Elevate Your Story with Tropes and Universal Fantasy

Today's Episode, we learn how to elevate your story with the use of tropes and universal fantasy. These two story elements will have your readers coming back time and time again to your books.


Hightlights

- Use Tropes to help heighten your conflict in the story
- Universal Fantasies are not tropes with a predicable ending
- Goal, Motivation and Conflict are your super tools in writing

Resources Mentioned in the Show:
Trope Thesaurus: https://amzn.to/47AGYHE
7- Figure Fiction : https://amzn.to/3QwE8xh
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Transcript

Elevating Your Story with Tropes and Universal Fantasy

[00:00:00] Destiny: T. Taylor. It is seven figure fiction, and she talks a lot about these universal fantasies, which are not like trope. It takes Welcome to the Pen By Design podcast. I'm your humble host, Destiny Jordan. And here on this podcast, we delve into the craft of writing, publishing, and tips and strategies of being a creative entrepreneur.

[00:00:21] Destiny: So let's get started. What makes your story spicy and what makes it Well, that's all down to two things. Tropes and Universal Fantasies. Now, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are tropes? Well, we're going to use tropes that is defined by Jennifer Hilt. In this book right here, The Tropes of the Thesaurus. That's all this hard work for me.

[00:00:49] Destiny: The Thesaurus. And basically... Let's define really what a trope is. So a trope is a convention or device that establishes a predictable [00:01:00] representation of a character, setting, scenario, and a creative work. So things we already know. Think about soap operas. After a while, they get very predictable. You know what's gonna happen.

[00:01:13] Destiny: You know about the secret baby. You know about the head doctor. You date a younger nurse. All these are kind of common tropes. and common conventions that are used in the story to hide in conflict throughout the story. Now, what you don't want is for your writing to seem like a soap opera, where it's highly predictable, where readers can go and come back and still be semi right about what's happening in the story.

[00:01:40] Destiny: Usually, I get that when I'm watching movies, and then I don't want to watch the movie because I already know the ending. And let's not do that. However, a lot of tropes we already know, and some are fan favorites, my favorites exactly. Enemies to Lovers, that is my favorite one. And I would argue Beauty and the Beast is Enemies to [00:02:00] Lovers because they start off on a very rocky relationship and they end up being lovers at the end.

[00:02:06] Destiny: We have Love Triangles, that's with the Phantom and Opera, where you have the Phantom, Eric, you have Christine, and you have Raoul, and all trying to figure out who Christine will love in the end. You have Hunger Games, which has an element of Love Triangle in its tropes. You have Peeta, Katniss, and Gale.

[00:02:22] Destiny: Who will have Katniss love, either Peeta or Gale? Who? And you really want to know, by the end, who does Katniss fall in love with or give her heart away to? Amongst all the crazy Capital stuff. Then you have the oldie but goodie classic of Wuthering Heights, which also has Revenge the trope in there as well.

[00:02:41] Destiny: Then you have Orphan, which a lot of times you can, the most famous one is Harry Potter. That's the famous Orphan trope in that, among with others, but that's the most prominent one. Then we have the arranged marriage. Which can go good or bad. The secret baby's a trope where somehow, somewhere, a baby arrives [00:03:00] by some contrite backstory and you want to know where does this happen and how did this happen.

[00:03:06] Destiny: Twin stories, think about parent trap and the twins getting the parents back together. That's a common trope and convention where you know the twins are going to use their twin powers to Recreate some type of connection and reunion amongst themselves, usually they're parents or they're divorced or they've been separated and they're trying to get back together.

[00:03:26] Destiny: That's kind of the common conception when it comes to twin stories that most people know and they're expecting it. So they're just, they're not expecting your unique spin. So that's how you can use that trope. Then you have politics, which if you think of any type of White House movie, the biggest trope is screaming at you of politics.

[00:03:45] Destiny: Think of the movie White House Down, London Has Fallen, and Netflix The Night Agent, where all those, the biggest trope in that one, within other things, is the use of politics. Then you have a fish [00:04:00] out of water, just meaning someone is landing in someplace they don't know what to do. And this could be Nightmare Before Christmas, because Jack Skeleton goes from Halloween Town to Christmas town, and he doesn't know how to.

[00:04:14] Destiny: receive and experience this whole other environment. Then you have Mission Impossible, usually our main agent is thrown in some type of crazy situation where you have to figure out and navigate how to do the mission. Then you have School of Rock, where the great Jack Black, he is thrown into no longer being a rocker, being a school teacher at a private school, and he has a hard time with the students before they find their groove together.

[00:04:42] Destiny: So, The biggest thing with that, these tropes are common ideas, when you, I say these things, I explain some of the movies, you get an idea of what you expect to happen in the end. And that's what tropes are for. But you don't want it so predictable where you're, where your trope is like a soap opera to your readers, or, [00:05:00] and they're like, I know what's going to happen.

[00:05:02] Destiny: You really want to keep them on the edge by having something that's the same, but different because you're writing it. Then you have another thing about this other thing, Universal Fantasies. It's pretty new. And this is a wonderful resource right here by Theodore Taylor. It's a lot about these universal fantasies.

[00:05:19] Destiny: Which are not like trope. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to wrap your mind around what are universal fantasies. Because they sound similar to tropes, but they're not tropes. It's a different type of thinking. So, these are basically common concepts or situations people enjoy to read about. But it doesn't always translate to the real life, what they want.

[00:05:43] Destiny: And so where does this come from? Let me give you an example. Think of Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast is, has a lot of different universe fantasies by, here's one. So being forcibly removed from a horrible situation or a boring life to some, or [00:06:00] somewhere you don't fit in. So the beast takes Belle out of her horrible life and also the town she didn't fit into and brings them to a whole new environment.

[00:06:09] Destiny: Now, everyone likes to be forced into different situations, but in the book you're like, okay, cool, what's going to happen next? It gets you intrigued, and it's very different from actual life. Also in the Beauty and the Beast, you have the bad guy, or just, or the bully, that actually likes somebody, that likes the main character.

[00:06:27] Destiny: So now you're trying to figure out now you're invested because now the bad guy quote unquote Likes the main character and what is that? What are they gonna do about it? How are they going to win their love? How are they going to trial and error this relationship or budding relationship? And that's also area of intrigue.

[00:06:44] Destiny: You have servants that love to serve you This is actually a ideal or concept situation that everyone would love to be in. Like, you know, if you go to a hotel, you would like all the people from the bellboy all the way up to the managers to actually want to [00:07:00] serve you and not just, you know, not care about the service and having horrible customer service.

[00:07:05] Destiny: Everyone always dreams of having the most outstanding customer service and by people that actually want to serve and have a great time. So that's actually a really nice concept because we don't always get that in the real world. Think about sometimes a greeter at Walmart. There's a, they're not always the best of greeters.

[00:07:21] Destiny: Some are, but most are not. Then you also have the idea of a wounded heart is fixed by love. Everyone, most people love this idea that they just need love and it fixes everything. Now in the real world doesn't always translate to certain things, but in the book world you can make it and it's just a diehard fantasy and just.

[00:07:44] Destiny: A belief that we all want to believe that love fixes everything and it does Fixes everything no matter what. There's always something to love about it another example is Les Miserables, my favorite [00:08:00] One of my favorite plays. Now with Les Miserables you have these Multiple characters and multiple storylines going along with the French Revolution.

[00:08:08] Destiny: So one of these things that Lady Miserable has is a suffering main character, Jean Valjean. And he is a prisoner that escaped and he's shown kindness by a priest because he's suffering from thinking the world is a horrible place and is always out to get him. And so him, the kind of the priest, helps him to grow out of that and become a better man.

[00:08:30] Destiny: And also then from Jean Valjean we get Not Fontaine, but the mother of Colette, where she has a horrible life of being thrown away out of Jean Valjean's factory and becoming a night worker and eventually dying. So that, but then she's given her child to Jean Valjean to protect and to, to protect and help grow up into a wonderful lady and escape [00:09:00] poverty.

[00:09:01] Destiny: And so this brings another thing that Jean Valjean is devoted to the mission. We really all love to see someone who's devoted. There's nothing that can stop them from completing the mission. Like, that's why we watch Mission Impossible. Ethan, there's nothing, nothing in Ethan's way that's gonna stop him from doing these impossible missions.

[00:09:19] Destiny: And we're all tied into the movie because we want to see how will he do, how will he succeed or fail in this impossible mission. That's what we're looking for. And we want to know it to the end. It's a good, a good way to clip people in. The other one that also brings it to For such devotion, you will get a reward.

[00:09:39] Destiny: Now, Jean Valjean, he does end up dying in the end. Spoiler alert. However, he does complete his mission because he gets to see that his adoptive daughter, Cosette, is married and happy to a man that loves her. And that was his ultimate goal to his mission to her mother that died early on. So that is his reward for his great [00:10:00] devotion.

[00:10:02] Destiny: Now, on this one, we all like to hear that as well. Having been rewarded for being devoted to whatever our cause is. So one of these other One of these other type of universalist fantasies would also be opposite sides of the track Falling in Love. So it's not an easy one, it's Rich and Poor. They fall in love and but the conflict is how would those two sides let them fall in love?

[00:10:27] Destiny: What will pull them apart or put them together? That's a common concept, kind of fancy one to see play out. Also, there's the cold boss that is fixed by love That's usually a lot of billionaire romances where the bosses are very mean but usually a secretary or some type of employee or someone within their ecosystem is Penetrates right through them and they're fixed for the better Usually, a lot of holiday movies do that as well, where there are people who are grumpy and grouchy during the holidays, and they just meet the right person on Christmas [00:11:00] or near Christmas, and everything goes well.

[00:11:03] Destiny: Then you have the wild child, who gets the caregiver. Often, a step parent that never knew they needed. That's always really cool. That's usually done with the nanny. Think about, actually, the TV show, Ben and Annie, and Fran, and the children, and Mr. Belmont, and all their crazy adventures, but she ultimately is the step parent that the children actually needed, and it's also great for the family, but that's a great show as well.

[00:11:28] Destiny: And also, just retelling fairy tales, having a story that has a backbone of a fairy tale, but it has a unique spin on it, it's always something about the universe of fantasy. So think of your, your spin on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. That can be, everyone likes to just pick out fairy tales and pick out what they know.

[00:11:46] Destiny: These universal fantasies are things that people we know exactly, are familiar with, but we're just not sure how it will end. Not, different from a trope, because tropes are predictable. They know they're going to have a certain beginning, [00:12:00] middle, and end. This is what your own spin on it, where universal fantasies.

[00:12:04] Destiny: Or just slightly situations that will intrigue the reader to keep on reading because like what will happen to this situation that doesn't have a predictable ending. So all these ways you can spice up your story by, spice up your story after you've made your outline. Different tropes you want to add in, how does that add into conflict.

[00:12:25] Destiny: Because all these tropes in Universal Fantasies are about how do they create conflict for your characters in your story. Now this one right here is about the butter, and you're making it flavorful by these different type of situations that your character are in or a part of, and how does that add to their personality or to their motivation, whereas tropes are common.

[00:12:51] Destiny: It's a game about the endings of conventions. It's up to you about how you spin them and how you make this more conflict for your character. [00:13:00] And there you have it. These are the ways you can spice up your outline as you're delving into it. You can add different types of tropes. See what tropes are good for your story.

[00:13:09] Destiny: for your genre, and really add some butter. Add these different fantasies and concepts to your story that give more conflict, that just make it juicy and more intense for the readers, and just delve into it without even wanting to put it down. So if you found this video helpful, make sure you hit the notification bell so you never miss a new video.

[00:13:29] Destiny: And if you want more tips and tools for authors, download the free ebook down below to join the list. And thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video. Now how after you've, so after you've made your story all types of wonderful and spicy, how do you get to write your story? Now that's another question, and I'll answer that in the next video.[00:14:00]