Generate a random storytelling trope from 155 -- character types, plot devices, twists, style and genre staples -- each with what the device actually does.
A trope is a recurring device: a character type, a plot shape, a shot, a structural move that audiences recognise without being told. A cliché is a trope that has stopped doing any work -- used out of habit rather than intent, and predictable in a way that costs the story tension. The difference is entirely in the execution, which is why the same device can be either. "Mentor dies before the third act" is a cliché in a film that inserts it because that is what happens in these films, and is not one in a film that has built the whole relationship so the loss lands. Tropes are also what make genre possible at all: a heist film that did not assemble a crew and explain a plan would not read as a heist film, and an audience arriving with those expectations is the raw material a good film subverts. The names come from three places -- formal criticism (deus ex machina is Greek), writers'-room shorthand, and audience coinages from the internet -- and in practice everyone uses them interchangeably.
This generator draws from 155 storytelling tropes across five groups: character types, plot devices, endings and twists, dialogue and style, and genre staples. Each comes with a plain explanation of what the device actually does, rather than just what it is called -- which is the part that makes it usable rather than just recognisable.
Every result here is drawn using crypto.getRandomValues() -- the Web Crypto API's cryptographically secure randomness -- instead of Math.random(), so it's genuinely unpredictable, not just statistically random. Learn more.
Writing prompts and story games, screenwriting exercises, film club discussion starters, deliberately building a story out of drawn constraints, subverting a trope on purpose, and quiz or bingo cards for a rewatch.
Generate draws one trope at random from 155 using cryptographically secure randomness, and never repeats the one on screen. Filter to a group to keep the draw useful for what you are writing -- character types for casting, plot devices for structure. Raise the amount to deal a hand of constraints in one press.
A sample of what this generator can draw, spread evenly across the full list:
No, and it is not affiliated with it. This is an independent list of widely used storytelling tropes with its own descriptions. Some of the names are formal critical terms with centuries of use, some are screenwriting shorthand, and some are audience coinages that stuck.
Draw two or three and make them collide. A trope becomes a cliché when it is the path of least resistance, so a device you did not choose is a useful constraint: you have to earn it rather than reach for it. Subverting a drawn trope -- setting up the expectation and paying off something else -- is the same exercise from the other end.
Yes. Set the amount to about twenty with No Duplicates on, print the list, and tick them off during a film. Combining it with the bingo card generator on this site gives you an actual card.
It depends what is stuck. Character types help when a cast feels flat, plot devices when the middle sags, endings and twists when you know where you are going but not how to land it, and genre staples when you are deciding what kind of story this is at all.