IFIAYaQD: Calling all authors

[cyrano]

A follow up to yesterday's question.
If you're working on a story and suspect it falls into a genre that you're interested in yet unfamiliar with, is it best to spend some time becoming more familiar with the genre and its tropes, or to forge on and either reinvent the wheel or defy tradition by being unaware of it?

Comments

[missroserose]

In my experience, the former. Since if you don't know what the tropes are, chances are you'll fall into them - the reason they become tropes is because they're what our culturally-programmed brains go to by default.

[emmymau]

I usually like to get a bit familiar with the genre to avoid falling into unwanted tropes, as well as to avoid unknowingly writing a story that's similar to an existing one (a la The Hunger Games getting called out for its similarities to Battle Royale)