Tropes and Cliches

Man vs.....Coflict-In general

In a lot of fictional stories, there is a main conflict that is discussed in literature class so much that you write seperate books on each one. But I'm not going to do that. Instead, each will get it's own chapter and what you do with it is up to you. 

Now the whole concept of a human or Man being against some force is nothing new, but it has evolved as time went on, falling under one of three categories but take it with a grain of salt:  "man against man", "man against nature", and "man against self." These are frequently cited, but are not universally accepted. Ayn Rand, for instance, argued that "man against nature" is not a conflict because and I quote "nature has no free will and thus can make no choices".  

Many added "man against society",  "man against machine or technology" , "man against fate" , "man against the supernatural" and "man against God", though they would often place Man v God and Man v fate in the same box.  

Now writing these is one thing, because you can literally make this the theme of the entire story. It also depends on the genre and the type of story you're trying to create. Let's look at Avatar the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. Both are good with the Man v Self as they both have doubts about them being the Avatar, but in different lights. With Aang, he literally disappeared for 100 years and had to deal with the results of said accidental choice: Fire Nation taking over half the world, a lot of benders were either killed or imprisoned, and the fact that he had to take down the Fire Lord who is in his prime when he had a year to learn and master all four elements ( which he barely did). With Korra we saw her deal with the idea that maybe the world doesn't need the avatar, a lot of societal norms that could represent racism or some other form of discrimination ( i.e certain jobs were only for benders and an all bender council) which can be seen as a man vs. society. This is on top of the many angry spirits( man v nature or supernatural depending on how you look at it) playing peacemaker.  Because the whole idea of the Avatar is that one person that is supposed to keep the balance in the world. Often times, they can stay as neutral as possible, but they are still humans with families, emotions and a conscience.  They are walking conflicts as Man vs Society( as many thougt the avatar was a unnecessary figure that can still have nepotism), Technology( advancements in tech caused some spirits to be pissed that thier home was destroyed), Supernatural ( see previous statement) Self ( each character has their own problems)and Man ( there is a lot of these). 

Now like I said, writing these is dependent on the type of story you're trying to tell, and I'll talk about each one individually when I get back to this. Each one has it's own set of problems and it's hard to explain without specific examples. 

Leave a request if there is a specific trope, cliche, or writing element you'd like explained.