Phoebe Roberts author tropes
Some day when I'm a famous writer, I will have an Author Tropes page on tvtropes.com. Here's a guess at what recurring themes in my work are likely to make that page, along with a couple examples.
- complicated feelings about babies
I experience very ambivalent feelings about babies that encompass a strong desire to and an extreme fear of having babies. Babies being both important and terrifying often features in my work. In Mrs. Hawking, the protagonist has a strong aversion to the idea of having children, but her life circumstances have complicated that for her. Mrs. Loring is about a woman who fears her mental illness has caused her to let her daughter down, so she tries to help another girl’s baby in an effort to make up for it.
- asexuals
Asexuality is fascinating to me, and there’s a part of me that kind of wishes I were. Mrs. Hawking is an avowed aromantic asexual.
- ballet dancers, often "broken down"
I love ballet, it’s both a beautiful art and an amazing human endeavor. I find it fascinating how extreme devotion to excelling at it often destroys you so that you can never do it anymore. My comic book Lame Swans is about ballet dancers, and the main character Lise’s rival is facing inevitable breakdown. In Base Instruments, the third Mrs. Hawking story, Mrs. Hawking is revealed to have a background in ballet, and the client will be a ballet dancer feeling the wear and tear.
- one and only loves
I write a lot of people who find the love of their life and never fall in love with anyone else ever again for the rest of their lives. I find the notion deeply romantic, and I think it might work that way for me. In To Think of Nothing, Cassander is afraid to be rejected by Andromeda because she’s that one for him. Sundan, the lead of his eponymous play, is the same case, if about a hundred times more extreme.
- metatheater
I love theater, so I write a lot of theater about theater! :-) To Think of Nothing and Merely Players are both about making theater.
- humorous anti-Catholicism
I find anti-Catholicism to be inexplicably hilarious. I wrote anti-Catholic jokes into The Late Mrs. Chadwick, Her Eternal Majesty’s Privy Council, and I always thought Mrs. Hawking was never particularly fond of the papists.
- traditionally masculine men cast in traditionally feminine roles
I love when men with a normatively masculine physical presentation do thing that are typically coded feminine in our society. Aidan in Adonis is cast as the object of gaze; in fact, he’s something of a male Helen of Troy.
- complicated feelings about babies
I experience very ambivalent feelings about babies that encompass a strong desire to and an extreme fear of having babies. Babies being both important and terrifying often features in my work. In Mrs. Hawking, the protagonist has a strong aversion to the idea of having children, but her life circumstances have complicated that for her. Mrs. Loring is about a woman who fears her mental illness has caused her to let her daughter down, so she tries to help another girl’s baby in an effort to make up for it.
- asexuals
Asexuality is fascinating to me, and there’s a part of me that kind of wishes I were. Mrs. Hawking is an avowed aromantic asexual.
- ballet dancers, often "broken down"
I love ballet, it’s both a beautiful art and an amazing human endeavor. I find it fascinating how extreme devotion to excelling at it often destroys you so that you can never do it anymore. My comic book Lame Swans is about ballet dancers, and the main character Lise’s rival is facing inevitable breakdown. In Base Instruments, the third Mrs. Hawking story, Mrs. Hawking is revealed to have a background in ballet, and the client will be a ballet dancer feeling the wear and tear.
- one and only loves
I write a lot of people who find the love of their life and never fall in love with anyone else ever again for the rest of their lives. I find the notion deeply romantic, and I think it might work that way for me. In To Think of Nothing, Cassander is afraid to be rejected by Andromeda because she’s that one for him. Sundan, the lead of his eponymous play, is the same case, if about a hundred times more extreme.
- metatheater
I love theater, so I write a lot of theater about theater! :-) To Think of Nothing and Merely Players are both about making theater.
- humorous anti-Catholicism
I find anti-Catholicism to be inexplicably hilarious. I wrote anti-Catholic jokes into The Late Mrs. Chadwick, Her Eternal Majesty’s Privy Council, and I always thought Mrs. Hawking was never particularly fond of the papists.
- traditionally masculine men cast in traditionally feminine roles
I love when men with a normatively masculine physical presentation do thing that are typically coded feminine in our society. Aidan in Adonis is cast as the object of gaze; in fact, he’s something of a male Helen of Troy.