And How Many of these Literary Fiction Tropes Do You Use?

This little checklist, on Electric Lit, caught my eye: Who Needs an MFA When You Have This Literary Fiction Trope Checklist?

As a non-MFA writer of literary fiction (and one whose first story was published before quite a few of today's adults were even born--yes, I'm admitting to being ancient, as I have a big birthday coming up), I could not resist taking a look. The 25 tropes are amusing in their way. The author suggests that if one can manage to cram all 25 into one story, one might even snag a Pulitzer.

Aha, now we know why I have not yet won a Pulitzer for the fiction that has been appearing in various little magazines over the past few decades!

I am pretty sure that the only one of these tropes that I have ever perpetrated was #10, "Woman who looks good without trying compared to female protagonist who looks bad despite trying." I feel mildly guilty at having ever included such a thing--why couldn't I have done #21, "Dogs bark in distance," instead? But I know I do have one instance of #10 in one of the close-to-done novels and I am not taking it out, because it's very brief and I think it works.

Oh, and I may possibly have used #22, "Upset character barfs," in a story I wrote during my freshman year of college. I kind of think I did, because I had a good friend who barfed when upset and I found that strange and evocative back then.

It's also true that I've had characters look out the window relatively early in the story (#2, "Starts with character looking out of window, describing scenery"), but not immediately upon waking (#1, "Starts with character waking up"). Perhaps I'm closer to Pulitzer-dom than I had thought.

Still, I just can't see myself ever using #16, "Villain who is kind to pet." My stories just don't really go in for villains, other than one I wrote at the age of 11 which involved a hyper-lustful nobleman in an imaginary world. The number of times Lord Evil managed to rape the Angry and Plucky Protagonist alongside the road in a short period of time made clear that the story was decidedly set in another world. I don't recall him being cruel to his horse, but I doubt he was kind to pets beyond making sure that the horse was properly maintained for jousting and such.

#15, "White savior," is also not likely to happen in my fiction unless we interpret this fairly broadly. I mean, I'm not likely to employ a "Black savior," a "Brown savior," or a "Yellow" or "Red savior" either. Saviors just aren't my kind of fictional trope. Well, apart from that one of my protagonists mentioned Warner Sallman's much-reproduced painting Christ at Heart's Door as a common household ornament. If you are my relative and are reading this, I am sure you know this work well, whether or not you know its name or artist.

Finally, #3, "Protagonist is writer with writer’s block," is very unlikely to crop up in my fiction. I admit that I should try to make my protagonists less like myself (and some of them certainly are strongly unlike me), but the only time I had a serious case of writer's block, I cured it by starting a different writing project. So all right, as a result of doing that I lost Agent #2 because I never finished the book I'd become blocked on, but win some, lose some. I just don't have much desire to write about protagonists who have writer's block. (Other characters with writer's block, perhaps. Minor characters. Not protagonists.)

And now we can see why I am not headed for a Pulitzer, and apparently also why I am not yet a household name among the North American literati.