Trope Link Pile


Deriving from the Greek tropos ("to turn"), a trope is a schema or script for turning attention. Tropes are particular configurations of language, and as these figures repeat, they become recognizable techniques for amplifying one rhetorical choice over all other probabilities. When musicians add to or subtract notes from a particular melisma or otherwise draw attention to the development of a particular tone or emotional state, they're troping, right there. Used as a verb again: when you "trope" something, you tune that something to a pattern by entraining it to that particular and available pattern. Troping, turning, tuning, these are the very same. They at once require and install a second order of attention. Rhetoric is another name for paying this much attention to attention.

 

The TV Tropes Wiki is a great tool for writing stories--and perhaps even more useful when remixing. TV Tropes Wiki shows how basic elements of story telling get used over and over again, and if you drop your favorite show into their search engine, you can get a concrete sense of what a "trope" is. And then, of course, you can blog about this. Yes, and, what's more, emboldened, you will select some of these narrative patterns and and adapt them to a story you want to tell, or to convey any information that you want a specific listener or reader to understand or keep with them for a while. If each of us posts a favorite example of a trope to this Link Pile, a helpful compositional resource will grow!