One-Dollar Retainer/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A professional accepts a token payment for a service to be rendered later.

  • Straight: Alice charges Bob one dollar before talking about a legal matter, in order to be able to claim "lawyer-client privilege" later.
  • Exaggerated: Alice charges Bob one dollar and goes on to defend him against a murder charge (or something else that would normally cost thousands of dollars).
  • Downplayed: Bob's retainer is just for that one discussion; if he wants help from Alice a second time, he'll need to pay her full rate.
  • Justified: Alice needs the work in order to pad out her resume.
  • Inverted: Alice asks for her usual rate, but Bob pays more for excellent service.
  • Subverted: Alice asks for her usual rate for an entire hour of her time.
  • Double Subverted: ... but then provides more than one hour's worth of work.
  • Parodied:
    • Alice accepts a button and a bit of pocket lint as a retainer.
    • Charlie puts Flo on retainer to make him a sandwich.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice charges her usual fee, but then tears up the bill after Bob pays her one dollar.
  • Averted: Bob pays Alice her usual rates without asking for a discount.
  • Enforced: The writer decides (or is forced) to make Alice look less like a heartless mercenary.
  • Lampshaded: "You have to pay me something, or else we don't have a contract."
  • Invoked: Alice will be kicked into a higher tax bracket if she charges her usual fee and lives in a time and place where the tax rate would apply to all of her earnings, so Bob gets a deep, deep discount.
  • Exploited: Bob pays Alice one dollar, then reveals something that would have changed Alice's life if she wasn't working for Bob.
  • Defied: Alice refuses to take less than what's listed in her usual schedule of fees.
  • Discussed: "Any second now, Bob's going to give Alice a dollar and she'll take the job."
  • Conversed: "How can all those professionals afford to stay in business if they only charge their clients a dollar?"
  • Played For Laughs: "Sorry, but 99 cents isn't enough. Come back when you have a full dollar."
  • Played For Drama: Alice accepts a token retainer just before Bob is murdered, and feels honor-bound to do the work he contracted from her.
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