Drawing from the Well
Scenes Arranged: 0
Total Scenes: 166
Nothin’ to see here, folks.
Filling the Well
That Hideous Strength: 54%
Elegy: Page 15 of 89
Jessica Jones: S2E12 of 13
Nothin’ to see here either. Yesterday was a bit of a mess.
Polishing the Well
Yesterday was an unexpectedly long day and night. It ended well in that we got to have a family dinner before all the kids run off for spring break (which we had not expected), it just took a really long time to get there. And I had a really long night afterward. That was why nothing happened in the first two categories. I’m hoping I can get into a better rhythm this week and really get some things done on both fronts.
Well Chat
How do Paper-Thin Disguises even work?
The first question you’re probably asking is, “What’s a trope?” Well, TVTropes.org describes them thusly:
A trope is a storytelling device or convention, a shortcut for describing situations the storyteller can reasonably assume the audience will recognize. Tropes are the means by which a story is told by anyone who has a story to tell. Tropes are not the same thing as cliches. They may be brand new but seem trite and hackneyed; they may be thousands of years old but seem fresh and new. They are not bad, they are not good; tropes are tools that the creator of a work of art uses to express their ideas to the audience. It’s pretty much impossible to create a story without tropes.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tropes
So now that you know they’re just storytelling tools, let’s explore a couple today. I talked earlier this year about Moments of Awesome. That was a trope and it is one of my favorites. Today, we’re going to discuss a couple of others that are funny when you really think about them. Those are Clark Kenting and the Paper-Thin Disguise.
Clark Kenting is exactly what it sounds like: it is successfully using a Paper-Thin Disguise to the point that everyone around the character accepts it as reality. For me, this is really frustrating because it doesn’t make sense. I know, I know, I read books about people using magic in dream realms that affect the real world and who go crazy from using too much magic. Who am I to talk about making sense.
Okay, sidebar. Fantasy novels suffer especially from the need to suspend disbelief. I am actually going to dig into this tomorrow in detail (now…), but when my brain starts telling me something doesn’t make sense, I fail to be able to continue suspending disbelief.
Back to the point. The term Clark Kenting came from the Man of Steel’s alter ego himself, Clark Kent, hence the homage in the trope title. He is probably the most successful character to ever use this particular trope. It was so successful that it inspired his cousin (after her pod got knocked off course) to do the same thing. And on that show, it is to the point that her own sister doesn’t recognize her. I mean, come on!
Now, this is a sub-trope of the Paper-Thin Disguise. This is any disguise that appears like it should not work because of how flimsy it is, but it works. A good example of this is a character hiding behind a bush or tree and either the bush hops along behind whom they’re pursuing or they’re too big for the bush/tree. They should OBVIOUSLY be found out, yet they aren’t. This is often used to comedic relief in cartoons.
There is obviously minutiae here, but you get the point. These are tools you can use in your own writing either to comedic effect or…well, that’s the biggest one. Using it seriously can be dangerous like I mentioned above.
This is a series I’ll revisit from time to time to throw some common tropes out for the sake of discussion. Plus, pulling to the forefront will make us look for them in our favorite works and perhaps help us gain deeper understanding of the work and the author. Have a great week.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG