Tag Archives: cliche

Archive Seasons 11-13, Career and Lifestyle, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.41: Fixing Character Problems, Part II

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Amal, Mary, and Maurice

This is the second of our pair of episodes in which we talk about how we, your hosts, fix the problems we’ve identified with the characters in our work.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Andrew Twiss, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:36 — 15.6MB)

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Take a character in one of your stories and split them into two characters. Take two characters from another of your stories, and combine them into one.

The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander

Archive Seasons 11-13, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.35: Cliché vs. Archetype

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard

Tropes, archetypes, and even cliches are tools in our toolboxes. There’s no avoiding them, but there are definitely ways to use them incorrectly. In this episode we’ll talk about how we shake off our fear of using tropes through understanding how they work.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:29 — 14.1MB)

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Set a timer for 30 minutes.

SET THAT TIMER. 

With your life-jacket securely fastened, you may now go to tvtropes.com  and follow a trope like “boy meets girl” down the rabbit hole. Follow links. Dive deeply. When the timer goes off, close the page immediately. If you need a palate-cleanser, try watching “You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?“

About eight months after we recorded this episode, Brandon pulled The Apocalypse Guard back from the publisher. We’ll update this link with more recent information soon.