SFF Tropes: Why Avoid Them?

I'm going to blaspheme here and say, there are no tropes to avoid. Anything can be done as long as it's done well...and preferably with a relatively unique spin. There's an audience for everything; finding the ones in your niche might be tough, but, eh, it's the nature of art and entertainment.

Chain-mail bikinis? Fine. Put a dude or dudes in them. Make 'em a whole pube-pulling-bikini-wearing tribe. Make it a farce. Make it the men's quest to break the sorcerer's spell that forces them to floss their butt-cheeks with chain-link.

Monsters the size of chihuahuas? My friends, if you ever spent time with a pocket-dog, you know how absolutely possible it is for those little terrors to ruin a world. Hello, Gremlins anyone?

More sex than sword-fights? There is a humongous audience for this that isn't hard to find. They gleefully devour novels and tout their favorite authors. Sure, the self-proclaimed arbiters of "Good SFF" might poo-poo and flick you over into the ~gasp~ romance genre (regardless of HEA status). Again, big audience waiting to devour your next book.

Now, if you want to be published by large or medium size publisher, then you have to play by their rules. Diversity and equality are in demand right now. So if you've white-washed your characters and subjugated everyone to hetero-men, then you're not going to sell. Marketing and sales divisions are not getting behind misogynistic sausage-fests either.

Write the story you want to write, then figure out where and how you're going to sell it.

And if you happen to see a Gremlin in a chain-mail bikini getting his kink on....


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