Downward Cycle

Downward Spiral but it gets worse than getting worse.

A series of events that progressively becomes more painful every time it repeats. The victims of the Downward Cycle may start off having fun, but the repetition inevitably smothers whatever level of enjoyment they can derive from it. Fail And Repeat can be a Downward Cycle for those with weaker resolves who give up easily. A second UnTrash with this potential is Good Thing Turns Bad, which can rob a person of their happiness in indulging in the same one activity, no matter how sure they are that it won't happen. It's That Time Of Year Again is a slower loop in which the usually unwilling participants dread what's to come next: boredom, monotony, and Unfiltered Agony.

Not all Downward Cycles consist of steps that repeat sequentially. A franchise can transform into a giant Downward Cycle if it becomes repetitive, predictable, uninteresting, or self-limiting. This can be done in a number of ways, all of which turn the audience off and drive them away. If creators focus on the same Kiddie Pool of topics or storylines, they give the impression they can't do anything beyond their short list of moves, even if they can. A franchise swirling into a Downward Cycle might be the product of the creators' fear of alienating their core fans with unexpected newness. However, the reverse situation is often true: introducing a new and experimental model for running things can rekindle interest in a franchise. It's especially applicable in the case of franchises that have been around for a long time. A Downward Cycle of this kind can be identified by the repetitive usage of the same few words whose meanings never change. Even if these words originate from the core theme of the franchise, their over-usage can get the audience to think it isn't about anything else. How some creators exacerbate this problem is by connecting too many parts of their story to its central theme. Sledgehammer Messages are an excellent example of doing just this. The audience only needs to be told something a few times at most that one or some concepts are at the heart of a franchise's events and the cast's motives and beliefs. However, ignoring this and forcefully shoving the same ideas at every possible point will drive the viewers off out of annoyance or boredom. Newcomers to the audience or knowledgeable outside observers might wonder how more into-it fans can take their favorite franchise seriously when all it knows is the same Kiddie Pool of concepts.

UnRec
Imagine you have a friend who keeps telling you the same joke over and over. No matter how funny the joke might've been in the beginning, it soon burns out all its Entertainment Value and becomes an annoyance. This is the same principle that applies to a story reiterating one or a handful of messages. There are two modes of repetitiveness you'll need to be aware of when developing your series: inner repetition and outer repetition. Constantly revisiting the same ideas to the point of tedium is an excellent way to erode the audience's patience. They've already been told that the franchise values friendship or kindness. There isn't any level of remixing the message's conveyance that can make it fresh again. This inner repetition is entirely under your control and can be totally avoided if you watch what you want the audience to know about the world. What you don't have power over, though, is the endless stream of vexingly overdone themes in storytelling that have been rendered more stale than the first loaf of bread ever baked. Such key ideas as light being good and dark being evil are so painfully expired, yet hardly anybody makes any effort to change this. You can play your part in combating this ancient trash in fiction with the tool known as ingenuity. Throughout history, the people to be discussed the most even long after they're no longer around are the ones who stand out from the crowd. They bring ideas to the world that nobody else would have imagined to be possible. Use whatever strategies you know of to gather new ideas, and no matter how nervous they make you feel, you should never doubt them to the point of perpetually shelving them. Showcase your creative abilities to audiences starving for truly novel stories. Have faith in your series and the things it can do for you and the face of storywriting. If you're lucky, you can join the ranks of the individuals time remembers.