What do our favorite tropes mean?

[AG31]

Very late in the game I realized that I had a favorite trope. The story doesn't have to be written well at all (although if it's written too badly I don't read it). I used it in two of my own stories and am happy to find it used in other people's, although that's pretty rare. The trope is that a soldier or nobleman is captured and becomes a sex slave, usually the "master" environment is male dominated, but not always. It's meaning for me is whatever I'm talking about when I insert "dignity" or "self acceptance" into blurbs about submission or surrender. It's awkward. Is there a short hand term for the kind of story I refer to here? What do these kinds of stories mean to me? It's a constant question.

A trope isn't "tired" for the person who responds to it. Do you have tropes that you respond to?

I'll make a stab it figuring out what someone else's trope may mean to him.

Tropes are handy short cuts. The trick is to know your own, those themes that you repeat in your own stories.

If you do that right, I like to think readers will say, "Ah, that's typical EB, I feel right at home now." Usually, in my case, there's a café with a passing observation of the waitress (my MC always knows her); often there's a mention of a gentle breeze or a band of sunlight, then undivided attention to the woman.

The cafe represents potential intimacy. Familiarity is the name of the game when two strangers connect. The breeze and sunlight are evocative of fertile memories.

Can any of you help me with my trope?

 

[Dearelliot]

A healthy strong submissive male dominated by a smaller, strong minded, sexually sadistic woman.

 

[AG31]

A healthy strong submissive male dominated by a smaller, strong minded, sexually sadistic woman.

I guess I'd better edit my OP. Usually in these stories the dominant person is another male soldier or nobleman. Here I go. Thanks!

 

[VallesMarineris]

Do you have tropes that you respond to?

I have to acknowledge this trope that I have:

A brilliant, very nerdy young woman discovers that sex is as awesome as STEM. She pursues this new avenue of research with the same enthusiasm and creativity that she applies to her technical projects.

There's also the alternative trope of the nerdy young man who discovers that some women are sapiosexuals, or can be persuaded toward that predilection.

I write other stuff, but together those tropes make up about half my stories.

 

[bestkeptsecret678]

As a reader and as a writer, mine’s simple: hooking up while traveling somewhere.

There’s the adventure aspect of being somewhere new, and of course the mystery of sex for the first time w a new and unknown partner.

Maybe it’s also the close and totally plausible intersection with my own travel in RL.

 

[MillieDynamite]

In the American version of the book Dracula, Dracula feeds on Harker. In the English version, he doesn't. The reason was that the English wouldn't accept a male raping another male, but they believed Americans would. One man dominating another has a subtext of forced homosexuality. You can read into what you will AG31, but that's what I read for you. There is, for you, some inherent interest in forced homosexuality.

I have to acknowledge this trope that I have:

A brilliant, very nerdy young woman discovers that sex is as awesome as STEM. She pursues this new avenue of research with the same enthusiasm and creativity that she applies to her technical projects.

There's also the alternative trope of the nerdy young man who discovers that some women are sapiosexuals, or can be persuaded toward that predilection.

I write other stuff, but together those tropes make up about half my stories.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'll make a stab it figuring out what someone else's trope may mean to him.

The cafe represents potential intimacy. Familiarity is the name of the game when two strangers connect. The breeze and sunlight are evocative of fertile memories.

Can any of you help me with my trope?

I don't agree that a trope has to have "meaning" as such. My cafes are a convenient location, I find them easy to write for scene setting because I know the little details that add colour - what I call grace notes.

Other than that, they're a setting, not some deep psychological place.

And despite the new setting it was classic electricblue. Only you could evoke a crowded café scene in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.

Similarly, long hair. I have a thing for women with long hair. Granted, this one could have a deeper personal resonance, because the girl I lost my virginity with could sit on her hair, it was so long. But even so, it's obvious, conscious, not sub-conscious Freudian.

It would be different if someone said, "Do you know, you often/always use that particular image," and you didn't know. Then it could be said there's something subconscious going on, that there's some deeper meaning.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

[PennyThompson]

I've only been writing erotica for a few months, so just one incomplete series and a variety of standalone shorts, so not a large sample size...

But I think my trope is probably characters who are innocent or naive, but enthusiastically sexual and/or unexpectedly sexually competent

As for what that says about me...?

 

[gunhilltrain]

Very late in the game I realized that I had a favorite trope. The story doesn't have to be written well at all (although if it's written too badly I don't read it). I used it in two of my own stories and am happy to find it used in other people's, although that's pretty rare. The trope is that a soldier or nobleman is captured and becomes a sex slave, usually the "master" environment is male dominated, but not always. It's meaning for me is whatever I'm talking about when I insert "dignity" or "self acceptance" into blurbs about submission or surrender. It's awkward. Is there a short hand term for the kind of story I refer to here? What do these kinds of stories mean to me? It's a constant question.

A trope isn't "tired" for the person who responds to it. Do you have tropes that you respond to?

I'll make a stab it figuring out what someone else's trope may mean to him.



The cafe represents potential intimacy. Familiarity is the name of the game when two strangers connect. The breeze and sunlight are evocative of fertile memories.

Can any of you help me with my trope?

For your two stories, do you have a particular time and place that these are taking place? The term "nobleman" seems to go with the nineteenth century or earlier. Also, there must be a war going on. A real one or or a fictional one?

I didn't realize it, but I seem to have a trope going that I barely noticed before. Let me discuss that separately.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I didn't realize it, but I seem to have a trope going that I barely noticed before. Let me discuss that separately.

You didn't notice trains and underground tunnels? Paging Dr Freud, you have a new patient .

 

[MillieDynamite]

I often use a dominant woman and a submissive male in my stories. My women are frequently cruel (a reversal from true life for me, though my adoptive father was never cruel to anyone). I enjoy writing and reading about dominant women. It's my thing, my trope, my go-to get-er done.

 

[AwkwardMD]

 

[AwkwardMD]

Being a perpetual underdog affects how you look at everything.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I didn't really notice this, but I've got several stories that are about an older woman who is divorced or dissatisfied with her marriage. Almost by accident, she'll get involved with a younger man. They may start by playing roles were she is arrogant and has a dominatrix fetish. Then it turns out that, although the fetish was real, she was faking the rest of her personality and is quite cordial, even affectionate towards the young man.

These two are narrated by the woman:

https://classic.literotica.com/s/trucker-mom-1 (An anomaly perhaps; no true kinkiness in that one, I guess. Well, it is her stepson!)

https://classic.literotica.com/s/ellie-and-joshs-kinky-adventure

These two older stories are narrated by the young man.

https://classic.literotica.com/s/season-s-greetings (A professor and her male student.)

https://classic.literotica.com/s/mrs-sykess-last-brooklyn-exit (A woman and her limo service driver.)

 

[AwkwardMD]

Also, one time a friend pointed out how a bunch of my early stories featured an older woman who was impossible to impress, or whose approval was difficult to gain, and I realized with great pain that I was writing about my mom.

Yikes.

 

[AG31]

For your two stories, do you have a particular time and place that these are taking place? The term "nobleman" seems to go with the nineteenth century or earlier. Also, there must be a war going on. A real one or or a fictional one?

One takes place in the modern era during an unspecified war in an unspecified country. The other takes place wherever and whenever The Outlander takes place. It's a take off from one of the scenes in that book.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Forbidden relationships and age gaps. The teacher-student dynamic is one that I love, and I love it the most when one party takes the role of mentoring the other party. Plus, slutty schoolgirls are always fun to write about.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-school-nurses-punishment

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-mysterious-teachers-punishment

https://www.literotica.com/s/i-bargained-way-too-much

https://www.literotica.com/s/homework-is-due-make-a-porn

They don't mean anything to me though. I'm just doing the "write what you know" thing here due to my background as a teacher, and a former cam girl. If anything I just made fun fantasies, and I did have a lot of fun writing each example.

 

[bestkeptsecret678]

I've only been writing erotica for a few months, so just one incomplete series and a variety of standalone shorts, so not a large sample size...

But I think my trope is probably characters who are innocent or naive, but enthusiastically sexual and/or unexpectedly sexually competent

As for what that says about me...?

Ya know, they say Literature is the mirror of life… but just whose life is up to you.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

Love the good ol’ trope of a woman slinking off in the middle of the night, the man realizing something is off when he wakes, then makes his way to figure out her whereabouts.

What’s it mean to me? Not sure. But I enjoy reading how an author describes the thrill of insinuation, then journey to discovery, then realization.

 

[VallesMarineris]

My cafes are a convenient location

Yeah, just that. My characters tend to get it on in front hallways just as the door closes. I don't have a trope about hallways. They just want to get it on and don't want to wait for me to describe their trek to the bedroom.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yeah, just that. My characters tend to get it on in front hallways just as the door closes. I don't have a trope about hallways. They just want to get it on and don't want to wait for me to describe their trek to the bedroom.

Also, there'll be a little table by the door to put their car keys on, so they're easy to find in the morning.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Ya know, they say Literature is the mirror of life… but just whose life is up to you.

Or as that quote goes in Portnoy's Compliant: "With a life like mine, who needs dreams?"

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Business women (executives) getting their slut on, usually as a way to shake off the day.

 

[gunhilltrain]

You didn't notice trains and underground tunnels? Paging Dr Freud, you have a new patient .

You get a better view above ground. Even Sigmund understood that.

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2DA345R/new-york-elevated-railway-victorian-period-2DA345R.jpg

 

[Belegon]

I don't know it's common enough to be a "trope", but when I write a threesome it seems like it always follows the same basic plan. One half of the couple has a friend who's interested and they plot out a way to make it happen (for me it's usually, but not always, FFM and the plotters are the two women) while the other (male) member of the couple is not aware until it's "sprung" on him. I know why I write these, it's because I have personal experience that plays into that situation...but it's a trope at least in my catalog, seeing as I have multiple examples of it in approximately fifty published works.