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Disclaimer: Please remember that this is a discussion post, so you are allow to give out your own opinions, comments, and questions in the comment section. With the discussion posts, these are my own opinions on the subject but I will try to stay unbiased as possible to give all you a fair chance to understand how seriously annoying these cliches and stereotypes are. The one thing I will not tolerate is arguing, belittling or flaming about my opinions or the opinions of others; this is safe haven for you guys to be completely honest about what you think of these tropes. If you can act like a mature adult by having a peaceful conversation and respecting the opinions of others and myself, then I will respect your opinions and talk to you like an adult. Thank you for understanding.

Hello to my sixteenth discussion post, awesome writers and readers! For the next five weeks, I will be focusing on cliches and over-used tropes in Young Adult literature. Now, this could have become a lot to cover considering there is a lot to over-used tropes in literature in general. Thankfully, with the help of the Internet and many blogs talking about annoying cliches, I was about to narrow down the ones mostly seen in Young Adult novels these days. Now, I am not against these tropes if they are done well because they do have the potential of adding something new and refreshing to literature- no matter what genre or age group it is for. But unfortunately, we do not see these writing tropes done well in any sense of the word and I am here to tell you on why these writing styles have become cliches and whether you should fix them or avoid them.

Now, without a further ado, let's begin the sixteenth discussion post which is about..... DYSTOPIAN GENRE CLICHES!

Before we begin, let's hold the phone for a minute and sit down because... I AM NOT BASHING ON THE DYSTOPIAN GENRE! Yes, a huge surprise considering my personality but I actually like the genre and I do want to write my own deconstruction novel on the dystopian genre in the far future (yes, that was a pun, shut up), so this is a genre that I don't hate at all. So, what am I actually going over today? Well, I am going over the cliches that authors keep using for dystopian novels; the tests, the evil government, the war that changed everything, and even how the society is built. Yes, there all of these cool societies in the dystopian genre but if you look closely, some of them are rip-offs of other works.

1. Dystopian Society: Let's start with the basics of a dystopian and that is the society that the main characters live in. Now, there are two basic structures of how the societies in dystopian fiction works; the first is the classic Hunger Games society, where country is split up into different sections based on talents, social status or personality traits, and the second is where the entire country is not split apart but certain rights are taken away from the citizens to make everything more peaceful. Neither of these societies are cliches in whatsoever way because really, these are the basis and bare bones into creating a realistic dystopian society. The only thing that has caused these bare bones of creating a dystopian society to become cliches is how they are executed; most of the time, you can tell that the author has ripped off from other work to create their own society or in reality, how the society works does not make sense. Now, I am okay-ish with the Divergent series because it wasn't that great but it wasn't that horrible either; one of the few real complaints that I have about the series is that the way that society ran did not really make any sense because in reality, we all do not just have one defining trait and it didn't make sense on how anyone with more than one defining trait was considered a criminal who had to be killed. My point is that a dystopian society should make sense when it comes to how it runs and how everything is set up the way it is; you shouldn't just kind of half-assed it to make it seem like you did the work, because when readers go back to read it, they will spot that and start asking questions about how your society is even supposed to be working despite the crazy way you set up everything. Another thing that authors usually mess up on is that when it comes to the second kind of society, it is usually all or nothing; the citizens basically have to become mindless, happy slaves to the government by giving up their emotions, creative thinking, freedom, and so on. Really, that is kind of a crap way to show that a dystopian protagonist is "The Chosen One" because they are the only ones who see pass all of this and want to make a change, even though everyone else is completely fine (even if it is kind of brainwashed into them) with how everything is. You shouldn't try to make your protagonist some special snowflake; that is where a lot of authors start losing readers because they want to focus more on how the protagonist is the only one with emotions and their individual thinking when really, there is no way a government can do that to everyone. We have to remember that everyone in the government isn't going to agree on the same thing, and if they suggested that, then there should have been some upstart by the citizens who were like "Aw, hell no!" to the whole idea. The last issue that has caused the very bare bones of a dystopian society to become a cliche is that when it comes to the revolution and the society finally falling part.... It's kind of cheap and anti-climatic. Basically, everyone sides with the protagonist on taking down the government and there is really no realistic way on the government falling apart so quickly. We can all agree that in a real dystopian setting, there would be people who genuinely enjoy and are happy with what the government is going, whether they are the most normal person in the entire world or a very wealthy man who has a lot of stock and businesses. A rebellion cannot sway those who side with the government to change so quickly; these are people who like how they are living and they will not change for the protagonist, so they will become enemies even if they are kind-hearted family members or friends. Then there is the government breaking down; it is literally just one long battle in one book and all of a sudden, the government collapses with no explanation beside that the rebellion killed everyone. No, I'm sorry but the readers what to actually see the government falling apart from the inside out and they want to see the drawbacks of the rebellion causing a government to fall apart during a time of war; What if the rebellion doesn't win and the government has to deal with the aftermath? Or what if the rebellion does win, but since it is right after a war and there are still thousands upon thousands of people to take care of, the new government fall apart? Or what if the government falls apart so much during the war, and the rebellion doesn't win, so everyone is kind of on their own? That is the stuff that the readers what to know, but they are cheated out of it every single time.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Fix it of course! I just told you that these are not cliches, but the way you execute them may cause them to look like cliches. Just remember that everything is your society needs to work together- even if there are districts- to show the reader that this is how your society works like it does. Another tip that I can give you is that you can think out of the box when it comes to dystopian societies; while you can be inspired by other works and get an idea of where you what to go by looking at books with the same structure as you want, you can be as creative as possible as long as it makes sense. With the second kind of society, I would suggest treading lightly on what freedoms you want to take away; you can take away certain emotions or thinking processes, but don't try to take that all away long with freedoms. My suggestions is that you refresh your history knowledge on countries that had dictators to learn what was taken away from them, along with doing research on dystopian books that has this theme. A really good game (which is unfortunately, not completely out yet) is We Happy Few; I am not going to spoil the entire game, but it will give you a good idea of how a society where certain freedoms are taken away for the goal of peace really works and how an outsider should be hated by those who enjoy their way of living, not praised. Another good game would be Bioshock, considering that is a dystopian-ish society that fell apart and you can get an idea of how to make your society break down from the inside.

2. Super-Special Test for Teenagers: This one is the one that bugs me a little too much, and I have a good reason why. Okay, a run-down of this trope; it usually have sixteen-year-olds (it can differ like it does in The Hunger Games but it's usually sixteen for some reason) go take this special test or go through this ceremony that determines the rest of their lives. Now, this is not a bad trope because I am a huge fan of screwing over what society wants teenagers to do and screwing pre-destined lives in general, but to me, this trope is usually so poorly executed that it hurts a little. The main issue with this trope nowadays is the fact that authors usually try to add too much within one ceremony. I will use another Hunger Games reference to show how a good system should work; children between the ages of 12-18 have to put their names in a certain amount of times depending how old they are, and if they get picked, they have to participate in the games. It's simple and easy to understand, even if it takes the reader a second reading to understand how the system even works. But lately, these ceremonies or tests have been adding too much at once; one book I read tried to determine everything about the main character would be doing with her life, Divergent's ceremony still confuses me, and I literally have no idea on the test that is given to the teenagers in The Maze Runner. A ceremony should be sweet and simple, while be related to the whole theme of the book; if your book is about society trying to stuff you into certain groups, then have the ceremony by a little like Divergent's where they test for a certain personality trait- but that is just one example, so there are endless possibilities that can be explore. As for the whole test that the characters have to take, it should be the same thing in the terms of not being confusing but still relating to the theme of the book. A lot of authors want to add too much to the ceremonies and test by adding mind-wiping, determining a character's entire life, erasing emotions, creating certain groups based on traits, doing a death match, doing a test for the teenagers so they can become adults... All at once. You can see where readers can become confuse because most of that may not even apply to the theme of the book. But because the author is trying to make their book edgy or more intelligent than others, they think adding too much is better. Trust me, it's not.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Fix it! While this one is really easy to execute wrong, this one is also really easy to get right! Basically, the main issue with the trope is trying to add too many things that may not even relate to the theme of the story. Just pick a theme for your story, polish up your plot, and then create a single ceremony/test for the teenagers that actually fits with the overall plot and theme. When you are able to see how you want this ceremony or test played out in your world, you can factor in as much as you can as long as it still goes with the main idea of the ceremony/test. For example, don't mind-wipe and erase the emotions of the main characters if you are going to put them through a murdering trial that determines what factor they go into and how their entire lives will be controlled. That is too much at once, so pick at most two that can go together and just build upon the one/s you picked.

3. Humans are Bad and Humanity Is Not Worth Saving: This one makes me pissed-off like you wouldn't believe. Okay, why the heck is the reader forced to red about the main character trying to overthrow their government and decide at the last minute that, no, the rest of society is also bad and my rebellion is the only one worth saving? Um... Okay, that was a huge waste of my time and everyone who had to read the book is obviously pissed off to hell. In sense, you do not force your readers to go through a story where at the last minute, you decided to switch gears and make only the rebellion the only ones live at the end of the story. The whole point that most dystopian novels are supposed to have is that the main character is supposed to save everyone from this oppressive government and life that has been created for them; the sheer fact that some authors decide to be "edgy" and make a point by not saving the rest of humanity undermines the entire genre in whole. But there is a reason why some authors have the nerve of doing this, and it's a very stupid one; they want to prove that the society we live in is horrible and to make a point about what special snowflakes their main characters are, they try to mold their dystopian society into one that reflects our current one and then kill everyone who isn't against the society to satisfy their own sick desires. Yeah, way to look edgy by probably insulting most of your readers! Really, if someone is going to give their characters such derailment that they go from heroes who wanted to take down the government for the people to cold-blooded sociopaths that don't even care about what happens to the people they tried to protect, then don't even bother finishing the book. Now there is a loophole that some authors have found, but it's still a very stupid one. Basically, it's where the authors try to make it where the main characters appear to still care about the safety and well-being of the people, but the readers are not stupid; we can all see that the main character is trying to take down the government for their own selfish desires. Again, a very stupid trope that can really piss off your readers but for a different reason; we want to see the hero who actually cares about what the government is doing to the people, not some Mary-Sue who is taking the government down just because they are threaten only her, her boy-toys, and her spushel gifts/destiny.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Avoid it! Good lord, if this doesn't spell character derailment then I don't know what does! Don't make your readers go through this whole journey and then decide to kill everyone off just to make a point about society. End of my point.

4. War Causes Society to Break Down: "Everything changed after the war...". Yes, we know that because readers have seen this line in so many dystopian novels that the very thought of something causing society to break down is the rest why you have the dystopian in the first place. I know that there have been countries that fell apart because of a war that they were in (or caused) but usually, there will be another country that takes over that destroyed one or the country itself will rebuild itself back to the way it was; there have been a few countries that changed the way it worked when it was rebuild, but nothing to cause a dystopian like we see. The point is that some authors try to make it seem like some giant, ultimate, all-or-nothing war just caused the entire country to fall apart and someone was evil enough to take over with their own way of ruling the citizens, when it reality, it is probably more believable that the government could be the problem from the beginning. If the government is so evil by the time the protagonist takes them down and the way they were running things were so bad, then why didn't anyone else do anything about it? But instead of a giant war or the government being at fault for everything, there can be a plague that spread around (think Great Britain during the Black Plague), or some kind of natural disaster (think Haiti or even Japan during earthquakes or tsunamis) except more extreme and it caused the government to see that they needed to change the way they worked to make sure that the surviving citizens are okay. Now, those examples are a little more rare but instead of doing what can be new, some authors tend to stick to the same "war was the problem" route instead of actually doing the latter two.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Really, there is nothing bad about this trope so I will go ahead and say fix this. I mean, yes, it has been done to death but there are ways to fix it. If any of you are history-buffs, you will probably know how a country is after it falls; does it rebuild itself or is it taken over by someone else? Was the war the fault of another country or the country the story takes place in? How bad does a war actually have to be to ruin the state of a country? That is something most history-buffs can figure out, while the rest of you may have to research a little because I know I would have to. The other factors you can look at is the natural disaster route or a virus route, but I would trend lightly on the latter because it can lead to a zombie story and if that is not what you want, you will have to be careful. The last tip I can provide is that the government doesn't have to be such assholes after the war; some governments can go back to normal (with some changes), and not be total douche-bags. If any of you have watched "The Purge" movies, that would be a good example of the government causing this non-war but very lethal event to happen but the results are good and the initial outlook could have been good.

5. One Girl Vs. Government: This one is the cliche that has been getting under my skin lately, mainly because now I will kind of have to go a little into my Stereotypes list and describe what kind of girl the government falls to so quickly and are so afraid of. Okay, let's start with the fact that it's always just one girl; I don't mind a female protagonist but it is literally just one girl against the entire government because she alone did something wrong or has something special about her. This is why I love The Maze Runner because it's literally an entire group that the government is after instead of just one girl who did something wrong that probably hundreds did beforehand. Now, since I would be beating on a dead horse by explaining why the girl will be Public Enemy #1 (I already told you that she did something wrong or there is something special about her) so I am going to reluctantly move on to the basis on the girl in her story. She is usually from the least desirable district or family, and at the beginning of the story, she has some kind of hatred or distrust towards the government. She usually has at least one sibling that is better than her (a younger, innocent sibling or an older, experienced sibling) and she calls herself plain, everyone comments on her personality rather than the author showing it, and she usually has a connection between her two love interests (one is usually a best friend, she went to school with both of them, etc.) while commenting that she may have feelings for them. Since I am not going to get into any more detail than that because I want to save that for my Stereotypes post, the point I am trying to make is that this has become a cliche within itself. You can have a female protagonist in a dystopian novel, but she shouldn't be this Plain Jane who does one thing wrong to make the government target solely her. That is the thing that most authors try too hard to do and I will really to you lovely readers my biggest pet peeve in writing; when authors try too hard to make their characters so plain so readers can relate to them better. I will get more into that on the Stereotypes post, but in sense, the heroine of a dystopian novel shouldn't be this plain girl who suddenly becomes this harden warrior. Now, another thing that actually connects back to one of my points in the first item on this post is that people worship the main heroine, no matter what their beliefs should be. Like I said before, there should be people in your dystopian novel who will stick to the government no matter what and one girl should not gather as much attention and hero worship as some of these dystopian heroines already do. They should become outcasts along with the rest of the rebellion, and they need that rebellion's help to take down the government; nobody- whether it is a guy or a girl- should not be the one person to take down the government.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Ugh... I am going to say fix it and avoid it at the same time. Avoid the whole Plain Jane doing one little thing wrong and the government going after her, but I don't care if your protagonist is a female. Yes, it has been done to death but I love well-written female characters, so if you can do that with a dystopian heroine, then go right ahead. The other thing you need to avoid is making this girl look like some harden warrior goddess who is worshiped; she should be as normal as the rest of the people around her, but she should have a strong, well-defined personality that makes both the people in her story and the readers be on the fence about her ideals.

Thanks for reading this discussion post on Writing Tropes! Next week, we will have the second and actually last genre-related cliche post unless you guys have suggestions. This second one that will happen next week is all about the bad tropes that are usually associated with fantasy novels. See ya next week!

Description
Disclaimer: Please remember that this is a discussion post, so you are allow to give out your own opinions, comments, and questions in the comment section. With the discussion posts, these are my own opinions on the subject but I will try to stay unbiased as possible to give all you a fair chance to understand how seriously annoying these cliches and stereotypes are. The one thing I will not tolerate is arguing, belittling or flaming about my opinions or the opinions of others; this is safe haven for you guys to be completely honest about what you think of these tropes. If you can act like a mature adult by having a peaceful conversation and respecting the opinions of others and myself, then I will respect your opinions and talk to you like an adult. Thank you for understanding.

Hello to my sixteenth discussion post, awesome writers and readers! For the next five weeks, I will be focusing on cliches and over-used tropes in Young Adult literature. Now, this could have become a lot to cover considering there is a lot to over-used tropes in literature in general. Thankfully, with the help of the Internet and many blogs talking about annoying cliches, I was about to narrow down the ones mostly seen in Young Adult novels these days. Now, I am not against these tropes if they are done well because they do have the potential of adding something new and refreshing to literature- no matter what genre or age group it is for. But unfortunately, we do not see these writing tropes done well in any sense of the word and I am here to tell you on why these writing styles have become cliches and whether you should fix them or avoid them.

Now, without a further ado, let's begin the sixteenth discussion post which is about..... DYSTOPIAN GENRE CLICHES!

Before we begin, let's hold the phone for a minute and sit down because... I AM NOT BASHING ON THE DYSTOPIAN GENRE! Yes, a huge surprise considering my personality but I actually like the genre and I do want to write my own deconstruction novel on the dystopian genre in the far future (yes, that was a pun, shut up), so this is a genre that I don't hate at all. So, what am I actually going over today? Well, I am going over the cliches that authors keep using for dystopian novels; the tests, the evil government, the war that changed everything, and even how the society is built. Yes, there all of these cool societies in the dystopian genre but if you look closely, some of them are rip-offs of other works.

1. Dystopian Society: Let's start with the basics of a dystopian and that is the society that the main characters live in. Now, there are two basic structures of how the societies in dystopian fiction works; the first is the classic Hunger Games society, where country is split up into different sections based on talents, social status or personality traits, and the second is where the entire country is not split apart but certain rights are taken away from the citizens to make everything more peaceful. Neither of these societies are cliches in whatsoever way because really, these are the basis and bare bones into creating a realistic dystopian society. The only thing that has caused these bare bones of creating a dystopian society to become cliches is how they are executed; most of the time, you can tell that the author has ripped off from other work to create their own society or in reality, how the society works does not make sense. Now, I am okay-ish with the Divergent series because it wasn't that great but it wasn't that horrible either; one of the few real complaints that I have about the series is that the way that society ran did not really make any sense because in reality, we all do not just have one defining trait and it didn't make sense on how anyone with more than one defining trait was considered a criminal who had to be killed. My point is that a dystopian society should make sense when it comes to how it runs and how everything is set up the way it is; you shouldn't just kind of half-assed it to make it seem like you did the work, because when readers go back to read it, they will spot that and start asking questions about how your society is even supposed to be working despite the crazy way you set up everything. Another thing that authors usually mess up on is that when it comes to the second kind of society, it is usually all or nothing; the citizens basically have to become mindless, happy slaves to the government by giving up their emotions, creative thinking, freedom, and so on. Really, that is kind of a crap way to show that a dystopian protagonist is "The Chosen One" because they are the only ones who see pass all of this and want to make a change, even though everyone else is completely fine (even if it is kind of brainwashed into them) with how everything is. You shouldn't try to make your protagonist some special snowflake; that is where a lot of authors start losing readers because they want to focus more on how the protagonist is the only one with emotions and their individual thinking when really, there is no way a government can do that to everyone. We have to remember that everyone in the government isn't going to agree on the same thing, and if they suggested that, then there should have been some upstart by the citizens who were like "Aw, hell no!" to the whole idea. The last issue that has caused the very bare bones of a dystopian society to become a cliche is that when it comes to the revolution and the society finally falling part.... It's kind of cheap and anti-climatic. Basically, everyone sides with the protagonist on taking down the government and there is really no realistic way on the government falling apart so quickly. We can all agree that in a real dystopian setting, there would be people who genuinely enjoy and are happy with what the government is going, whether they are the most normal person in the entire world or a very wealthy man who has a lot of stock and businesses. A rebellion cannot sway those who side with the government to change so quickly; these are people who like how they are living and they will not change for the protagonist, so they will become enemies even if they are kind-hearted family members or friends. Then there is the government breaking down; it is literally just one long battle in one book and all of a sudden, the government collapses with no explanation beside that the rebellion killed everyone. No, I'm sorry but the readers what to actually see the government falling apart from the inside out and they want to see the drawbacks of the rebellion causing a government to fall apart during a time of war; What if the rebellion doesn't win and the government has to deal with the aftermath? Or what if the rebellion does win, but since it is right after a war and there are still thousands upon thousands of people to take care of, the new government fall apart? Or what if the government falls apart so much during the war, and the rebellion doesn't win, so everyone is kind of on their own? That is the stuff that the readers what to know, but they are cheated out of it every single time.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Fix it of course! I just told you that these are not cliches, but the way you execute them may cause them to look like cliches. Just remember that everything is your society needs to work together- even if there are districts- to show the reader that this is how your society works like it does. Another tip that I can give you is that you can think out of the box when it comes to dystopian societies; while you can be inspired by other works and get an idea of where you what to go by looking at books with the same structure as you want, you can be as creative as possible as long as it makes sense. With the second kind of society, I would suggest treading lightly on what freedoms you want to take away; you can take away certain emotions or thinking processes, but don't try to take that all away long with freedoms. My suggestions is that you refresh your history knowledge on countries that had dictators to learn what was taken away from them, along with doing research on dystopian books that has this theme. A really good game (which is unfortunately, not completely out yet) is We Happy Few; I am not going to spoil the entire game, but it will give you a good idea of how a society where certain freedoms are taken away for the goal of peace really works and how an outsider should be hated by those who enjoy their way of living, not praised. Another good game would be Bioshock, considering that is a dystopian-ish society that fell apart and you can get an idea of how to make your society break down from the inside.

2. Super-Special Test for Teenagers: This one is the one that bugs me a little too much, and I have a good reason why. Okay, a run-down of this trope; it usually have sixteen-year-olds (it can differ like it does in The Hunger Games but it's usually sixteen for some reason) go take this special test or go through this ceremony that determines the rest of their lives. Now, this is not a bad trope because I am a huge fan of screwing over what society wants teenagers to do and screwing pre-destined lives in general, but to me, this trope is usually so poorly executed that it hurts a little. The main issue with this trope nowadays is the fact that authors usually try to add too much within one ceremony. I will use another Hunger Games reference to show how a good system should work; children between the ages of 12-18 have to put their names in a certain amount of times depending how old they are, and if they get picked, they have to participate in the games. It's simple and easy to understand, even if it takes the reader a second reading to understand how the system even works. But lately, these ceremonies or tests have been adding too much at once; one book I read tried to determine everything about the main character would be doing with her life, Divergent's ceremony still confuses me, and I literally have no idea on the test that is given to the teenagers in The Maze Runner. A ceremony should be sweet and simple, while be related to the whole theme of the book; if your book is about society trying to stuff you into certain groups, then have the ceremony by a little like Divergent's where they test for a certain personality trait- but that is just one example, so there are endless possibilities that can be explore. As for the whole test that the characters have to take, it should be the same thing in the terms of not being confusing but still relating to the theme of the book. A lot of authors want to add too much to the ceremonies and test by adding mind-wiping, determining a character's entire life, erasing emotions, creating certain groups based on traits, doing a death match, doing a test for the teenagers so they can become adults... All at once. You can see where readers can become confuse because most of that may not even apply to the theme of the book. But because the author is trying to make their book edgy or more intelligent than others, they think adding too much is better. Trust me, it's not.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Fix it! While this one is really easy to execute wrong, this one is also really easy to get right! Basically, the main issue with the trope is trying to add too many things that may not even relate to the theme of the story. Just pick a theme for your story, polish up your plot, and then create a single ceremony/test for the teenagers that actually fits with the overall plot and theme. When you are able to see how you want this ceremony or test played out in your world, you can factor in as much as you can as long as it still goes with the main idea of the ceremony/test. For example, don't mind-wipe and erase the emotions of the main characters if you are going to put them through a murdering trial that determines what factor they go into and how their entire lives will be controlled. That is too much at once, so pick at most two that can go together and just build upon the one/s you picked.

3. Humans are Bad and Humanity Is Not Worth Saving: This one makes me pissed-off like you wouldn't believe. Okay, why the heck is the reader forced to red about the main character trying to overthrow their government and decide at the last minute that, no, the rest of society is also bad and my rebellion is the only one worth saving? Um... Okay, that was a huge waste of my time and everyone who had to read the book is obviously pissed off to hell. In sense, you do not force your readers to go through a story where at the last minute, you decided to switch gears and make only the rebellion the only ones live at the end of the story. The whole point that most dystopian novels are supposed to have is that the main character is supposed to save everyone from this oppressive government and life that has been created for them; the sheer fact that some authors decide to be "edgy" and make a point by not saving the rest of humanity undermines the entire genre in whole. But there is a reason why some authors have the nerve of doing this, and it's a very stupid one; they want to prove that the society we live in is horrible and to make a point about what special snowflakes their main characters are, they try to mold their dystopian society into one that reflects our current one and then kill everyone who isn't against the society to satisfy their own sick desires. Yeah, way to look edgy by probably insulting most of your readers! Really, if someone is going to give their characters such derailment that they go from heroes who wanted to take down the government for the people to cold-blooded sociopaths that don't even care about what happens to the people they tried to protect, then don't even bother finishing the book. Now there is a loophole that some authors have found, but it's still a very stupid one. Basically, it's where the authors try to make it where the main characters appear to still care about the safety and well-being of the people, but the readers are not stupid; we can all see that the main character is trying to take down the government for their own selfish desires. Again, a very stupid trope that can really piss off your readers but for a different reason; we want to see the hero who actually cares about what the government is doing to the people, not some Mary-Sue who is taking the government down just because they are threaten only her, her boy-toys, and her spushel gifts/destiny.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Avoid it! Good lord, if this doesn't spell character derailment then I don't know what does! Don't make your readers go through this whole journey and then decide to kill everyone off just to make a point about society. End of my point.

4. War Causes Society to Break Down: "Everything changed after the war...". Yes, we know that because readers have seen this line in so many dystopian novels that the very thought of something causing society to break down is the rest why you have the dystopian in the first place. I know that there have been countries that fell apart because of a war that they were in (or caused) but usually, there will be another country that takes over that destroyed one or the country itself will rebuild itself back to the way it was; there have been a few countries that changed the way it worked when it was rebuild, but nothing to cause a dystopian like we see. The point is that some authors try to make it seem like some giant, ultimate, all-or-nothing war just caused the entire country to fall apart and someone was evil enough to take over with their own way of ruling the citizens, when it reality, it is probably more believable that the government could be the problem from the beginning. If the government is so evil by the time the protagonist takes them down and the way they were running things were so bad, then why didn't anyone else do anything about it? But instead of a giant war or the government being at fault for everything, there can be a plague that spread around (think Great Britain during the Black Plague), or some kind of natural disaster (think Haiti or even Japan during earthquakes or tsunamis) except more extreme and it caused the government to see that they needed to change the way they worked to make sure that the surviving citizens are okay. Now, those examples are a little more rare but instead of doing what can be new, some authors tend to stick to the same "war was the problem" route instead of actually doing the latter two.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Really, there is nothing bad about this trope so I will go ahead and say fix this. I mean, yes, it has been done to death but there are ways to fix it. If any of you are history-buffs, you will probably know how a country is after it falls; does it rebuild itself or is it taken over by someone else? Was the war the fault of another country or the country the story takes place in? How bad does a war actually have to be to ruin the state of a country? That is something most history-buffs can figure out, while the rest of you may have to research a little because I know I would have to. The other factors you can look at is the natural disaster route or a virus route, but I would trend lightly on the latter because it can lead to a zombie story and if that is not what you want, you will have to be careful. The last tip I can provide is that the government doesn't have to be such assholes after the war; some governments can go back to normal (with some changes), and not be total douche-bags. If any of you have watched "The Purge" movies, that would be a good example of the government causing this non-war but very lethal event to happen but the results are good and the initial outlook could have been good.

5. One Girl Vs. Government: This one is the cliche that has been getting under my skin lately, mainly because now I will kind of have to go a little into my Stereotypes list and describe what kind of girl the government falls to so quickly and are so afraid of. Okay, let's start with the fact that it's always just one girl; I don't mind a female protagonist but it is literally just one girl against the entire government because she alone did something wrong or has something special about her. This is why I love The Maze Runner because it's literally an entire group that the government is after instead of just one girl who did something wrong that probably hundreds did beforehand. Now, since I would be beating on a dead horse by explaining why the girl will be Public Enemy #1 (I already told you that she did something wrong or there is something special about her) so I am going to reluctantly move on to the basis on the girl in her story. She is usually from the least desirable district or family, and at the beginning of the story, she has some kind of hatred or distrust towards the government. She usually has at least one sibling that is better than her (a younger, innocent sibling or an older, experienced sibling) and she calls herself plain, everyone comments on her personality rather than the author showing it, and she usually has a connection between her two love interests (one is usually a best friend, she went to school with both of them, etc.) while commenting that she may have feelings for them. Since I am not going to get into any more detail than that because I want to save that for my Stereotypes post, the point I am trying to make is that this has become a cliche within itself. You can have a female protagonist in a dystopian novel, but she shouldn't be this Plain Jane who does one thing wrong to make the government target solely her. That is the thing that most authors try too hard to do and I will really to you lovely readers my biggest pet peeve in writing; when authors try too hard to make their characters so plain so readers can relate to them better. I will get more into that on the Stereotypes post, but in sense, the heroine of a dystopian novel shouldn't be this plain girl who suddenly becomes this harden warrior. Now, another thing that actually connects back to one of my points in the first item on this post is that people worship the main heroine, no matter what their beliefs should be. Like I said before, there should be people in your dystopian novel who will stick to the government no matter what and one girl should not gather as much attention and hero worship as some of these dystopian heroines already do. They should become outcasts along with the rest of the rebellion, and they need that rebellion's help to take down the government; nobody- whether it is a guy or a girl- should not be the one person to take down the government.

-Fix It Or Avoid It?: Ugh... I am going to say fix it and avoid it at the same time. Avoid the whole Plain Jane doing one little thing wrong and the government going after her, but I don't care if your protagonist is a female. Yes, it has been done to death but I love well-written female characters, so if you can do that with a dystopian heroine, then go right ahead. The other thing you need to avoid is making this girl look like some harden warrior goddess who is worshiped; she should be as normal as the rest of the people around her, but she should have a strong, well-defined personality that makes both the people in her story and the readers be on the fence about her ideals.

Thanks for reading this discussion post on Writing Tropes! Next week, we will have the second and actually last genre-related cliche post unless you guys have suggestions. This second one that will happen next week is all about the bad tropes that are usually associated with fantasy novels. See ya next week!