Tropea handed them a quill. “Start with one honest moment. Not a trope. A person .”

Captain Tropea adjusted her eyepatch (a literal plot device that let her see narrative structure). “Crew, we’ve got a trope overload in Sector YA. Set course for the Sea of Subplots.”

One foggy evening, the Cliche intercepted a distress signal from a sinking novel: “Help us. The author has fallen into a trope singularity. Too many ‘chosen ones.’ Too many ‘it was all a dreams.’ Send tropes—no, send anti -tropes.”