Tired Tropes

Tropes are great marketing devices, but when everyone uses the same tropes to plot their novels, they can feel tired and overused. You need to keep your tropes fresh so your audience doesn’t get bored and lose their appetite for your books.

What are tropes?

A trope is a basic plot device that writers can use as a framework for their story. Good storytelling almost always involves tropes. They appear in every kind of fiction, including movies, novels, and TV dramas. Some are especially suited to certain genres—for example, the Enemies to Lovers trope, which is very common in romance. This is when two people start the story by hating each other and end up falling in love. You’ve probably also seen the Good Cop, Bad Cop trope in countless action movies and police dramas.

There are too many tropes to list, but here are some popular ones:

• Marriage of Convenience
• Enemies to Lovers
• Amnesiac Hero
• Friends to Lovers
• Second Chance Romance
• Feuding Families
• The Chosen One
• Humble Hero
• Love Triangle
• Found Family
• Good Cop, Bad Cop
• Redeemed Villain
• Not Like Other Girls
• Survive the Trials

This list could go on for pages and still not be complete. New tropes appear all the time, while old ones fade away. Some are specific to certain genres, while others are flexible enough to work anywhere.

The problem with tropes

Writers and readers love tropes that are used in original ways. Problems arise when they’re overused, because then it feels like the same story is being told again and again.

An example of an overused trope is The Chosen One, which appears in numerous YA fantasy novels. A young protagonist (often female) discovers that they’re destined to save society because they are special.

Examples include:

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Cinder by Marissa Meyer

If everyone else in your genre is using the same trope, it becomes difficult for your story to stand out. Since there are hundreds of tropes to choose from, it’s worth exploring alternatives to make your work feel more original.

The underlying message

Some tropes are not only tired, but also problematic because of the message they send.

For example, the Rich Man, Poor Girl trope is about a wealthy man falling in love with a much poorer woman. This reinforces the idea that money can buy love, that money equals power, and that these qualities impress women.

Another controversial trope is the Bad Boy, which often leads to Love Can Change You. An attractive young man with deep-rooted emotional issues behaves badly—sometimes abusively—towards the protagonist. His abusive actions only make her like him more. Her love redeems him, and they end up in a wonderful relationship. Sometimes the abuse is revealed to be a misunderstanding, or explained away by his troubled upbringing.

Unless he redeems himself through other methods—such as the ones outlined in my post How to Make a 5-Step Redemption Arc—my advice is to steer away from this trope altogether because of the negative message it carries.

How to subvert a trope

Since most tropes are easy to spot and readers can predict what will happen, you need to work hard to make them fresh and engaging. One way is to change the usual format. For example, introduce two love interests in your romance novel, then bring in a third character. Readers will recognize this as a Love Triangle and form expectations. Once the trope is established, you can decide how to play with it.

Here are some ideas:

• The protagonist chooses the romantic rival.
• It’s a real triangle: Person A likes Person B, who likes Person C, who likes Person A.
• Another character enters and runs off with the protagonist.

Don’t spend most of your book setting up a trope only to flip it in the final chapter. The subversion should suit your characters and story while leading to a natural, satisfying conclusion.

If you decide your Amnesiac Hero faked their memory loss, either let readers in on it from the start or drop enough hints for them to pick up on. You want them to feel entertained, not cheated.

Final thoughts

Tropes are a useful formula or shorthand for your plot. Readers expect to see them in stories, and they make situations quickly recognizable. This saves you from needing pages of explanation. But once tropes start to feel tired and formulaic, they risk becoming clichés.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use tropes—just make sure you do something fresh and unexpected with them.

Are you a writer looking for some help with your novel? Check out my Work with Me page to see how I help authors achieve their publishing goals.