Tired Tropes

[lovecraft68]

I've used this precise setup. You call it a tired trope, I call it the story that got me 165k views and a 4.56 rating from 2.8k votes.

I'm guilty of the dirty talking mom.

My thought is mom's are also women. Many women enjoy some raunchy talk during sex. These are sex scenes and we are writing adult material so...

But the OP is not the first person I've seen complain about it.

Despite that horrific transgression though, I've managed to do somewhat okay in the genre.

 

[Gamblnluck]

You will find it very difficult to come up with something that has not been done before. Like some here said, it is all in the telling. I personally do not like (and will not rate highly) a story that makes little sense, no matter how flamboyant the descriptions are. I want to see some kind of plausible explanation for how the characters move and respond to each other.

When I read a woman gets a slap on her ass, turns to see a great looking man, gets wet and says 'yes, I will fuck you,' I am not going to read any further. Same with a man who is put in a stupid situation but his cock gets hard so he immediately agrees that he is totally into the situation and his erection is not only his acceptance but total approval. But you will see both those scenarios repeated time and again.
AND you will hear authors here claim they wrote a great story so why did they not get the praise or score they thought they deserved.

 

[Britva415]

The "I wasn't looking at you!" whine from a male character whose stunningly gorgeous sister who has been exposing herself to him

This trope could be turned on its head:

“Yeah I was. Show me more.”

 

[8letters]

Although I've only written one story in Incest/Taboo (the rest are found in LW, Romance, and EE), I love reading the category. That said, there are some repetitive themes that to me come close to ruining a story because they just don't fit.

To me, I/T has a lot more tropes than LW and Romance. From the little reading I've done of LW, many of the stories use the exact same plotline. I've not read much Romance on Literotica, but commercially it seems like every story is a young vivacious woman meets a jaded wealthy rake and teaches him how to enjoy life while they fall in love with each other.

* The "I wasn't looking at you!" whine from a male character whose stunningly gorgeous sister who has been exposing herself to him. Social ineptness is one thing, but this ruins the character and the wimpiness would turn any woman off, even a hot sister.

I read a lot of I/T, and that's not something I'm familiar with.

* The hot mom who suddenly just has to have her son's cock, without any backstory of how she got there. In too many stories there are moms who suddenly walk into the room and are giving him a BJ in minutes.

To me, the most common I/T trope is that the mother/sister/daughter/aunt/niece/cousin walks in on the son/brother/father/nephew/uncle/cousin while he's masturbating/taking a shower/pissing, sees that he's got a massive cock, and decides that she has to have him fuck her. I/T has a lot of one-page stories, and such a set up gets to the action very quickly.

* The supposedly loving relationship between a son and mom that for some reason has to include him calling her a slut or whore, and her agreeing. A love story, which is what most of the incest/taboo stories are, doesn't have to include that kind of disrespect.

I've written before that I find mother-son stories absolutely implausible despite them being the most popular type of I/T story. My feeling is that what makes them so popular is the table-turning, that the son is now in charge while the mom is desperate to get more of his cock. Him calling her a slut or whore is part of that table-turning where he uses it to establish his dominance over her.

* The "let me watch you masturbate" intro that comes out of nowhere.

A part of the most common trope.

* The sharing the bed with a sister (itself an overused trope) that invariably includes morning wood nestled between the cheeks of her ass, often with her pressing said ass against said morning wood.

In my experience, not that common. Typically, it's a piece of the scenario where it's a bitterly cold night, the heat is off, and the two family members sleep together for warmth.

* The virgin sister who can deep throat her brother's 9 inches the first time she blows him.

What? You're saying that's unrealistic?

 

[cadeauxxx]

Who cares?

Write whatever you want. If some people don't like it, then oh well. We're supposed to be having fun writing to enjoy ourselves.

I don't believe 'tropes' are real. Clichés yes, but 'tropes' comes from the TVTropes website that was meant to be a joke when it first launched, and only in the last 10-12 years has been taken as some handbook to writing.

There are no rules. Write however you want. If some people don't like it, then that's on them.

It's the same for any other type of entertainment. Metal bands singing in cookie monster screaming voices don't care if the critics dislike it.

 

[lovecraft68]

I've written before that I find mother-son stories absolutely implausible despite them being the most popular type of I/T story. My feeling is that what makes them so popular is the table-turning, that the son is now in charge while the mom is desperate to get more of his cock. Him calling her a slut or whore is part of that table-turning where he uses it to establish his dominance over her.

You start off by saying you don't care for the M/S genre, but then go on to state why dirty talk works and why the son likes it.

Interesting, and although there is a story-or more than one-that fits any description, in general you're wrong. That's not what its about in most cases. You're also limiting what you think is the sons POV/Motivation, but not taking into consideration how this works coming from the mother's POV and motivations.

Stick to sister stories and stats.

Better yet, stick to just stats. In spite of what you think, you're not the I/T whisperer.

 

[lovecraft68]

Who cares?

Write whatever you want. If some people don't like it, then oh well. We're supposed to be having fun writing to enjoy ourselves.

I don't believe 'tropes' are real. Clichés yes, but 'tropes' comes from the TVTropes website that was meant to be a joke when it first launched, and only in the last 10-12 years has been taken as some handbook to writing.

There are no rules. Write however you want. If some people don't like it, then that's on them.

It's the same for any other type of entertainment. Metal bands singing in cookie monster screaming voices don't care if the critics dislike it.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

By the same token, using a common trope doesn't mean the story is bad. There's a reason why some elements become tropes: they resonate with the readers. By definition that means they're doing their job. What sets your story apart is *how* you use the trope.

Agreed, tropes are often just a jumping off point for a story. They aren't inherently bad.
The reluctant hero is a time honored trope, it's been used in some great stories, and some terrible ones. Execution is everything.

 

[susurrus]

Take an overused idea and surround it with something interesting and a little out of the ordinary, and people will forgive the fact it's been done before.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Artistically, I've always been an "originally counts" sorta fella. And I tried to take that into my erotica. But it's rather impossible because it's all been done. The best we can hope for is to put our own spin on each tired trope. That's what I've done and it's pretty damn fun.

 

[Trionyx]

If you are using the basic nuclear family (mother, father, daughter, son), there are six potential one-on-one sexual encounters. One is between the mother and father, leaving five ‘incestuous’ pairings. Two of those are homosexual which is generally frowned upon in the I/T realm. We are now down to three potential pairings: M-S, F-D and D-S. No wonder people comment about common tropes in this category. Just how many ways are there to dress up these three pairings anyway?

 

[vividlyyours]

Yep, I/T is full of tropes and unrealistic narratives. But then again, it's hard to craft an incestuous storyline without some suspension of disbelief. I understand plenty of readers just want a quick, simple story that gets them going in all the right places, so I can appreciate the simplicity of such stories without wanting to read them myself. This is a site for fantasies, after all.

What I will say frustrates me most about the category is that almost every story begins with our incestuous couple already attracted to one another. Even the slow-burns usually contain explicit sexually-charged narration right from the start. This is erotica, but not every thought you have towards your hot sister has to be sexual in nature. I wish more stories developed their characters in a slower, more natural way, progressing from platonicity to sex over time. It makes for a more engaging arc to the story, and (in my opinion) it's also just hotter to read about our characters grappling with this forbidden attraction.

But to each their own. There's a place for realism and a place for heightened fantasies. I've read and written incestuous stroke stories myself. Fair enough to all those who enjoy 'em!

You said it better than I did. The tropes I cited often strike me as taking the easy route and copying others instead of engaging in real character and story development. I like the slow burn stories with lots of character development, and one of my favorite reads lately was very long but onliy had sex at the end.

 

[vividlyyours]

This trope could be turned on its head:

“Yeah I was. Show me more.”

Exactly.

 

[vividlyyours]

To me, I/T has a lot more tropes than LW and Romance. From the little reading I've done of LW, many of the stories use the exact same plotline. I've not read much Romance on Literotica, but commercially it seems like every story is a young vivacious woman meets a jaded wealthy rake and teaches him how to enjoy life while they fall in love with each other.


I read a lot of I/T, and that's not something I'm familiar with.


To me, the most common I/T trope is that the mother/sister/daughter/aunt/niece/cousin walks in on the son/brother/father/nephew/uncle/cousin while he's masturbating/taking a shower/pissing, sees that he's got a massive cock, and decides that she has to have him fuck her. I/T has a lot of one-page stories, and such a set up gets to the action very quickly.


I've written before that I find mother-son stories absolutely implausible despite them being the most popular type of I/T story. My feeling is that what makes them so popular is the table-turning, that the son is now in charge while the mom is desperate to get more of his cock. Him calling her a slut or whore is part of that table-turning where he uses it to establish his dominance over her.


A part of the most common trope.


In my experience, not that common. Typically, it's a piece of the scenario where it's a bitterly cold night, the heat is off, and the two family members sleep together for warmth.


What? You're saying that's unrealistic?

It really does depend on the execution. Using a cliche can be just fine if the rest of the action shows some originality

 

[vividlyyours]

I co-wrote a story set in the US and my co-writer was the one filletting my British'isms, although setting Word's spell check to US English helped a lot. Getting the scenery right is essential.

I'm in the US and I enjoy other settings, with their different customs and laws.

 

[OffNSFW]

Writing is a folk art, and tropes are a sort of shared vocabulary that gives our stories a sense of genre and tradition. There's nothing wrong with that inherently, but I do think a lot of aspiring writers look for a sort of pre-existing structure that they can plug different variables into and automatically get an effective story out of it.

And that shit does not work, unless it's 1977 and your name is George Lucas.

 

[StillStunned]

When I wrote "Too Cold Not to Fuck" (the tired trope of brother and sister sharing a sleeping bag), I didn't for a second think, "What's a successful trope that's worked for other I/T writers?"

It was quite frankly the only situation I could imagine where a brother and sister would have sex without a long build-up. Bodies forced together? Likelihood of an erection, and the need to do something about it? Privacy so no-one will catch them? It's the perfect setup for a quickie.

 

[RetroFan]

If you are using the basic nuclear family (mother, father, daughter, son), there are six potential one-on-one sexual encounters. One is between the mother and father, leaving five ‘incestuous’ pairings. Two of those are homosexual which is generally frowned upon in the I/T realm. We are now down to three potential pairings: M-S, F-D and D-S. No wonder people comment about common tropes in this category. Just how many ways are there to dress up these three pairings anyway?

I've been surprised at some of the strong negative feedback to mother-daughter stories in IT, even though they are quite rare. I've also seen on other stories and myself received negative feedback about lesbian activity between sisters (full sisters, stepsisters) and female cousins. I haven't seen an aunt-niece story for some time, not sure how feedback would be there.

I can understand authors using tropes that work and have been used many times in the past, I've done it myself. In some categories readers are very open to new and different story ideas and will give their honest feedback; good, bad or indifferent. Even in Loving Wives you get positive comments (sometimes) if you try something different.

Most pushback against or indifference towards new and different story ideas I have found in Incest Taboo, although others may have found differently. As just one example with my own work, a story narrated by an uninvolved third party who starts seeing odd dynamics between his friends - a twin brother and sister - with things getting stranger and stranger until he finally sees them having sex together rated very poorly, and got much negative feedback because it didn't fit with a typical IT structure that the readers there enjoy.

 

[MrHereWriting]

I'm tired of incest in incest stories. Talk about tired tropes, it's so predictable. Give me something new.

 

[THBGato]

I've been surprised at some of the strong negative feedback to mother-daughter stories in IT, even though they are quite rare. I've also seen on other stories and myself received negative feedback about lesbian activity between sisters (full sisters, stepsisters) and female cousins. I haven't seen an aunt-niece story for some time, not sure how feedback would be there.

They tend to crop up in Lesbian Sex every now and then and seem to do quite well. I'm not a huge fan myself, though will read a stepsister story (and have written one). They certainly seem to find an audience there.

 

[NotWise]

I'm tired of incest in incest stories. Talk about tired tropes, it's so predictable. Give me something new.

I throw in polyamorous relationships now and then. Based on comments, some I/T readers hate that, but the stories ("My Sisters Wedding", "Watch Me!") are among my most popular I/T stories.

 

[SimonDoom]

To me, I/T has a lot more tropes than LW and Romance. From the little reading I've done of LW, many of the stories use the exact same plotline.

My reaction as well. I think one's perception of reality may affect what one sees as a "trope" v. "the way things really are."

For instance, there's an enormous readership for "revenge against the cheating wife" stories in Loving Wives, and a huge proportion of them have all the same tropes, and they seem silly to me, but I think to many readers they seem realistic and satisfying:

1. The wife is always completely at fault for the cheating.
2. The husband is a spotless good guy who is blameless.
3. The guy she cheats with him is scum.
4. The world around the good husband is compromised and works against him. His friends and family encourage him to reconcile, against his principles.
5. Lawyers, judges, and the divorce system conspire against him.
6. Against all odds, the cheated husband beats the system in a clever, resourceful way. He outwits the lawyers and the cheating wife.


To me, it's incredibly cartoonish. I don't understand how it can be satisfying, or how a reader can find it satisfying. It's not at all erotic, either! But people like them, as they are entitled to.

I think a lot of it comes down to whether you believe the "men are getting screwed by the system" trope. Obviously, many men do, even though the data show it's not really the case most of the time. They may be influenced by personal events in their lives.

 

[StillStunned]

I throw in polyamorous relationships now and then. Based on comments, some I/T readers hate that, but the stories ("My Sisters Wedding", "Watch Me!") are among my most popular I/T stories.

My I/T story where the girlfriend finally joins in is rated quite a bit higher than the others in the series.

 

[redgarters]

You said it better than I did. The tropes I cited often strike me as taking the easy route and copying others instead of engaging in real character and story development. I like the slow burn stories with lots of character development, and one of my favorite reads lately was very long but onliy had sex at the end.

Tropes can serve a fine purpose, like being a nice quick fix to get into the sex without having to write a long buildup.
But for us who like the slow burn, emotional stories they can be a turn off if used in that way. Even then, it is not easy to avoid tropes. The trick is to avoid the tiredness of them, to find a new angle or a twist that makes it interesting for the reader.
I write and read mostly slow burn LS now, and the second act break up is a well used trope there. On one hand, trying to avoid that particular trope is quite challenging, but can be rewarding when it works. On the other, many of the finest writers in the LS category use that trope brilliantly to create amazing stories and characters.
Tropes aren't all bad, it's how they are used that makes all the difference.

 

[yowser]

If you are using the basic nuclear family (mother, father, daughter, son), there are six potential one-on-one sexual encounters. One is between the mother and father, leaving five ‘incestuous’ pairings. Two of those are homosexual which is generally frowned upon in the I/T realm. We are now down to three potential pairings: M-S, F-D and D-S. No wonder people comment about common tropes in this category. Just how many ways are there to dress up these three pairings anyway?

If you write a brother-brother story you may well find this 'caution' added to your tale:

Editor's note: this submission contains scenes of gay male sexual content.

Surprised the cojones out of me. Saving readers from a shock to the system.