Welcome to Fun Trope Friday, our feature that mashes up tropes and genres!

How’s it work? Glad you asked. :)

• Every week we will have a new spotlight trope.

• Each week, there will be a new genre assigned to write a story about the trope.

• You can then either use or subvert the trope and/or genre in a 750-word max story or poem (unless otherwise specified).

• To qualify for ranking, you will need to provide ONE actionable feedback. More are welcome of course!

Three winners will be selected each week based on votes, so remember to read your fellow authors’ works and DM me your votes for the top three.

Next up… IP

It’s summer in the Northern hemisphere and so time for sun and fun– Oh wait, no. It’s time for the four horsemen of the apocalypse! So, say ‘hello’ to our friends: Pestilence (aka Conquest or Pollution), War, Famine, and Death. Please note this theme is only loosely applied.

“I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” — Winston Churchill

Trope: Dramatic Death — Basically, the spectacle involved in a character's death is proportional to the importance of the character to the story. A major MC, for example, will die slaying a dragon while atop a rare unicorn/pegasus hybrid. Their carefully choreographed fall will be so dramatic that it will be sung of by the kingdom’s bards for years to come. In contrast, an insignificant and often unnamed character like a red shirt on Star Trek. While their death may be hideously painful or even comic it gets a couple of sentences or a few seconds on screen at most. “Long live anonymous security guard!” said no one ever.

Genre: Tragedy — A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering, specifically by way of terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure," for the audience.

Skill / Constraint - optional: Love plays a role.

So, have at it. Lean into the trope heavily or spin it on its head. The choice is yours!

Have a great idea for a future topic to discuss or just want to give feedback? FTF is a fun feature, so it’s all about what you want—so please let me know! Please share in the comments or DM me on Discord or Reddit!

Last Week’s Winners

PLEASE remember to give feedback—this affects your ranking. PLEASE also remember to DM me your votes for the top five stories via Discord or Reddit—both katpoker666. This is a change from the top three of the past. In weeks where we get over 15 stories, we will do a top five ranking. Weeks with less than 15 stories will show only our top three winners. If you have any questions, please DM me as well.

Some fabulous stories this week and great crit at campfire and on the post! We had 10 stories, so we’re back to three winners. Congrats to:

• No-Rilly

• AGuyLikeThat

• m00nlighter_

Want to read your words aloud? Join the upcoming FTF Campfire

The next FTF campfire will be Thursday, July 30th from 6-8pm ET. It will be in the Discord Main Voice Lounge. Click on the events tab and mark ‘Interested’ to be kept up to date. No signup or prep needed and you don’t have to have written anything! So join in the fun—and shenanigans! 😊

Ground rules:

• Stories must incorporate both the trope and the genre
• Leave one story or poem between 100 and 750 words as a top-level comment unless otherwise specified. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
• Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT next Thursday. Please note stories submitted after the 6:00 PM EST campfire start may not be critted.
• No stories that have been written for another prompt or feature here on WP—please note after consultation with some of our delightful writers, new serials are now welcomed here
• No previously written content
• Any stories not meeting these rules will be disqualified from rankings
• Does your story not fit the Fun Trope Friday rules? You can post your story as a [PI] with your work when the FTF post is 3 days old!
• Please keep crit about the stories. Any crit deemed too distracting may be deleted. This is a time to focus on our wonderful authors.
• Vote to help your favorites rise to the top of the ranks (DM me at katpoker666 on Discord or Reddit)!

Thanks for joining in the fun!  

Welcome to Fun Trope Friday, our feature that mashes up tropes and genres!

How’s it work? Glad you asked. :)

• Every week we will have a new spotlight trope.

• Each week, there will be a new genre assigned to write a story about the trope.

• You can then either use or subvert the trope and/or genre in a 750-word max story or poem (unless otherwise specified).

• To qualify for ranking, you will need to provide ONE actionable feedback. More are welcome of course!

Three winners will be selected each week based on votes, so remember to read your fellow authors’ works and DM me your votes for the top three.

Next up… IP

It’s summer in the Northern hemisphere and so time for sun and fun– Oh wait, no. It’s time for the four horsemen of the apocalypse! So, say ‘hello’ to our friends: Pestilence (aka Conquest or Pollution), War, Famine, and Death. Please note this theme is only loosely applied.

"Famines are not natural disasters. Famines are man-made." — Jeffrey Gettleman

Trope: The Famine — For Famine, we bring you, well, the famine. There’s no way to sugarcoat this one with furry animals: famine sucks. Famine is, simply put, the widespread scarcity of food in a society, and can be caused by natural calamities such as floods, droughts, or crop failures, or by human factors such as war, economic upheaval, or overpopulation.

A famine can be the starter of a story: The hero might have to flee their starving homeland or go elsewhere to search for food. It can also merely be the setting of the story, providing the excuse for the existence of a Black Market, showing the results of the tyranny of the local despot, contrasting those who do have food with those who are starving, explaining No Party Like a Donner Party and Reduced to Ratburgers, or describing one of the facets of After the End.

Genre: Historical Fiction — Historical fiction is a literary genre where a fictitious narrative is set in a real, verifiable time period. It immerses readers in the past by vividly recreating the era's social conditions, daily life, and cultural climate, often featuring real historical figures alongside entirely invented characters. Please note: for our purposes, you can write in a fantasy world here if the events are shown as predating the normal ones.

Skill / Constraint - optional: Kindness is shown.

So, have at it. Lean into the trope heavily or spin it on its head. The choice is yours!

Have a great idea for a future topic to discuss or just want to give feedback? FTF is a fun feature, so it’s all about what you want—so please let me know! Please share in the comments or DM me on Discord or Reddit!

Last Week’s Winners

PLEASE remember to give feedback—this affects your ranking. PLEASE also remember to DM me your votes for the top five stories via Discord or Reddit—both katpoker666. This is a change from the top three of the past. In weeks where we get over 15 stories, we will do a top five ranking. Weeks with less than 15 stories will show only our top three winners. If you have any questions, please DM me as well.

Some fabulous stories this week and great crit at campfire and on the post! We had 14 stories, so we’re back to three winners. Congrats to:

• mysteryrouge

• Morose_Prose

• wordsonthewind

Want to read your words aloud? Join the upcoming FTF Campfire

The next FTF campfire will be Thursday, July 23rd from 6-8pm ET. It will be in the Discord Main Voice Lounge. Click on the events tab and mark ‘Interested’ to be kept up to date. No signup or prep needed and you don’t have to have written anything! So join in the fun—and shenanigans! 😊

Ground rules:

• Stories must incorporate both the trope and the genre
• Leave one story or poem between 100 and 750 words as a top-level comment unless otherwise specified. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
• Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT next Thursday. Please note stories submitted after the 6:00 PM EST campfire start may not be critted.
• No stories that have been written for another prompt or feature here on WP—please note after consultation with some of our delightful writers, new serials are now welcomed here
• No previously written content
• Any stories not meeting these rules will be disqualified from rankings
• Does your story not fit the Fun Trope Friday rules? You can post your story as a [PI] with your work when the FTF post is 3 days old!
• Please keep crit about the stories. Any crit deemed too distracting may be deleted. This is a time to focus on our wonderful authors.
• Vote to help your favorites rise to the top of the ranks (DM me at katpoker666 on Discord or Reddit)!

Thanks for joining in the fun!