dawn.vogel | October 27, 2025
During the WriteHive Online Conference in July, I watched a panel called “Troubling Tropes,” which was a fantastic panel for learning about tropes that can be problematic and how to work with them. The panelists talked about identifying tropes that are problematic, particularly those that rely on stereotypes for people from marginalized groups. They also […]
dawn.vogel | October 16, 2023
One of the WriteHive online conference panels I watched was How to Subvert Tropes. This panel talked about what tropes are, when they become cliches, and how to then twist those tropes to make them fresh again. The panel started out by talking about how tropes are the building blocks of stories that establish trust […]
dawn.vogel | March 8, 2021
There are a lot of tropes associated with monsters, and a huge number of these tropes are racist and ableist caricatures used as shorthand to suggest that non-white people and people with disabilities are inherently inferior, if not downright evil. This article from Mythcreants, “Ridding Your Monsters of Ableism,” gives examples of how monster tropes […]
