People sometimes complain about tropes in fiction. The use of certain literary devices, settings or archetypes that are shortcuts for the writer, conveying a mood or setting the stage in a way that the reader will quickly identify. Their overuse can push them into the category of clichés, and will turn some people off. But used judiciously, I think they have their place.
I mention tropes today because I employ one quite blatently in this week’s story. In fact it’s such a common trope, I just heard it on another podcast, The Other Stories, today while driving.
It’s the use of a carnival.
When I say, “carnival,” I’m sure certain things come to mind. A midway lined with rickety rides that fit on the back of a semi-trailer. Games of “skill” that are impossible to master. Perhaps certain types of food, or the ever popular Freak Show. Shifty characters who roll into town, fleece the local population for a week or so and then move on.
All of that sets a certain mood with a single word. And in the case of short stories like I write for Bedtime Stories for Insomniacs, it saves me the time of creating an original way of conveying that something strange and perhaps magical is about to happen.
In this story—as you can tell from the title—it’s the House of Mirrors that we visit. A maze of mirrored glass that can create quite a disconcerting atmosphere if combined with the right lighting and music. Throw in an ancient gyspsy fortune teller, and a man who is convinced his fiancée is still alive in the world behind mirrors and I can spend more time telling the story rather than explaining how something magical happens. We make the assumption that it will because he visits the off-limits-to-the-public House of Mirrors in a dark corner of a carnival that appears just as he needs it to be there.
So, I hope you’ll pardon my trope this week and enjoy this story regardless of yet another visit to a mysertious carnival and the cryptic character that guides my protagonist to where he can find the answers to his deep and abiding grief.
You can listen to “House of Mirrors” on your favorie podast app and audible. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and most importantly, share my stories with anyone you know who is a fan of audio fiction.
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Thanks again, and all the very best.