| which was part of his ignoble caricature.
| [deleted]
| gadders wrote:
| >> White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy
| Simple Native Folk.
|
| That's Avatar ruined.
| elil17 wrote:
| I feel like Avatar is more "White protagonist genuinely
| switches sides."
| chasd00 wrote:
| i thought it was more "check out this new plugin package I
| got for my CGI rig" heh.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| > _10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue._
|
| > _a. Someone calls technical support for a magical item._
|
| > _b. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced
| technology._
|
| This one seems appealing. Are there any good books with this
| theme?
| WorldMaker wrote:
| It's a running theme in some of John Scalzi's short fiction. I
| believe several can be found searching his blog, but the
| easiest place to find them are probably his collections. A
| couple were adapted as shorts in the anthology animated series
| "Love, Death, and Robots" (Netflix Original) most notably the
| Emmy-winning short "Automated Customer Service".
| robocat wrote:
| Similar theme: Service Call by Philip K Dick - in the fourth
| volume of short stories called "Minority Report".
| Sir, I'm the repairman you asked for; I'm here to fix your
| swibble.
|
| Yes, contains tropes, but still brilliantly written. Easier to
| be novel in 1955!?
|
| The book has a bunch more great short stories - old school but
| good school.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Magical Help Desk was a COVID-era LARP where you could call in
| and get tech support for your magic items.
|
| https://www.intramersive.com/magical-help-desk
| lifefeed wrote:
| My old least-favorite-trope isn't on here, maybe writers have
| finally stopped writing it.
|
| > (Somehow, a man and a women end up alone on a planet. This is
| the last dialog.)
|
| > Man: I never caught your name.
|
| > Women: I'm Eve.
|
| > Man: Hi Eve, I'm Adam.
| [deleted]
| iainmerrick wrote:
| My first encounter with this one was Alan Moore poking fun at
| it in _2000AD_ :
| https://64.media.tumblr.com/27760dbb610ca38e29db4551f3991cbb...
| (I guess it was a hoary old chestnut even back then)
| JJMcJ wrote:
| > Madam, I'm Adam
|
| Brought to you by the Palindrome SocietyteicoS emordnilaP
| number6 wrote:
| Wow. Mind blown! /s
| Animats wrote:
| Most of these are all plots of successful movies or TV shows.
|
| * Creative person is having trouble creating. Creative person
| meets a muse...
|
| Xanadu, the movie.
|
| * Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
|
| About half of Twilight Zone episodes.
|
| * An AI gets loose on the Net, but the author doesn't have a
| clear concept of what it means for software to be "loose on the
| Net."
|
| Terminator
|
| * Technology and/or modern life turn out to be soulless.
|
| "The Office"
|
| "The Lorax"
|
| This one goes all the way back to "The Machine Stops".
|
| * Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they "deserve,"
| which ends up being something bad.
|
| Several Twilight Zone episodes.
|
| * Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're
| born.
|
| "2001"
|
| * Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but
| in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
|
| That one really has been done to death in SF.
|
| * A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen ("Today was the
| day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure"), but the
| nature of the Event isn't revealed until the end of the story,
| when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness.
| [Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one
| reason we're tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can
| usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the
| mysteriousness annoying.]
|
| This is the plot of the New Testament.
|
| * In the future, an official government permit is required in
| order to do some particular ordinary thing, but the specific
| thing a permit is required for isn't (usually) revealed until the
| end of the story.
|
| That was a 1950s thing, and seems to have died out.
|
| * Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue. Someone
| calls technical support for a magical item.
|
| "Oh My Goddess" anime
| rcme wrote:
| > * A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen ("Today was
| the day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure"), but the
| nature of the Event isn't revealed until the end of the story,
| when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness.
| [Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one
| reason we're tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can
| usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the
| mysteriousness annoying.]
|
| This is also the plot of an amazing short story called The
| Icarus Gland. It's written by a Russian author, and all of the
| translations are terrible. But, even with the terrible
| translation, it still captivates and keeps you on the edge of
| your seat.
| billjohnston wrote:
| Reminds me of Vonnegut on the "shapes" of stories:
|
| https://bigthink.com/high-culture/vonnegut-shapes/
| liotier wrote:
| Might as well go to the authority for recycled story bits:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tropes There is more
| to storytelling than just originality.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > This is not a canonical list of bad stories or story cliches.
| This is a list of types of stories that we at SH have seen too
| often; it's not intended to be a complete list of all types of
| bad stories, nor are all the items on the list necessarily bad.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| For those who haven't been to TV Tropes, be warned, you will be
| there for a long time. It's a wiki-walk of nearly infinite
| depth.
|
| Now, if anyone needs me for the next 3 weeks, you'll know where
| to find me. :)
| the_af wrote:
| Exactly. Originality is overrated.
|
| Tropes exist. What matters is what you build with them.
| st_goliath wrote:
| Besides TV tropes, the page made me think of the quite
| entertaining "How Not to Write a Novel"[1][2], which not only
| details tropes to avoid, but also quite humorously illustrates
| them with short stories.
|
| If you're already a TV Tropes addict, I can strongly recommend
| the book.
|
| [1]
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/HowNotToWr...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Write-Novel-Them-Misstep-
| Misstep/dp/0...
| philipkglass wrote:
| If you liked this list, you may also find the Turkey City Lexicon
| interesting:
|
| https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer...
|
| It's also aimed directly at aspiring science fiction writers, but
| it's been referenced enough times on Charles Stross's blog (and
| other SF venues) that some of its terms have entered my
| vocabulary and that of other SF readers I know.
|
| EDIT: this list _does_ contain the story type lifefeed mentions
| in a sibling content.
|
| _- Adam and Eve Story
|
| Nauseatingly common subset of the "Shaggy God Story" in which a
| terrible apocalypse, spaceship crash, etc., leaves two survivors,
| man and woman, who turn out to be Adam and Eve, parents of the
| human race!!_
| rikroots wrote:
| That second introduction to the TC Lexicon describes - exactly!
| - the process used in a poetry workshop I attended back in the
| late 80s[1]. The outcome of each session was also the same,
| drowning our sorrows in a nearby pub after the meeting, but
| also forming some strong and long-lasting bonds with our fellow
| masochists. I'd say I learned 80% of what I know about writing
| poetry from that workshop, and un-learned 100% of what I
| thought I knew before I started.
|
| [1] Poetry in the Making, led by Laurie Smith at the City Lit -
| the critique was brutal, but worth it in the end!
| https://www.citylit.ac.uk/
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Neal Stevenson got away with this by getting rid of Adam and
| adding six additional Eve's.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| He also got away with it by not making it a sudden twist at
| the end; it was never a surprise - it's the title of the
| book.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I was left in suspense how seven eyes fit in until I reread
| the title after reading the book...
| [deleted]
| bgirard wrote:
| I wish I could ask Netfix/recommendation engines to strike
| stories matching a certain story profile. In particular I rarely
| enjoy a story about point 4. I like watching something without
| spoilers so avoiding 'Weird things happen, but it turns out
| they're not real' is really difficult.
| foobarian wrote:
| I wish that recommendation engines had a "rational fiction
| score" for their content. Things like Expanse, Sanderson's
| Mistborn series (were it to be filmed as a show, ah, one can
| dream) or 2001 Odyssey would rate highly, things like "From..."
| not so much.
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| If you remember the original premise of _Seinfeld_ it was:
|
| No hugging, no changing.
|
| So he was reversing the standard (by then) TV trope of
| "characters learn from their mistakes, hug each other, the end."
|
| Of course, "no hugging, no changing" _itself_ is a trope.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| > Evil people hook the protagonist on an addictive substance and
| then start raising the price, ruining the protagonist's life.
| Addictive substance = debt Evil people = Federal Reserve
| koboll wrote:
| >30. Brutal violence against women is depicted in loving detail,
| often in a story that's ostensibly about violence against women
| being bad.
|
| Finally, a perfectly succinct explanation for why I can't stand
| watching The Handmaid's Tale.
| jandrese wrote:
| I still say there is very little daylight between The
| Handmaid's Tale and any random Gor novel. The only difference
| is in the Gor universe the guys are actually enjoying it.
| Animats wrote:
| The classic essay on this subject is "From Elfland to
| Poughkeepsie" in "The Language of the Night", by Ursula LeGuin.
| abruzzi wrote:
| The amusing thing is how many of the items on their list bring to
| mind a great short story, or a great novel, or movie. Point being
| that many of them CAN be good, but usually aren't.
| the_af wrote:
| Almost all in the list can be used in good stories. And have
| been used, in fact.
|
| This is a list of tropes. Tropes are neither good or bad, they
| just are (well, _some_ tropes are obviously bad or outdated,
| but you get my meaning).
|
| Might as well claim that using words in text is bad.
| mcphage wrote:
| > is how many of the items on their list bring to mind a great
| short story
|
| That may be how so many of these ended up on this list: someone
| wrote a great story with an original premise, and lots of other
| people are like "Oh, I like that idea, I'll write my own story
| using a similar idea", and then editors get sick of receiving
| them.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| "As you know, Bob..." crops up in just about everything Neal
| Stephenson does, although I've always thought it's better framed
| as "Right, I had to learn a *lot* about 17th Century French Naval
| vessels / encryption / diving equipment / evolutionary biology /
| the semiotics of theology / whatever else, so now *you* get to
| learn it too!"
|
| I actually quite like those bits.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| '1984' and 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' get around
| this by just having longish excerpts from a book that's
| important to the plot. And these bits are really good.
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