But those little buggers sure have a way of creeping into a story without us writers noticing it. Why? They're expected; we've seen them so many times that we assume that's how the story is supposed to go, and a lot of times we don't even realize it's a trope.
So I'm going to have fun bashing some common story cliches and hopefully helping all of us recognize and remove these stale tropes from our writing. I'm starting today with "the aged mentor."
So let's say your hero absolutely has to have an aged mentor. Let's further say that the mentor needs to die (he's aged, after all). Fine. Just don't make him die delivering final injunctions or profound words of wisdom to guide the hero through the rest of the story:
Know of some tropes writers should avoid? Let me know in the comments. I'll be doing a few more of these cliche of the day posts if I think of any more annoying tropes.