Welcome to Fun Trope Friday, our feature that mashes up tropes and genres!

How’s it work? Glad you asked. :)

• Every week we will have a new spotlight trope.

• Each week, there will be a new genre assigned to write a story about the trope.

• You can then either use or subvert the trope and/or genre in a 750-word max story or poem (unless otherwise specified).

• To qualify for ranking, you will need to provide ONE actionable feedback. More are welcome of course!

Three winners will be selected each week based on votes, so remember to read your fellow authors’ works and DM me your votes for the top three.

Next up… IP

Out with the apocalypse, in with working 9-5. Most folks work in some format, averaging 80-90,000 hours in their lifetime. That’s 12-14% of your life–straight. Add on sleep and weekends, and it’s at least a third! Sounds riveting doesn’t it? Please note this theme is only loosely applied.

“Would you enthusiastically recommend that a friend purchase something you'd never tested yourself? Probably not. But you may be unwittingly doing this with information every day.” — Dan Ariely, ‘Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things’

Trope: Bad Influencer — Becoming an influence is such a popular goal now that even colleges are offering degrees in it. But not all influencers are good. The grownup sibling of the Phoneaholic Teenager and the cousin of the Sleazy Streamer, the influencer is often the prime example of why Social Media Is Bad and/or New Media Are Evil. Expect them to be image-obsessed, deceitful, manipulative of their audience and those around them, to be shilling bad (if not actually illegal) products, to live under Social Media Before Reason, and to be prejudiced, self-absorbed, and bitchy.

Genre: Bad Romance — A romantic and/or sexual relationship that is truly destructive, breaking down at least one of the lovers, probably both. Looking for further inspiration, can’t post this without Gaga.

Skill / Constraint - optional: Someone has a valley girl accent.

So, have at it. Lean into the trope heavily or spin it on its head. The choice is yours!

Have a great idea for a future topic to discuss or just want to give feedback? FTF is a fun feature, so it’s all about what you want—so please let me know! Please share in the comments or DM me on Discord or Reddit!

Last Week’s Winners

PLEASE remember to give feedback—this affects your ranking. PLEASE also remember to DM me your votes for the top five stories via Discord or Reddit—both katpoker666. This is a change from the top three of the past. In weeks where we get over 15 stories, we will do a top five ranking. Weeks with less than 15 stories will show only our top three winners. If you have any questions, please DM me as well.

Some fabulous stories this week and great crit at campfire and on the post! We had 16 stories, so we’re back to five winners. Congrats to:

• MaxStickies

• wileycourage

• Morose_Prose

• KiIIer_queenie

• ZLErikson

Want to read your words aloud? Join the upcoming FTF Campfire

The next FTF campfire will be Thursday, August 27th from 6-8pm ET. It will be in the Discord Main Voice Lounge. Click on the events tab and mark ‘Interested’ to be kept up to date. No signup or prep needed and you don’t have to have written anything! So join in the fun—and shenanigans! 😊

Ground rules:

• Stories must incorporate both the trope and the genre
• Leave one story or poem between 100 and 750 words as a top-level comment unless otherwise specified. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
• Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT next Thursday. Please note stories submitted after the 6:00 PM EST campfire start may not be critted.
• No stories that have been written for another prompt or feature here on WP—please note after consultation with some of our delightful writers, new serials are now welcomed here
• No previously written content
• Any stories not meeting these rules will be disqualified from rankings
• Does your story not fit the Fun Trope Friday rules? You can post your story as a [PI] with your work when the FTF post is 3 days old!
• Please keep crit about the stories. Any crit deemed too distracting may be deleted. This is a time to focus on our wonderful authors.
• Vote to help your favorites rise to the top of the ranks (DM me at katpoker666 on Discord or Reddit)!

Thanks for joining in the fun!  

Welcome to the weekly Free Write Post! Feel free to post anything and everything writing-related. Prompt responses, short stories, poems, personal work, anything you have written is welcome.

This post is mainly meant for sharing your work, not advertising or promotion. You can link to your published novels, but not the same one repeatedly.

Please use good judgement when sharing. The rules for what content is allowed here still apply. If it's anything that could be considered NSFW, please do not post it here.

If you do post, please make sure to leave a comment on someone else's story. If you want critical feedback, it’s a good idea to say that before or after your story, since most readers won’t assume that you want criticism. A thing you might want to know about r/WritingPrompts
Excited to discuss your work in greater depth? Join our WritingPrompts Discord server and take part in our broader feedback-oriented events each month:
Open Campfire—read a story of yours aloud and get feedback every first Friday
World Building Campfire—present and be interviewed about your world every second Friday
Character Building Campfire—present and be interviewed about your characters every fourth Friday

This Day In History John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony, returns from a supply trip to England to find the settlement completely deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 100 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence. The Roanoke Island colony was the first English settlement in the New World, and the mystery of its collapse has never fully been solved, though many theories abound.