A Troop of Tropes

More about writing today. It seems like I'm on a bit of a roll.

What's a trope, you ask? A trope is a recurring theme. If this were an afghan or a work of art, you'd call it a repeating motif like a granny square, or triangles. Or in a piece of music, the recognizable bit of melody that you hear over and over.

In writing, it's a brief and familiar summary of the plot. For example, you might think all the Perry Mason books have the same trope- they all have Mason taking on some case that looks impossible, and then he pulls a rabbit out of the hat in the courtroom and wins the case. But that is more of the genre. Like "courtroom drama," or "police procedural," or "amateur sleuth."

Books with the same trope might be everything from Oliver Twist, Lord of the Flies, or the Harrison Ford movie Firewall, to The Boxcar Chldren, which are all the trope of the endangered child. However the first two are in the literary fiction genre, the movie would be a thriller, and the last is a children's mystery. A trope cuts across genres.

My general mysteries are all in the "amateur sleuth" category, technically the cozy mystery genre. (Side note... cozies have sort of slid off into talking cats, quilt shops and bakeries with female sleuths and a touch of romance. But what cozy classically means is that the violence and sex happen "off stage." They are not gory, steamy, or thrillers. So I don't like to call them cozies. I say they are "light traditional" or "classic who-dun-its.")

But what are the tropes of my books? I pose this question because I've been asking myself this for quite a while. People ask me what the books are about and I want to be able to give a swift and short answer for each. Today, I decided to get serious about nailing down the couple I hadn't yet identified.

News from Dead Mule Swamp is a "Cover-up." The cover-up trope involves hiding past illegal actions through deception, destruction of evidence, or conspiracy, often driven by fear of exposure, scandal, or protecting someone. News is a novella.

The Hollow Tree at Dead Mule Swamp is "the Endangered Chld." The endangered child trope involves placing a defenseless minor in immediate physical or emotional peril to raise stakes, evoke sympathy, or prompt heroic action. Hollow Tree is a short story.

Just FYI, the two are separate as ebooks, but are combined in one volume in paperback because they serve as a great intro to the whole series, introducing the characters and the location, even though they are not long, and thus not very complex.

Bury the Hatchet in Dead Mule Swamp. This one is "Revenge." Revenge is a driven, emotional response to injustice or harm, compelling characters down a path that often blurs the lines between right and wrong. It's one of the most common tropes in fiction. Hatchet and all the rest are full length novels- I finally got the knack of weaving in a subplot.

Dead Mule Swamp Druggist. This one has totally defied categorization. I struggle constantly to explain it to people in a couple of sentences. I just tried to look up some ideas. Maybe "Ambiguous Deaths?" - not exactly. Maybe "Connect the Deaths?" - I like this one better. Connect the deaths is where a series of seemingly unrelated murders or deaths are revealed to be connected by a pattern, such as forming a specific shape, timeline, or message. Although in my book, there are a series of seemingly related deaths and the question is "are they murders?" or "are they even related?" Hmmm. Did I actually come up with an original idea? I think I'll start calling it "Connect the Deaths."

Dead Mule Swamp Mistletoe. This one is clearly the "Closed Suspect Pool." This is the cornerstone of classic mysteries. It is defined by a scenario where a crime occurs within a restricted, isolated, or clearly defined group of people, ensuring the culprit is among them.

Dead Mule Swamp Singer. This may fit into two tropes with the main and sub-plots weaving in and out. But The murder is "A Stranger Comes to Town." This is another classic narrative where a mysterious outsider enters a community and forces change, exposes hidden truths, or resolves conflict. This visitor disrupts the status quo.

And- how about the one I'm working on- Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp? Well, the setting is unusual, but it's probably a straight up "Payback" which is simply a form of the revenge trope. Dang. I thought I was trying to make every story different. The setting- within a Live Action Role Playing game- makes it very different in some ways, but I guess the underlying theme is revenge.

And here's a reminder of the cover for the one I'm trying to finish.

Maybe I'll talk about covers another day. Had you noticed that I changed them all from the originals?

I was partly good and partly naughty today. I edited, I worked on the prayer shawl, I figured this stuff out, which counts as working on marketing. I gave in and ate chocolate and crackers while reading more than my usual rationed time. I may try to write a few actual words yet this evening.

I also started working on something else that is part of one of the goals I've had for the past several (many?) years, but MAYBE it will get moving again. Stay tuned.

See The Skeleton of a Plot