Comparing various fantasy fiction stories, this book shows that it is not the tropes and cliches that make a story good or bad but how the author applies them. The book also explores the concept of text versus meta-text—that is, when the story's world and character actions contradict the reader's expectations based on the tropes being used. Covering authors from Mercedes Lackey and Brandon Sanderson to Christopher Paolini and Stephenie Meyer, the author finds that it is the nature of tropes and the language used that make a fantasy story, for bad or good.