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Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

strangehorizons.com

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Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#21

Post by rdlw »

derbOac wrote: post #13
kej wrote: post #12

As an aside, I really like the disclaimer's approach, kind of like the Disney+ messages on certain movies, where they say they don't necessarily agree with something but still present it in the original form.

To me, it was a little disconcerting, like "we've stopped receiving these things too much, people got the message, and now we're receiving other things too much, but aren't going to update this to tell you what they are, and are leaving it for posterity." Maybe there aren't new overdone stories, people see the list and stop. But that seems unlikely to me. In either case, it would be nice if there was a list that was…

It's just an old list some editors put together for fun, there's no requirement to regularly update something you made a decade ago. If anything, I'd say there's an obligation to keep the original text available as long as you're maintaining the website. I don't find any of this disconcerting.

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#22

Post by ivraatiems »

If you're reading this and thinking "aw damn, my idea is cliche, I'll never get something published!" or similar, don't worry too much.

Once you subtract the ones that are either just straight-up wish fulfillment, or otherwise reliant on racist/sexist/ageist stereotypes, a lot of the ideas listed here are still perfectly good ideas for a story. They'd be more than "original" enough to drive an episode of Black Mirror or the plot of a mainstream blockbuster movie - areas where originality isn't as important as executing the concept in a way that has market appeal (and is hopefully also high quality).

The issue is more just that the audience for these stories are the editors of a speculative fiction magazine, and readers of that same relatively niche speculative fiction magazine. That is, people who spend a lot of time reading fiction. They, in particular, have seen all this stuff before. After a while, if your whole job is reading stories, of course you're going to get tired of even very good stories about things you've seen a hundred times before.

There's plenty of other places to submit to. If you have confidence in your work and you think your story is worth people reading, but this list suggests these particular editors won't like it... just send it somewhere else.

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#23

Post by permo-w »

ilyt wrote: post #6

To be entirely fair > Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject. This is very real plot that even got some people Nobel prize https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2005/press-releas... Interview with some details https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLA69a5OOU

also surely “scientist experiments on themselves” is far too broad to dismiss out of hand

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#24

Post by robotresearcher »

thriftwy wrote: post #11

My least favourite story is "A lot of things happened to the protagonist and the world around him, but in the end everything is exactly like it was before all that". Homer is dead, we live in linear time, can we please please have some progress for a change? A notorious offender is Terry Pratchett's Discworld. When the world needs to change, it happens between the books. In any book, you know you will end up with the…

You’re forgetting the books specifically about the development of the post office and the railways at least.

Edit: and the police, and the telegraph

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#25

Post by smnrchrds »

> 10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.

> a. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.

> b. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.

This one seems appealing. Are there any good books with this theme?

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#26

Post by thriftwy »

NeoTar wrote: post #20
thriftwy wrote: post #11

My least favourite story is "A lot of things happened to the protagonist and the world around him, but in the end everything is exactly like it was before all that". Homer is dead, we live in linear time, can we please please have some progress for a change? A notorious offender is Terry Pratchett's Discworld. When the world needs to change, it happens between the books. In any book, you know you will end up with the…

Are there any specific discworld books you’d like to highlight? Some certainly fit into that pattern (I’m thinking specifically Soul Music and Moving Pictures) but things do evolve in the interconnected series. Especially considering the later ‘Industrial Revolution’ stories - the Truth, Going Postal, Making Money all made some incremental changes to Ankh Morpork. The last (and sadly one of the worst) books Raising S…

Equal Rites, these Rock and Opera books, one with the dragon, etc...

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#27

Post by thriftwy »

cableshaft wrote: post #18
thriftwy wrote: post #11

My least favourite story is "A lot of things happened to the protagonist and the world around him, but in the end everything is exactly like it was before all that". Homer is dead, we live in linear time, can we please please have some progress for a change? A notorious offender is Terry Pratchett's Discworld. When the world needs to change, it happens between the books. In any book, you know you will end up with the…

Sounds like pretty much every Coen Brothers movie to me, at least so far as the world not changing at the end. Isn't that the case for most people, that they don't end up changing the world or society around them? At best maybe they helped open a hole in the dike for water to seep through for future generations. Obviously that's not the case for superhero or chosen one stories, but true for most people in life.

Then go with a simple plot, with no bombast and no world in danger.

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#28

Post by the_af »

permo-w wrote: post #23
ilyt wrote: post #6

To be entirely fair > Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject. This is very real plot that even got some people Nobel prize https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2005/press-releas... Interview with some details https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLA69a5OOU

also surely “scientist experiments on themselves” is far too broad to dismiss out of hand

I don't think any in the list are dismissals. If you remove every item, you're left with nothing that can be said about anything in scifi. The items also include plots used by acknowledged authors in celebrated stories.

This is like TV Tropes: a trope is neither good nor bad, it just is. It can be overused, it can be subverted, it can be played straight or played with, but the one thing you cannot do: avoid tropes entirely.

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#29

Post by the_af »

abruzzi wrote: post #5

The amusing thing is how many of the items on their list bring to mind a great short story, or a great novel, or movie. Point being that many of them CAN be good, but usually aren't.

Almost all in the list can be used in good stories. And have been used, in fact.

This is a list of tropes. Tropes are neither good or bad, they just are (well, some tropes are obviously bad or outdated, but you get my meaning).

Might as well claim that using words in text is bad.

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#30

Post by gregmac »

Something that stuck out to me was a side-note:

> Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action.

This, to me, is probably the biggest thing that makes me hate a story:

The character is faced with a situation and reacts in a way contrary to the way we'd expect them to act based on what we've seen so far. It soon becomes obvious they made that decision only to move the plot to a specific ending or scene.

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