In the years since Wikipedia soundly replaced the Encyclopedia Britannica as the world's go-to reference resource (or perhaps it merely shares that role with Google?), I don't think there's an internet literate person alive who hasn't lost an afternoon to its bottomless links: entries that link to other entries that link to other entries, ad infinium, each offering another tender morsel of trivial information that is just tangentially related enough to your original search term to be of interest. This sort of linking by relationship is the way in which we store and categorize information intuitively, so it should perhaps come as no surprise that reading wiki entries in this manner should be so appealing - and often times downright addictive. I'll readily admit to losing several hours at a span to bottomless linking - though I inevitably emerged from the experience well edified in some facet of minutiae.
TVTropes.org could be quickly labeled a Wikipedia for the creative media obsessed, and such a label wouldn't be entirely wrong. The bottomless linking is, if anything, even more pervasive and potentially addictive, as the premise of TVTropes is to identify and flag the various "tropes" - referring not so much to turns of phrase as to the fictive archetypes that can be repetitively found in narrative works. Those tropes form the core structure of the wiki, although specific creative works, if popular enough, also often have a page of their own listing the tropes that they employ. The result makes ping ponging between tropes, works, and everything in between (some well-known actors/creators have their own TVTropes page) ridiculously easy . . . and maddeningly addictive.
I burned through much of the weekend jumping from page to page on TVTropes, performing a RAM balancing act with my browser, the tabs of which tend to expand exponentially while you're jumping from link to link. Although my initial reaction to realizing how much time I'd sunk into it was dismay and a profound sense of waste - admittedly, both being my default reaction to anything not creative (and, on off days, toward the creative process too!) - I think there may be something worthwhile to the exercise.
One important step in becoming an effective creator is to familiarize yourself with the genre(s) in which you want to create. Stephen King and Orson Scott Card have urged would-be authors to read voraciously, even (and sometimes especially) outside the confines of genre. One rationale is that only by exposure to other works can you hope to identify (and avoid) the stereotypes that would get your work dismissed out of hand by readers. Another is that you can't hope to bowl over another person with the power of your words until someone else has done it to you.
To a certain extent, then, TVTropes is like a crib sheet of all the stereotypes in the creative world. But, as one of the most linked pages will tell you, Tropes are Just Tools, devoid of intrinsic goodness or badness. It's the one who uses them - the creator - who imbues a value of goodness or badness in their use, depending on how and where it is executed. To a certain extent - and like stereotypes - tropes as used in TVTropes are necessary building blocks of creation. They are the narrative touchstones that must inevitably be invoked in order for creators to do what they do. In that way, they are a manifestation of that old axiom that there is nothing new under the sun. The unsaid addendum to that axiom is that there are, nonetheless, innumerable new and innovative ways to handle all sun-worn subjects. This contention underlies TVTropes' entire enterprise, and makes it a worthwhile resource for those seeking to eke out their own space in the creative universe.
TVTropes.org could be quickly labeled a Wikipedia for the creative media obsessed, and such a label wouldn't be entirely wrong. The bottomless linking is, if anything, even more pervasive and potentially addictive, as the premise of TVTropes is to identify and flag the various "tropes" - referring not so much to turns of phrase as to the fictive archetypes that can be repetitively found in narrative works. Those tropes form the core structure of the wiki, although specific creative works, if popular enough, also often have a page of their own listing the tropes that they employ. The result makes ping ponging between tropes, works, and everything in between (some well-known actors/creators have their own TVTropes page) ridiculously easy . . . and maddeningly addictive.
I burned through much of the weekend jumping from page to page on TVTropes, performing a RAM balancing act with my browser, the tabs of which tend to expand exponentially while you're jumping from link to link. Although my initial reaction to realizing how much time I'd sunk into it was dismay and a profound sense of waste - admittedly, both being my default reaction to anything not creative (and, on off days, toward the creative process too!) - I think there may be something worthwhile to the exercise.
One important step in becoming an effective creator is to familiarize yourself with the genre(s) in which you want to create. Stephen King and Orson Scott Card have urged would-be authors to read voraciously, even (and sometimes especially) outside the confines of genre. One rationale is that only by exposure to other works can you hope to identify (and avoid) the stereotypes that would get your work dismissed out of hand by readers. Another is that you can't hope to bowl over another person with the power of your words until someone else has done it to you.
To a certain extent, then, TVTropes is like a crib sheet of all the stereotypes in the creative world. But, as one of the most linked pages will tell you, Tropes are Just Tools, devoid of intrinsic goodness or badness. It's the one who uses them - the creator - who imbues a value of goodness or badness in their use, depending on how and where it is executed. To a certain extent - and like stereotypes - tropes as used in TVTropes are necessary building blocks of creation. They are the narrative touchstones that must inevitably be invoked in order for creators to do what they do. In that way, they are a manifestation of that old axiom that there is nothing new under the sun. The unsaid addendum to that axiom is that there are, nonetheless, innumerable new and innovative ways to handle all sun-worn subjects. This contention underlies TVTropes' entire enterprise, and makes it a worthwhile resource for those seeking to eke out their own space in the creative universe.
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