Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
Register
Advertisement

Template:IndexTrope

Marie antoinette melodrama

Any phrase is better when said melodramatically.


Cquote1
"And once again, Probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service Drama as would a copper piece harlot."
Cquote2


If the potential for conflict is visible, then it will never be passed over.

Without drama and Conflict, There Is No Show. A show where everyone gets along and nothing unpleasant happens will bore everyone. This is the reason for the Rule of Drama. For adding drama, just push this button.

Does everything look conflict-free? Not so fast. Something new and unpleasant must be introduced out of the blue. This is why happy couples tend not to last (unless writers can find good conflict without breaking them up).

Raymond Chandler once described this sub-rule:

Cquote1

 "When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand."

Chandler's Law

Cquote2


Essentially, when the writers run out of drama, they must invent ways to force drama into undramatic situations. When handled poorly, this leads to unusual, irrational, or highly improbable scenarios which only exist for the sake of prolonging the conflict.

To determine if a trope is a product of the Rule of Drama, ask yourself: If this trope weren't used, would this much crap even be happening?

The only place where the Rule of Drama does not apply is the Denouement; the show is supposed to end there. But even then, you can wind up with an Sequel Hook.

Compare Acceptable Breaks From Reality (video games following what makes them fun instead of realistic).

Related to Rule of Funny in comedy. See also Anthropic Principle.

All items (45)

Advertisement