Who else here is a TV Troper?

[McDuffies]

They should stop acting like they're still shooting in front of live audience, we know they aren't.

That's starting to be the trend more and more, actually. Like Scrubs! No live audience (or even laugh track!) required.

Most of traditional sitcoms aren't either, most of them are just shown to audience later. Live audience is so rare nowadays that every show that does it announce it at the beginning of every episode.

[[geoduck]]

Getting back to the original question, I visit there quite often, and my comic has managed to score one reference under Webcomic Time. Woot!

[DrakeGrey]

I'm a Troper, too. Better than being a Pepper, I suppose. (Yay, I just dated myself with that remark).

I actually contributed a few - funny thing is, I seem to only be able to spot and identify only the most obscure of tropes. And despite the temptation to heavily salt my blog with links and references, I try to not get to obsessive like that. But darn it, it's hard.

Anyways and either ways, TVTropes is not only an invaluable resource but a darn fun read, and a good way to find our about new comics, books, movies and TV shows I never knew before.

[McDuffies]

So is there a trope for those films where main character is a successful self-help books writer and during the film, through the main plot of the movie whatever that might be, he matures and reexamines ideas from his book, so in the end he comes out with another self-help which is completely contrary to his previous book and which makes him, I suppose, even more successful.

[Jim North]

Best I can find is that it could be a combination of Break the Motivational Speaker followed by a Heel Face Turn.

You may have come up with a new one.

[Ahaugen]

It's Popular, Now it Sucks

[McDuffies]

Best I can find is that it could be a combination of Break the Motivational Speaker followed by a Heel Face Turn.

You may have come up with a new one.

Would have to come up with more than three examples.

So anyways is there the trope for those kinds of stories that start multiple storylines and plots, then gradually abandon them all to concentrate on resident romantic plotline, going so far to leave many plotlines unresolved, as long as the romantic plotline ends with happy ending?

Oh, and a trope for when Hollywood adaptation of a book adds a romantic plotline that wasn't originally in the book, and makes it the main plotline?

Oh, I thought of another one: how about those romantic films where main characters just appear creepy, obsessive and overall dangerous, but that is never adressed in the story where this creepy behaviour is interpreted as proof of true love?

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Here's a few that are sort of a long those lines: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... kingIsLove, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsLove, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... kesYouDumb, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... manceTumor.

[McDuffies]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... kingIsLove,

Spot on.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsLove,

I don't see Rodolph Valentino's "The Sheik". Prolly the first example on film.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... kesYouDumb, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... manceTumor.[/quote]
I guess that's it, according to examples. No "Slumdog Millionaire" though.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Add it in, add it in! It makes you feel like a small part of the world is a little more complete!

[Dr Legostar]

I use it to help with writing, I enjoy reading them and finding things about my favorite shows, I contribute from time to time when I see a gap I can fill, and someone made a page for my comic a while back which I find fantastic (it's no Darken, but it's grand). Like wikipedia, however, I refuse to add or edit my own comic into things like this. I joined the forums, but I never really got into them as much as I have other forums.

[McDuffies]

Add it in, add it in! It makes you feel like a small part of the world is a little more complete!

Tch, can't be bothered.

[VinnieD]

TV tropes is an addictive substance that can cause side effects such as insomnia, lost time, and excessive opening of browser tags. That said I still use it to sharpen my writing skills, but I have to be careful when reading around.

[McDuffies]

This got me thinking, some of these tropes are rather specific and detached from reality, and yet have hundreds of examples in fiction. Got me thinking how pop culture is implanted into our brains so much that it sometimes takes precendent over our real experience. I mean, all is well until we sit to the writing desk, then we start thinking in tropes, routinely including in scripts things that don't match with any of our actual experience, stock characters and situations that we've seen in other works of fiction. And it's not because any of these tropes work, or because they're fun (they ceased to be long ago) or whatever, it's simply because when we sit to write, we turn off all our practical knowledge and leave only tons of second-hand experience gained from fiction.
That turns every piece of fiction written that way into meta-fiction. As fan of postmodern and metafiction as I am, there is still a reason why postmodern is called self-centered fiction or things to that effect.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

I know what you mean. There's a lot of tropes that, when they originated I'm sure they did kind of have to do with daily life in some fashion but when I sit back and think about it I think "But no one in real life would actually do that." I'm having trouble thinking of examples of this though. It's not impossible, but it is very very difficult, to not invoke at least one trope when writing. Even if you think you've avoided including any, there's usually at least one that you did include but that you didn't know existed as a trope. Like you said McDuffies, it's very ingrained. There's so many kinds of media surrounding us that you can't help but absorb it.

TVTropes is like the mapping of the entertainment genome.

[Risky]

I know what you mean. There's a lot of tropes that, when they originated I'm sure they did kind of have to do with daily life in some fashion but when I sit back and think about it I think "But no one in real life would actually do that." I'm having trouble thinking of examples of this though. It's not impossible, but it is very very difficult, to not invoke at least one trope when writing. Even if you think you've avoided including any, there's usually at least one that you did include but that you didn't know existed as a trope. Like you said McDuffies, it's very ingrained. There's so many kinds of media surrounding us that you can't help but absorb it.

TVTropes is like the mapping of the entertainment genome.

Y'gotta include some if you go by TVTropes... it includes every literary device as a "trope" in some way.

[McDuffies]

I know what you mean. There's a lot of tropes that, when they originated I'm sure they did kind of have to do with daily life in some fashion but when I sit back and think about it I think "But no one in real life would actually do that." I'm having trouble thinking of examples of this though. It's not impossible, but it is very very difficult, to not invoke at least one trope when writing. Even if you think you've avoided including any, there's usually at least one that you did include but that you didn't know existed as a trope. Like you said McDuffies, it's very ingrained. There's so many kinds of media surrounding us that you can't help but absorb it.

TVTropes is like the mapping of the entertainment genome.

From my observations, most of them are created from not knowing the topic, or oversymplification of it.

Like, most of gangster-related tropes seem to be created by people who didn't have direct experience with gangs, so they wrote in what they thought they look like.
On the other hand, the whole evil-for-the-sake-of-evil character profile seems to be an oversimplification. Discarding existence of different perspectives, mothives and different moralities; be it an evil mastermind or just a school bully - just assume that everyone who does things you don't agree with does it because he's evil and sadistic, that saves on psychology background, moral ambiguity etc.
In fact most of tropes related to psychology seem to be made by people very ignorant of actual psychology. Like assuming that everyone who has emotional problems invariably does because of some trauma from childhood, or like attributing attrociously wrong psychological effects to rape. And don't get me started on victorian idea od romantic love.

Average manga fan could just ask himself: have I ever tripped in my school hall and landed with my hand between some girl's boobs? Nope. Do I know anyone who ever did? Most likely not. Is there anything in my experience that suggests that this could ever happen? Bloody well not.
Not that such comedies have to stick to realism, but if the justification for it's use is that it's funny, then that justification has been rendered invalid years ago, due to being repeated to much. But the extent to which it is repeated (like, every school-themed manga ever, both comedic and supposedly "realistic") could only be justified if there was some background to it in real experience.
Granted it's not symplification or ignorance, it's a daydream. Average shy guy would like to approach to girls but doesn't muster up courage or determination to do so, so these kinds of accidents seem like convenient way for sexual gratification without actual effort (and since it was accident, we're also morally sound), so yeah, we guys do often dream of landing in some unsuspecting girl's cleavage.

The problem, I think, is that most of tropes, ie most of pop culture isn't popularized by best examples of fiction. It's popularized by most popular examples of fiction, which are very often rather sub-par and unimaginative, not to mention written on-demand by "teams of professionals" instead of from someone's creative vision. You don't see many tropes derived from Henry James work.

[Jim North]

All fiction must now be completely realistic!

All non-realistic elements in fiction are invalid!

Funny is irrelevant! Cool is irrelevant! Realism is all!

The revolution is here!

[Kevin R Brown]

...Wait.

ARE YOU MOCKING ME???

[Ahaugen]

...Wait.

ARE YOU MOCKING ME???

he does that ... just ignore him