"I've written. And rewritten. Deconstructed. Reconstructed. Experimented with different voices. Changed the style. Changed myself. Forgotten the language. Relearned the language. Have I been here before? Gone down this path before?"
— Alan Wake, Control, "Hotline: On Writing the Manuscript"
Tropes to do with writing books.
Tropes:
Subcategories:
Books as media
- About the Author
- The Annotated Edition
- Anthology
- Airport Novel: A thick but pulpy novel that one buys for cheap at the airport to kill time on the plane.
- The Christmas Annual
- Clandestine Cover
- Extruded Book Product
- Divided for Publication
- Doorstopper
- Double-Sided Book: A book with two flipped sides.
- Feghoot
- Flash Fiction
- Gamebooks
- Great American Novel
- Multi-Volume Work
- Novelization: A book adaptation of a work that wasn't a book.
- Omnibus: A collected edition of a book series containing (almost) the entirety of the series.
- Picture Books
- Pulp Magazine
- Round Robin
- Serial Novel
- Short Story
- Trend Covers
- Trilogy
- Vanity Publishing: This publisher will publish anything... as long as you pay them.
- Web Serial Novel
Narrative techniques
- The All-Concealing "I": A story uses a first-person narrative so that the protagonist's true identity can be revealed in a twist ending.
- First-Person Perspective
- Gender-Concealing Writing
- Gender-Inclusive Writing
- Generational Saga
- In Which a Trope Is Described
- Infectious Enthusiasm
- Kishōtenketsu
- Left Field Description: Describing important bits in unconventional ways that don't necessarily jump out to the reader.
- Little Did I Know: Foreshadowing life-turning events by mentioning the character's initial ignorance of them.
- Mills and Boon Prose
- Most Writers Are Writers: Writers have characters who are writers.
- Multiple Narrative Modes
- Non P.O.V. Protagonist
- One-Paragraph Chapter: A chapter that's only a paragraph long.
- Page-Turn Surprise: A Cliffhanger's resolution is on the next page.
- Point of View
- Present Tense Narrative
- Riddle: A word puzzle with logical but non-intuitive answers.
- Said Bookism: The narration avoids the "said" tag by replacing it with any other word.
- Second-Person Narration
- Slice of Life: The story is strictly about the characters dealing with mundane, everyday problems.
- Spell My Name with a Blank: Removing or blanking names to avoid lawsuit.
- Textual Celebrity Resemblance
- Tom Swifty: A punny adverb sprung from the line of dialogue it tags.
- Unconventional Formatting
- Young Face, Old Eyes
- The Walrus Was Paul: The author's explicit intent was to not make sense.
