Writing is often filled with tropes – preconceived ideas that both the writer and the reader bring to the story. If I say “Fairy Godmother,” you probably come u with an image of a nice older woman, perhaps plump and Disney-esque. If I say, “Vampire,” you probably imagine a pale man with fangs and a big black cape.
Those are tropes; kind of like stereotypes, but much broader in that tropes can be about places, events, genres of writing. If I say, “Christmas,” you probably picture a lot. of the same images as I would.
For this assignment we were asked to redefine a fairy tale trope of our choice. I chose trolls.
Troll, Interrupted
Everyone who tried to visit the lakeside town of Midland had to pass over the troll bridge. Everyone knew the troll didn’t like people entering Midland. No one understood why.
The studious troll was pretty close to finishing his Ph.D. dissertation on the pending ecological collapse of his lake. Not being allowed to own property in Midland – thanks to a speciesist town council – forced him to live outdoors.
He’d discovered that the curve of the stone bridge best amplified the free wifi from the local pub. So there he lived, trying to protect his research from further contamination, from the annual influx of drunk tourists.
First he’d tried stopping traffic and handing out pamphlets at the bridge, but the illiterate tourists just crumpled them and chucked them all along the shoreline.
Then he’d tried iconographic ‘no fishing’ signs at all the popular fishing holes. They’d been vandalized.
So, now he played to the stereotypes. Hey, if they’re gonna label you an angry troll anyway, why not be one?
If you enjoyed this story, you might enjoy my short story collection The Maiden Voyage of Novyy Mir and Other Short Stories.
