Problem with a SF trope, too unoriginal?

LesFewer

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So near the start of my novel my protagonist hops in the chair of her gaming console, rests her head on the headrest and she's in a medieval RPG game. It's full virtual reality.

The story isn't about the game, the game part will only last a chapter.

I know this is a trope, what I don't want to happen is that readers will read it and find it so unoriginal that it takes them out of the story. I don't want them to read it and their first thought is 'I've seen this a thousand times before. Ho-hum.'

Any ideas of how I can handle this?
 

Brightdreamer

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Well, letting the reader know from the outset that it's a game would avoid a big potential bait-and-switch. A lot of the difference between a trope and cliche, though, is in the execution, and a summary gives me no clues there.

What does the game contribute to the story? Does she "meet" other characters in VR? Does it show something significant about her? Is it where she first notices something off that triggers the plot (say, if it's a story about an evil AI infiltrating the internet, she might notice that the game isn't behaving right, which is the first sign of the Bad Thing)? If it does nothing but "this world has kewl VR gamezes!!11one!", you might trim it back, or begin the story when she's logging off and getting back to reality.

You have over 50 posts; have you considered posting an exerpt in the SYW forums? The only way to know if you're selling your story or turning off readers is to put in front of readers, and the subforum's safe (password protected, so only AW users will ever see it, and then just to critique.)
 

LesFewer

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Well, letting the reader know from the outset that it's a game would avoid a big potential bait-and-switch. A lot of the difference between a trope and cliche, though, is in the execution, and a summary gives me no clues there.

What does the game contribute to the story? Does she "meet" other characters in VR? Does it show something significant about her? Is it where she first notices something off that triggers the plot (say, if it's a story about an evil AI infiltrating the internet, she might notice that the game isn't behaving right, which is the first sign of the Bad Thing)? If it does nothing but "this world has kewl VR gamezes!!11one!", you might trim it back, or begin the story when she's logging off and getting back to reality.

You have over 50 posts; have you considered posting an exerpt in the SYW forums? The only way to know if you're selling your story or turning off readers is to put in front of readers, and the subforum's safe (password protected, so only AW users will ever see it, and then just to critique.)


I wanted my protagonist to have one thing she's good at and that's leadership. In the game word she's the leader of a guild and a good one.
 

D. E. Wyatt

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Tropes Are Tools. That may sound pithy, but it's true. There isn't a story out there that isn't using that trope in SOME way, whether they're playing it painfully straight, subverting it, or playing with it in some way (about 90% of FarScape was tying the conventions of SciFi in knots).

If you're concerned about people thinking they've seen it before, there's a lot of ways you can approach it. You can just roll with it and not care; there's a REASON it's been seen a thousand times before you, and will still be seen a thousand times more AFTER you. You can call attention to it, or find some way to subvert it. You might even do exactly what Brightdreamer seems to be cautioning AGAINST: DON'T let the reader know it's a game world, and take full advantage of the Bait-And-Switch as part of your plot.
 

Arcs

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Firstly, there is nothing wrong with a trope unless you use that trope in a way everyone has seen before with bland characters and bland environments.

But... Leadership is a complicated thing that doesn't really (in my opinion) translate well between games and real life. (Unless, of course, your tech is such that people do full dive MMOs. Then there might be something to be said for leadership skills translating well when real life and MMOs start to look/act/feel/work like the same thing.)

But leaving that whole discussion aside—

You should think about your audience when adding or subtracting from your book, and if your audience is gamers, then having an opening chapter be about leading raids in your World of Warcraft-equivalent but the rest of the book be about not-gaming, then you might want to rethink using this set-up to characterize your MC.

If your audience is not-gamers, then having an opening chapter be about gaming would throw off all of the people out there who don't like gaming.

But now I'm reading your post again, and thinking that I might be wrong. I have no idea how you have handled this situation in your novel (and I'm guessing that your MMO is a full dive MMO, which is good for showcasing leadership, compared to today's flatscreen MMO worlds). If it was me doing this, I would open the scene on her logging off of the MMO and then going to her leadership-job, or something, and focus on how she leads in the real world.
 

indianroads

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Could you move this scene to the second chapter? Perhaps use the first chapter to show your MC failing in the real world (non leadership role), then have her go home and find solace in her game?

I usually download the free sample from Amazon before committing to a buy (and committing my time to reading the story). If that first chapter doesn't grab me I won't buy the book - and something I've read too many times before might drive me off.
 

Polenth

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I don't see the issue as being that it's a trope or unoriginal. It's more that it sounds like it doesn't have any relevance to the story. You don't need to show her as being good at leadership in a random context before the story starts. You'll show her being good at leadership during the story.

That's not to say that characters can't have hobbies, but you don't want to end up presenting that hobby as though it's going to be the story. If a story opened with someone entering a virtual world, I'd assume that's central to the story. If they relax by playing the game sometime later, it'd have a different feel.
 

meltong

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Everyone has good advice here.

It wouldn't hurt to provide us more info about why this full VR RPG part is important and if you are doing this just to grab readers, then they will be like indianroads.

I second
"There is nothing wrong with a trope unless you use that trope in a way everyone has seen before with bland characters and bland environments."
that's how Twilight was born.
 

knight_tour

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I have a couple chapters like this in my sci-fi novel. Like you, the game wasn't a huge part of the story, so I made sure those chapters took place after the tone of the story was already set, and I guess that's my only opinion on this--if it worries you that the reader might think from the outset that the gaming aspect is integral to the whole story and might be turned off by that, perhaps find a way to have a chapter or two take place prior to this one. In each of my novels, the chapter I initially wrote to be the first chapter ended up being chapter 3!
 

Don B

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Much like portal fantasies (person stumbles through doorway in our world into fantastic world), the VR trope can be presented in hundreds of different exciting manifestations. Portal fantasies were written for hundreds of years, arguably stretching all the way back to Dante's Inferno to the Narnia books to Thomas Covenant to Harry Potter and now Outlander. Each gave a spin on both the doorway and the destination that made the story frame unique and fresh.

I think the only danger you're in is not making your VR game interesting. Not even unique, necessarily, because in my opinion it hasn't quite been played out enough yet for that. (Tron was only 30 some years ago...lol) Of course, dont copy Ready Player One, but as long as you have an interesting VR mechanism, world, and characters within it for which your protag to encounter, it should be enough to carry the concept. I would not hesitate. (Yes, "interesting" is a vague term, but that is where your creativity and reader feedback become essential. Interest derives from any number of factors.)

And I love the idea of moving the "frame" chapter in a few, or what about even interlacing smaller sections throughout the book, which would increase complexity and interest?

Good luck!
 

brightspark

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I wanted my protagonist to have one thing she's good at and that's leadership. In the game word she's the leader of a guild and a good one.

Does it have anything to do with the plot? You can show leadership through the natural progression of the story, and unless there's another reason for having this chapter (other than showing a character trait) I would take it out and try to disperse those elements elsewhere.

On the subject of tropes though, I agree with the other commenters. There's nothing wrong with tropes: they're tropes for a reason. The important thing is always the execution.
 

Lehssner

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Yeah, I would say make sure that the reader knows this virtual reality isn't what your book is about. But yeah, I would also ask: What does purpose does this segment serve? If your story is about something else entirely I probably wouldn't want to include an entire chapter on something that doesn't fit with that the rest of the book is about.