This amateur filmmaker troper is obviously a terminal TvTropes addict, but she understands that it's not about the tropes, nor how you use them, but how it'll all look out in the finished product. That's what people pay to see... most of them, anyway...

I used Trope titles as a kind of shorthand while I was writing a story. CursedWithAwesome, BlessedWithSuck, PowerIncontinence, WiseBeyondTheirYears, OlderThanTheyLook, CrazyPrepared, and many others helped me develop a protagonist.

This troper always makes sure to go into a story knowing what kind of tropes he'll be using. It doesn't matter if he'll be playing with a trope, subverting it, or playing it straight. He always knows what he'll be doing.

After I started reading this website I got really paranoid to the point where I couldn’t write. I kept asking: Are all my characters Mary Sues? Am I info-dumping? Am I using “bad” tropes? Then I read what people wrote about Twilight. Twilight has lots of “bad” tropes but people READ it, many even love it. Of course I’m not writing Twilight, but the example cured my BSOD. I know that using a “bad” trope does not automatically equal “nobody will ever read this crap”. Now whenever I lose confidence I tell myself “Tropes Are Not Bad” and “People Read Twilight”.

Also remember that even if you do blow it, there's SoBadItsGood to fall back on.

This Troper could make very good settings. However before he got into TV Tropes he was almost incapable of making a character.

This filmmaker Troper likes to pastiche genres, so a trope can work as a basic idea which is then turned on it's ear. It becomes bad if used generically, so the trick is to adapt the tropes into new territories.