My obsession

Have I ever told you about TV Tropes? I probably shouldn't say things like this but it's like my Bible for writing. Or my encyclopaedia. Or a very, very, very useful book. Whatever, it's a great website for all sorts of things.

Need to know what an epic is? TV Tropes. Not sure what Cyber Punk consists of? TV Tropes. Have an interest in tearjerkers? TV Tropes. Want an effective way of keeping toast crumbs out of the honey jar? Me too.

The point is, no matter what the genre, subgenre, category, cliché, popular phrase, media, topic, misconception is - TV TROPES HAS IT. At least, there was never anything I couldn't find on TV Tropes that had to do with any of those things.

TV Tropes is my Tumblr. I've heard of people clicking on Tumblr at 7pm, scrolling down it for a couple of minutes and then suddenly it's 4am and the sun is about to rise. TV Tropes has that effect on me. Let's start with something easy, like 'Fantasy'. I'll look it up now. Okay, what I've learnt is that my new WIP is some sort of Science-Urban Fantasy crossover, which is cool. But the page has all sorts of links to words and phrases I wanted more information for, so I opened them in new tabs. Now I'm looking at 'Magic from Technology', 'Xenofiction' and 'Science Fantasy'.

The 'Magic from Technology' page is short, so there's not a lot to read. However, there are comparisons, contrasts and similarities with other concepts and I just can't resist clicking on 'Clarke's Third Law'. Which leads to me to a Wikipedia page (which I tend to avoid) describing the laws as: 

1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

All quite cool stuff, but now I've closed the page and still have 'Xenofiction' and 'Science Fantasy' to look at. Oh, and 'Deus ex Machina' which I opened up when you weren't looking. In my defence, my tutor mentioned it on Tuesday in class and I had no idea how to spell it, despite being certain that I've heard about it before.

After reading the first line of explanation for 'Deus ex Machina', it hits me where I've heard it. In a webcomic called Sister Claire (it's absolutely golden, I promise). So I can move along swiftly to 'Xenofiction'. And that's when I realise I've actually written 'Xenofiction' when I was about twelve years old. Heavily influenced by my lovable, lively pet dog Vi-Vi on Nintendogs (yes, my childhood was this sad), I felt inspired to write a story through the POV of said dog but in a realistic world (or, one that was realistic to my twelve year old brain).

Since that's cleared up, I thought I'd be able to close the page. Not so. TV Trope warns me not to confuse 'Xenofiction' with 'Xenafication' and I, of course, have to know what that is before I can confuse the two. So on to 'Xenafication' we go!

Ah. Work inspired by Xena where characters like Snow White grab a sword and turn into action heroes. Got it. Now we're finally on to 'Science Fantasy', and after going on two more tabs, I've torn myself away from the laptop under the guise of having dinner, but really I'm just saving myself from the black hole of the internet.

Later

So now you see my problem with TV Tropes. I can't just go on it and look at one specific thing, it always leads to interesting unnecessary distractions that take up a lot of time that could be spent writing. Although I suppose the case could be made that I'm not wasting time, just broadening my horizons with regard to the different tropes that are out there and how my writing may apply to them. It should also probably be said that while I do take an interest in the different tropes, I've learnt my lesson not to create something with the intention of following any of them rule for rule. It ends in disaster.

But yeah, by all means check out TV Tropes and all it offers. You'll learn so much about things you had no idea even existed! And, if you find you've got a real keen interest in the concept of 'Phlebotinum' then TV Tropes has the amazing feature of being able to tell you all sorts of examples where it was used. From Anime/Manga to Video Games, you can have fun looking up and submerging yourself in a fictional world that incorporates what you think is exciting.

Did I also mention the site is witty, sarcastic, spoiler-friendly and totally easy to use? Yeah, I think this sounds like a sales pitch too (it's not).