Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes

If there's a race of non-human, non-monster sapient beings in your fiction, you're most likely looking at either Sci Fi or Fantasy. Further, the race probably has characteristics drawn from a common set of tropes. These are some of those tropes.

Writing an entirely different race is hard. There's a lot of detail to manage, and to communicate to the reader. Some writers go to extreme lengths in inventive originality -- this tends to become the focus of the work, whether intentionally or otherwise. Strategies adopted by writers for dealing with these difficulties include drawing the race more or less directly from some stock template with which the audience will be familiar, going to the Planet of Hats, or, at the furthest extreme, just giving up on the "fantastic" part of this trope altogether. Original Star Trek the Original Series Klingons, supposedly an "alien race", famously look and act almost perfectly human.

Races defined by their sheer unintelligent monstrosity generally don't fall under this set of tropes. Mythical creatures are covered by Our Monsters Are Different.

Tropes

 * Abusive Alien Parents
 * Alien Tropes
 * Alien Hair
 * The Greys
 * Human Aliens
 * Human Subspecies
 * Humanoid Aliens
 * Intelligent Gerbil
 * Rubber Forehead Aliens
 * Little Green Men
 * Mechanical Lifeforms (sometimes)
 * People in Rubber Suits
 * Plant Aliens
 * The Reptilians
 * Serkis Folk (maybe)
 * Space Elves
 * Starfish Aliens
 * Always Chaotic Evil
 * Amusing Alien (and other unusual beings)
 * Anthropomorphic Food
 * Beast Man
 * Bizarre Alien Biology
 * Alien Lunch
 * Hive Mind
 * Starfish Language
 * Mind Hive
 * Captured Super Entity
 * Christmas Elves
 * Civilized Animal
 * Descriptively Named Species
 * Elfeminate
 * Evil Counterpart Race
 * Fantastic Arousal
 * Fantastic Racism
 * Fantastic Ghetto
 * Fantastic Slurs
 * Son of an Ape
 * Fantasy Axis of Evil
 * Our Orcs Are Different
 * The Fair Folk
 * Our Goblins Are Different
 * Five Races
 * Humans Are Average
 * Our Elves Are Better
 * Cultural Posturing
 * Can't Argue With Elves
 * Screw You Elves
 * Enslaved Elves
 * Our Dwarves Are All the Same
 * Elves vs. Dwarves
 * Hobbits
 * Our Gnomes Are Weirder
 * Have I Mentioned I Am a Dwarf Today?
 * Henchmen Race
 * Loads and Loads of Races
 * Evil Counterpart Race
 * Funny Animal
 * Half-Human Hybrid
 * All Genes Are Codominant
 * Heinz Hybrid
 * Human Mom Nonhuman Dad
 * Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid
 * Heel Race Turn
 * Humanoid Female Animal
 * Inhumanable Alien Rights
 * Klingon Scientists Get No Respect
 * Lilliputians
 * Little Bit Beastly
 * Little People
 * Lizard Folk
 * Not Quite Human
 * One-Gender Race
 * Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females
 * Petting Zoo People
 * Beast Folk
 * Big Creepy Crawlies
 * Insectoid Aliens
 * Bee People
 * Catfolk
 * Fish People
 * Frazetta Man
 * Lizard Folk
 * Mole Men
 * Peacock Girl
 * Pig Man
 * Shark Man
 * Planet of Hats (when applied to an entire species)
 * Planet of Copyhats
 * Planet of Dunce Caps
 * Planimal
 * Plant Person
 * Silicon Based Life
 * Super Human Trafficking
 * Superior Species
 * The Taming of the Grue
 * Unusual Ears
 * Ultraterrestrials
 * What Measure Is a Non-Human?
 * Wise Tree
 * Witch Species
 * Zombie Advocate

"Statler: I wonder why they keep mentioning life on other planets.

Waldorf: Why should they care? They don't have lives on this one!

Both: Dohohohoho!"