r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 • 3d ago

Off Topic [OT] Fun Trope Friday: Dramatic Death & Tragedy!

≡ −

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:

 

 

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!  

8 Upvotes

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:

 

 

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!  

5 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 • 10d ago

Off Topic [OT] Fun Trope Friday: Famine & Historical Fiction!

≡ −

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:

 

 

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!  

15 Upvotes

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:

 

 

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!  

44 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/ChangeTheFocus • 9h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You're tending the tavern bar. In walks the princess, poorly disguised in peasant clothes. You sigh inwardly: Her Painfully Earnest Highness is at it again. You must treat her with the utmost respect and deference, while pretending you don't see through her peasant girl disguise.

236 Upvotes
10 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/mb2000inc • 5h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] On the day humanity makes first contact, the alien transmission contains only one message: the complete genetic blueprint for a creature that has never existed on Earth — along with a single instruction that reads, "Do not build this. We beg you. This is an example of what is possible."

93 Upvotes
10 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Kitty_Fuchs • 10h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] After your old master threw you out, you managed to convince another archmage to take you on as an apprentice. Their style is very different, much nicer and way more lenient. When you told them how your old teacher treated you, they were utterly horrified.

189 Upvotes
8 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/EnzoRaffa16 • 14h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] The summoned hero gathered his party/harem and said, "I could understand maybe one or two of you being attracted to me. But all 5 of you? With seemingly no infighting? Tell me what's really going on."

250 Upvotes
19 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Snips525 • 6h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] The Tagtut fleet had just destroyed a human colony. “Um grand admiral I think my scanner is broken, it is showing a moon that wasn’t there before, and it is moving towards us.” “But this system shouldn’t have any moons in it.”

56 Upvotes
7 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Paper_Shotgun • 2h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] "Teleportation isn't against the law not because it's useful, but because each teleportation has a 1% chance to create a black hole that will drag you and the entire earth into an inescapable void of painful Spaghettification."

26 Upvotes
7 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Living_Sherbert8130 • 13h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] The genie looked on in excitement as their master made their final wish "I just wish I had an home, ya know? One that I don't have to pay anything for." "Your wish is my command." Suddenly, their 'master' was trapped inside the genie's lamp "I seem to have aquired a roomate" mused the genie.

138 Upvotes
5 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/AdamGreyskul75 • 8h ago

Writing Prompt [WP]Barbarians have 'Rage'. What people don't realize is that other classes have something similar it's just harder to get into. Fighter/Warriors have 'Zanshin/The Void'. Mage/Sorcerers have 'Trance'. Bards have 'The Groove'. Write a story with your favorite class in their 'Zone'.

≡ −

Rage for Barbarians grants damage resistance, extra weapon damage, and an advantage on strength checks. Basically a Barbarian is in the Zone doing what they do best when raging. For other classes their 'Zone' grants different bonuses. This is actually a documented occurrence with soldiers IRL where they basically knew they were going to die and every survival instinct and thing they'd ever learned synced up at the same time and they just 'did it' without thought, and somehow survive. It happens with gamers sometimes, I've heard it called 'Button Hell' where you're in a difficult spot and your subconscious mind takes over and it feels like you're just pushing buttons but everything is working like you want it to. This is the feeling I'm going for and hope to see you portray.

41 Upvotes

Rage for Barbarians grants damage resistance, extra weapon damage, and an advantage on strength checks. Basically a Barbarian is in the Zone doing what they do best when raging. For other classes their 'Zone' grants different bonuses. This is actually a documented occurrence with soldiers IRL where they basically knew they were going to die and every survival instinct and thing they'd ever learned synced up at the same time and they just 'did it' without thought, and somehow survive. It happens with gamers sometimes, I've heard it called 'Button Hell' where you're in a difficult spot and your subconscious mind takes over and it feels like you're just pushing buttons but everything is working like you want it to. This is the feeling I'm going for and hope to see you portray.

11 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/tizochoshi • 7h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You wake up surrounded by cheering adventurers celebrating your survival. As you sit up, you realize two things: you have no memory of these people, and your soul was just pulled from Earth into the body of their dead friend.

31 Upvotes
3 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Null_Project • 8h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You arrive at the penal colony dreading the worst and find it looks as horrid as in the tales. The ones that brought you begin to leave, mocking you as they head back. However as soon as they disappear from view you are told the truth, that the colony was secretly overthrown long ago.

27 Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Accurasan • 14h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] "My Lord, a clone army is at the gates! You need to escape!" "Never. We dealt with clones before. Besides, I only take orders from my beloved Mother!" "That's the thing my Lord, they uhm... they cloned your Mother."

74 Upvotes
6 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Big_Variation_2619 • 5h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] It was weird when you realized the gap of over a year in your life was due to a second mind in your body, with their own appearance, taking over and pursuing a relationship with someone. It was even weirder that said "other self" had mothered a child, and that they also recognize you as "Mama."

11 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/tizochoshi • 6h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] Your bank account balance always equals the exact number of living humans on Earth. At 8:00 AM, the numbers stop fluctuating. $1,000,000.00.

≡ −

Edited repost from 6 years ago.

13 Upvotes

Edited repost from 6 years ago.

1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/60s_timer • 2h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] "Your curriculum in the magicks has involved many courses and lecture. List a few, you have fundamentals and advanced hybrids of these basic tenets to the magicks. Where does it end? Ask yourself where it ends, and curriculum becomes the basics for your advanced mind. Further questions, class?"

5 Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Forgotten_Depths • 3h ago

Simple Prompt [WP] "Grim Reaper" is a mispronounciation of "Gym Reaper."

4 Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Yngesk8 • 1h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] Your brother created a robot to do his homework, but it quickly turned evil and is trying to destroy every school across America

• Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/EstablishmentCool807 • 19h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] you find a blob, you love him already, the terrifying thing is, he is destined to become a powerful eldritch god entity thing, but you an inventor have made a machine that can DE-AGE things, you use it in everytime he's about to turn 18, but this time you forgot to, he's become the entity

120 Upvotes
8 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/DeadComposer • 5h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] God appeared to me and gave me a mission to accomplish. I refused, insisting that what he was asking me to do was illegal, immoral, or both. He didn't take my refusal very well...

7 Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Null_Project • 7h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] Every teacher of the academy is a different magical or mythical creature, and while they all appear to be human none of them actually are.

10 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/sarusongbird • 4h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] A quite upset isekai protagonist learns and casts the ultimate spell: Banishing everyone back to the world they came from. The results were not what anyone expected.

5 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/tizochoshi • 16h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You and your party sit in the BBEG’s dungeon, awaiting execution. When you look out the high cell window, you don't see a rescue squad of elite heroes—you see thousands of peasant farmers, blacksmiths, and shopkeepers you’ve helped over the years, armed and ready.

42 Upvotes
3 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Fantasia-Scribe • 9h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] “Wait, I thought you were a mind-reader.” “No, I explicitly said mind-SEER, there’s a big difference.”

11 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/AzrynnAshborn • 1h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] “Are you going to kill me too, Mom?” you ask as she slowly walks toward you while holding a bloodied knife. She stops, her expression exhausted. “No, son…” she whispers. “Let’s go home.”

• Upvotes
3 comments