User blog:William See/Cliche vs Trope: Big Diff?

We like to throw the phrase “cliche” around here on site, but I think sometimes many Do not know what it means, occasionally targeting legitimate narrative techniques as cliches.

A TROPE is a utilitarian and artistic tool for writers. They are forms of expression, syntax, idea and metaphor that bind a story together. Whether its describing a dynamic between two characters or a very specific event with outcomes.

The more a trope is used, the more it becomes ‘cliche-like’. A CLICHE is a trope thats indicative of the genre its being used in, a formulaic trope. At its worst, it means something is so unoriginal and formulaic it fails to retain the original meaning or impact, to the point of tedium.

For example, a common trope of the zombie genre may be characters who are bit and try to hide the wound (“Infectee”...trope). Is it cliche? It might be, depending on how often you see it in the genre. What might be cliche is for example, a zombie story where the zombies actively say “braaaaaaains”. At least when zombies were becoming more mainstream this was definitely the case. Time and culture can also affect how severe a cliche is.

While a majority of any given idea have already been done to death (regardless of whether weve discovered these ideas), there are an infinite number of ways one can combine tropes into a totally unique experience.

I highly recommend using the site http://www.Tvtropes.org. Its an incredibly useful site detailing a variety of tropes and analyzing how they are used. They can be implemented into your stories to help bring cohesion, authenticity and believability to a story.