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A trope is a well-worn concept, idea, or situation in fiction. An ambulance chasing lawyer, a doctor obsessed with playing golf, a sex worker with a pure and good heart are examples of tropes well known in previous decades that have fallen out of style and are for the most part now forgotten.

Genre fiction has its own set of tropes that are widely known and for several decades now the flipping of those tropes has been a popular move.

The trouble with tropes is that well-worn and predictable that can often lead to lazy, bad writing and stories. Little that is new, original, or even interesting is presented but rather reheated leftovers instead of a finely prepared meal.

In some cases, the inverting of a trope is motivated by correcting past prejudices, preconceptions, and stereotypes. Sometimes it’s meant as a twist or surprise to the narrative, such as it’s not the shinning knight that is the villain of the story, but the poor dragon hounded and hunted for no good reason, it’s not the creature that is the monstrosity but the villagers, and handsome prince is in fact a terrible and abusive person.

Honestly, I can’t recall a story of recent vintage in which any of the above genre tropes was deployed in anything close to its original form. Everything tale and piece has been the inverted trope, and I think that has become the new default setting for many of these concepts and situations.

So common has the inverted trope become that in my eyes is had become the reheated leftovers and not the fresh new take. Every witch I see in a story I know now is really a good person, unjustly feared and outcast. The inversions become the boring, predictable text that offers little in the way of a new voice, a new vision, a new take on anything.

This is not a plea to return to some ‘golden age’ of stories. That never existed, but I think it’s important, particularly when dealing with concepts that have been around for thousands of years, to bring something fresh that is not merely the reverse image of something else.