“It’s a grumpy/sunshine book, and there’s only one bed! Eeeeeek!”
Ever feel like book reviews or BookToks are speaking in a cryptic code that you can’t decipher? Something that goes beyond mere skibidi youth slang and “we’re-all-in-a-hurry” shortcuts like comps? There is one culprit for that, and it isn’t going anywhere: tropes.
What’s a trope?
In literary terms, a trope is a plot device or character attribute that is (over)used so commonly in a genre that it’s seen as commonplace, conventional or even cliché.
It’s a romance and the two protagonists who can’t stand each other pretend to be in a relationship for the sake of appearances? Guess what, they’re getting together for real and you can’t stop them. Are you currently reading a superhero book? There’s probably a villain who wants to take over the world, right?
Tropes are very useful to both writer and readers. They are so ubiquitous they cannot be copyrighted, so all the plagiarism scandals about one author using the other author’s “idea”, which turns out to be a basic love triangle trope, are just silly.
Not many books will achieve greatness by just stringing a bunch of tropes together, however. A wise author will use tropes as a jumping point and play with (or against) them as much as their creativity allows, to avoid a stale, predictable manuscript. House Andrews basically have trope torture chambers, you can hear the poor twisted things crying for mercy in each book, and that’s why I love them.
For us readers, tropes are an invaluable tool when we look for our next adventure. I always want romances with Cinnamon Roll heroes, will rarely pick up a Second Chance novel and can’t abide a miscommunication trope.
Tropes are also a way to ease us into a story with something familiar. “A book with magical detectives and political conspiracies? I don’t know if I would…oh, it’s got a Secret Billionaire? Oh yeah, give me 6 of them.” – someone about to join the BDH after reading Hidden Legacy, probably.
Trope trends
A website that can suck hours of your time in its rabbit holes is TV Tropes. You will also start making jokes that only the Chosen Ones understand, but that’s the Rule of Cool hehe.
I’ll give you just a few of my favorite things: raindrops on roses The Chunky Salsa Rule, Red Oni, Blue Oni, the Iron Butt Monkey, Applied Phlebotinum, Crapsaccharine World.
Once you start to recognise tropes everywhere, it also becomes apparent how they constantly go in and out of style and become viral or cancelled, according to the waves of social media opinion and the world (hopefully) learning better in some cases.
In the romance genre, we are currently living through the last days of Grumpy/Sunshine viralness (a subset of the Opposites Attract, where one of the characters is moody, taciturn, saturnine and the other one is a bubbly, chatty ray of sunshine). Enemies to Lovers is still going strong, after defeating the previous reigning champion, Fated Mates (who smell each other; what were we all thinking lol?). Forced Consent and Age Gap are relegated to the backstage or taboo indies. It might make your favorites harder to find or write about for commercial success, but I hope for a world where no one can dictate to adults what they should be reading.
What tropes are you interested in or glad to see the last of?
Edit: please keep it to discussion about tropes and not specific book or author recommendations. There will be designated blog posts for that!
I love the loner who gets more and more friends, gets a reliable team, develops, changes to be an (at least a bit) open to others person.
I do not know if there is a name for that, but that is the kind of book series I tend to stay till the end (or till someone eg kills of the team, the circle of friends,…)
Habe a nice day!
I love that too! It’s a range of tropes, from the Loner Turned Friend https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LonerTurnedFriend to the Power of Friendship https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePowerOfFriendship
I discovered TVtropes about 10 years ago. I haven’t finished reading yet…
the end is NOT in sight hehe
That’s because there IS no end!!!!!!!!!!*eeeeeevil cackling*
Thank you!
I love the friends trope too!!! Probably my favorite although I often refer to it as “found family” where the main(s) end up with friends and family.
The found family trope? I love that…
I feel like the fated mates trope is still going strong… but maybe that is just kindle unlimited for you.
I’ve gotten to the point with storylines where I enjoy when the author acts like she is heading in the direction of a trope… and then completely side steps it with a mature and reasonable response.
I’ve long since felt like the romance genre has been in danger of propagating normality of abusive relationships.
I’ve enjoyed a few titles which took the “he’s a misunderstood AH who would never hurt me” trope and showed how yes, he was hurting her and that healthy relationships don’t have love bombing.
Sadly those titles get a lot of love and a lot of hate.
I agree with you on romance sometimes being way too close to abusive. It’s a trend that has been around a while. Alpha male does not equate to abusive/run over the female/control the female. But some books definitely cross that line for me.
That one is “found family” I think and I love it too!
I agree. My favorite series (53 + books so far) is still going strong & I am always looking for more in this trope.
OK, I am officially old. I had to google “skibidi”. Which led me to a subReddit which explained it using a bunch more slang terms I had never heard before.
That’s sigma, chat, no cap!
(Translation: that’s so cool, friend, no lie. And now that I, a woman in her 30s, said this, it will die a very uncool slang death :D)
The one I feel bad about is that Ohio has come to mean weird or cringe or uncool. “It’s all Ohio“. I don’t know what Ohio did to deserve it lol.
Maybe it’s from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon saying. The saying is “It’s hi in the middle and round at both ends. O-hi-o.” 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Otherwise, I’m not sure either.
That’s also a song! I heard it in an old movie (live action), but can’t remember which; an unattractive, older man from Ohio (maybe the anti-love interest? comic relief of some sort) kept singing it, over and over:
“It’s round on the ends and HIGH in the middle
Think, think, think, think, what’s my riddle?
Low on the ends and HIGH in the middle
It’s O-Hi-O!”
As an earworm, that song is right up there with the Rosalind Russell Wonderful Town classic:
“Why, oh, why, oh why, oh
Why did we ever leave Ohio?
Why did we wander
To find what lies yonder
When life was so cozy at home?
Wond’ring while we wander
Why did we fly? Why did we roam?
Oh why, oh why, oh
Did we leave O-Hiii-o?
Maybe we’d better go
(O-H-I-Oooo)
Maybe we’d better go home.”
Ohio has been a byword for not-cool on both coasts for at least the past eighty years, so it doesn’t surprise me that the youngs have picked it back up, along with skibidi. In the further words of Rosalind Russell, get hep!
I work with tweens. It comes from the video game Fortnite. Still not sure why, but “only in Ohio” became a catchphrase, and now it’s just Ohio. Kind of a riff on Florida Man.
We (in the UK) have ‘Normal for Norfolk (seriously weird)
I play Fortnite (47 here lol) and had no idea on Ohio lol
I live in Ohio. We know what we did. Many American astronauts have been from Ohio. It’s bad enough to make men want to flee the Earth.
We are ok paying our penance.
🤣😂🤣
Huh? What’s wrong with Ohio, Jaime? Mr. Wife’s career brought us to Cincinnati from New York State, and then Mr. Wife’s career brought us *back* to Ohio from Europe — and we were happy to settle in Cincinnati both times.
Second on that. Love my Cincinnati. But have to admit Ohio is a state with a split personality — the northern part of the state is much different than the southern part. But let the haters hate; I’m content to stay under the radar and just enjoy my little haven.
More 😆😆😆
LOL !!! Thank you for my first laugh of the day!
I agree, born and raised in Ohio, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we know what we did…
Ohio is a gorgeous state but it’s been the butt of jokes as long as it’s been a state, I suspect. Even John Denver, of all people, wrote a song about it (“Saturday Night In Toledo, Ohio”; there’s a line about sitting around the bakery and watching the buns rise). The joke’s on those who believe the jokes though. Lots of good people and things come from there.
I’m crying laughing over here!
litrgp has been my jam for the last year. Got snatched up and it has not let me go since lol
Troping tropingly with extra tropes. Almost Romance levels of tropes.
And I love every paragraph.
Two tropes I despise: hurt, poutiness chapters of “miscommunication” ruining 2 characters (portayed as strong, confident types) getting together until an overly contrived, quirky scene reveals all. Not interested.
I bet there are cool names for these, but I don’t have a clue there. Off to check out links!
Ultimate “can’t stand it” trope is the character flips that sacrifices a perfectly good (or bad) character to serve the plot. Bad, sloppy, make whacky noise with a rolled up newspaper. I hate feeling betrayed after becoming invested.
Me, too, with more whacky sounds with a rolled up newspaper 😆 for second chances. I’m 74 and in all those years of watching all those people around me get divorced or break up, only two have remarried or found each other successfully. I cannot spend my disbelief for this one. (Finding your old high school crush is the worst.)
I luuuurve LitRPG! I’m currently in the middle of a progression series that just randomly turned into a dungeon adventure 3 books in :D! It is a genre, however, not a trope 🙂
I’ve binged LitRPG the last few years – I love it! Apocolypse? Trapped in game? Fallen/dragged through portal? Self aware dungeon/godcore? Weird and/or creepy build due to stubbornness? I’m here for it all!
System takeover with attack waves is my fave, as long as it focuses on base establishment! Oh, and super cozy stuff where they just advance in skill levels that have nothing to do with fighting.
I … don’t get litrpg. Probably because I have never played computer games, video games (well, other than say Pong or Tetris or Angry Birds; yes, I am that old, thank you very much) or D&D type games. I’ve read two book series which were touted as litrpg and the entire series seemed to be the character “leveling up” (yes, I had to look that up) in each book, getting some power she didn’t previously have.
What is it about the genre that draws you in?
You infer that there are people who haven’t gotten snatched up by it?
Mongo would be appalled!
Except I can’t decipher anything people are saying and when someone says the name Mongo, I think of a big dude riding a Brahman bull and punching a horse (instead of the rider).
*hides back under a rock*
Same. Litrpg, especially slice of life, I’m hooked!
I like what I call “hidden power” – the character who is a lot more powerful than they seem… you have the delicious sensation of knowing there’s something behind the scenes, and when they finally get to bust out some moves, it is very very satisfying. Then they go back to being their funny/humble/ordinary selves, but you never see them the same way again…
Me too, especially if it is not ridiculously overdone — just “paranormally realistic”, so to speak.
I was so glad to get to be at a panel for you guys on Saturday morning. My brother and I were sitting in the front row and I got to ask a question. Just so charming and engaging.
I call it the Harlan Corban trope, where things pile up and an innocent man is accused of a crime, his wife leaves him, his children are bullied, he is fired, rejected by his club, his friends, all humanity, and it is all a mistake. Somehow he crawls out from under this hideous fate and finds life, happiness and friends once more.
Once I realize I have wandered into one of these stories, I hurry out again.
Isn’t that the book of Job?
😆👍😆
lol
Ah, the poor, persecuted male. He deserves so much better! I also dislike the conventional beginning of cozy mysteries and chick lit and (paranormal) women’s fiction where the same happens to a woman, and she is usually also facing the ravages of middle age.
I so agree … I read for entertainment, not for trudging thru angst !!!
+1,000,000
Really tired of the 12 or kidnapped Princess types to a castle with a magic monster. And usually a maze.
The grumpy 30-something self-made bullionnnaire workaholic with a physique a body-builder would envy despite never spending any time in the gym, who’s life will be upended by the sunshine out-of-work over-qualified soon to be homeless heroine.
I’m to the point of instantly rejecting anything with “billionaire” in the description, unless it’s an author I already like.
I’m with you? House Andrews is literally the only billionaire stuff I read.
Right? There are approximately 2,800 billionaires in the real world, and approximately 2,800 hard body single billionaire books are published each month. I just run if it’s got billionaire in the title, or in the first 4 words of the blurb. Rohan’s wealth is incidental, not the only thing he’s got going for him.
This + 1000
If I read anything about a billionaire in the description I’m out. I am so tired of these books because most of the time the billionaire is an arrogant entiteled and mean guy and I do not understand what attracts the female main character (aside from the apparent hotness… 🙄)
Also, why is always the male main chsracter the billionaire and never the female main character? I feel that the woman only has money if she is born into a rich family, the main character is never the head of her multibillion company. Why is there never a down-on-his-luck poor male main character? I feel that this trope is so mysogynistic. Are women incapable of being successful or what? Grrr….
I run a mile from billionaire books too (although there might be a few exceptions), and I hate bully romance. Miscommunication annoys me, unless it’s really twisted up in the story.
That is why I love Silver Shark so much. Venturo is so nice, he is nothing like the trope billionairs
+1
I loathe the whole billionaire set-up — my wife and I used to scout them out and try to top each other with the sheer ridiculousness of their titles. She eventually became the queen of all time by finding “The Amish Billionaire “ at our local grocery store. There was really nowhere to go after that ….
😂😂
I find it really tedious when it becomes obvious that an author was writing a book just to include popular tropes rather than because they had an interesting story they wanted to tell that included or subverted those tropes. It’s also frustrating when some books are marketed only with “includes X popular trope,” “list of all the tropes included,” and then I have no idea what the book is actually about or those tropes are gestured at by the author but then the story doesn’t really include them. And there’s a lot of variance in how tropes can be used (in terms of being well executed or not, even the taboo ones). I’ve definitely DNF’d books that contained tropes I usually love. Ultimately, I try not to go by tropes to determine my TBR because I just find that kind of recommendation so uneven and unreliable, and it also keeps me reading in my comfort zone rather than seeking out new stories and authors.
The male lead (not the hero) who rapes the innocent heroine. They then find love…
This is a trope I see lamented as lost in reviews on Goodreads by old school romance afficionados…
I never understood. Do they get a thrill reading about this?
I also hate the “I’ve loved him for years & he doesn’t even know I’m alive”. Girl get a life!
The only version of limerance I’ll read/watch is when she ends up getting someone a lot more awesome and outgrows all the things that kept her obsessed!
Yeah, a lot of romance books from the 1970s and 80s books were like that. 😬
+1
🤢🤮🤢
That right there is the one I don’t miss even a little bit.
I so hear you! Those make me so mad, so disappointed in the author that I immediately strike that author off my to be read list.
Very late to the thread but wanted to comment in case anyone else is late ;). The rape/”accidental assault” (I know, ugh) was done because back in the 70s, and maybe early 80s, you couldn’t have sex in a book with a single or “good girl”, AKA the heroine, because good girls don’t have sex. The assault or forced marriage or whatever allowed sex into the story because you don’t close the barn door after the horse loses their virginity. Yucky but true.
I’m horribly undiscerning when it comes to reading. I get bored and pick the first pretty cover, or the first “Oh God, what IS that on his arm, now I’m curious” cover. I have grown in wisdom and now I have my own permission not to finish everything I start. I don’t have enough me time to spend it frivolously reading something I don’t like.
I may be engaging in mental congress with just about anything that flips its pages at me, BUT I draw a line at social media. I only follow the authors who actually write the books I like best. You know. The ones I finish, then reread, then buy the print version to loan to my kid, and the graphic audio to listen to in the car, and then haunt the fan sites to gossip about the characters, and generate endless theories.
Maybe this is too much self-discovery. But hey. I turned 50 today. My mother labored on Labor Day 50 years ago. It might be time to contemplate my mental navel for a minute.
Happy birthday!
Wow. I turned 50 yesterday. Happy birthday to us!
Happy Earthside Day to both of you!
Absolutely agree and Happy Birthday to you! 🎉🎂
John Rogers (creator and writer of TV show “Leverage”): “You say trope, I say well-honed narrative tool.”
Favs: Found family. Competence p*rn. I will burn it all down for you.
I’m not sure those are official names for the tropes, but the BDH will understand me. 🙂
I understand and endorse this!
The trope torture chamber…😂😂😂😂
I’ve read really good books where the tropes used were so good and somewhat subtle, the tropes were possibly screaming “get me out of here!”
Then I’ve read books where the author is hitting the reader over the head with tropes right at the beginning of the book. Ugh!
I like the Bad News Bears trope, where a group of outcasts/unlikely heroes find success because of a really good leader.
Also I like the Swiss Family Robinson/Boxcar Children trope where people find themselves with nothing or in a situation completely different to what they know, and create a workable system for themselves. Kate Daniels has elements of that and it’s one of the things I love about that series.
I’m just naming these tropes myself, I’m sure TV Tropes has a different name for them.
I also really love the “make it work” trope, especially when they use things in ways I had never thought of.
As I understand this (and I love this trope too) it’s called the heroine’s journey. Gail Carriger wrote an excellent book about it.
There’s a famous musical that I used to love until I realized it was an ‘escape from Stockholm Syndrome’ and the escapee turns out to be a gold digger.
The series I’m reading currently uses the ‘transported from home world to become the Chosen One in the game world’ trope, but the main character is someone native to the game world. I’m in the second book of …six?… and really liking that twist on the trope.
So it’s a LitRPG where the MC *isn’t* the person who got ported? *raises eyebrow*
What’s the ported person doing, then?
Okay, fine, just tell me which book series, lol…
Long live the tropes! Totally here for:
Why choose/reverse harem
Cinnamon roll
Fated mates
Badass heroine
Monster lovers
Vampire almost anything
Shifter almost anything
Some levels of age gap
Billionaire
Lighter end Dark Mafia
MM, MFM
Storybook/mythological reimaginings
Touch her and die/protector
Dark lover, morally grey/black antihero with clear boundaries
I’m fairly easy to please! I do appreciate it when books have trope lists/content warnings. Some of those Dark Mafia ones are waaaay beyond the pale and disturbing/sickening. And I will definitely rage DNF on a book with non-con pregnancy. 🤮
ModR, you are truly evil, and TVTropes is exponentially bigger than the last time I swore never to visit again. I was just interested in ModR’s specific favorites! I wasn’t going to click through anywhere!
Dammit.
I decided not to go down that clickbait rabbithole lolz
Wise of you
I hate beyond all reason the hero who breaks out of jail to clear his own name. it makes me grind my teeth in fury!
Poor Edmond Dantes 🤣
lol, I’m just curious, but what is the alternative? Assuming true innocence of course.
Aw, c’mon…those movies with Tommy Lee Jones chasing around Harrison Ford and Wesley Snipes are fantastic!
I don’t know what most of these names mean. Cinnamon Roll?
I really hate when reviewers especially use acronyms that I don’t know. MC being one and of course the dreaded Mary Sue. If you want me to read it make it so I understand what you are saying without having to look up in a dictionary.
Oh, really hate reviews about books that act all high and mighty about the story. If you don’t like the story don’t read it and then review it with how much you didn’t like it full of acronyms and tropes that nobody knows.
When words are in red and underlined, it means there’s a link embedded if you click on them, often to explain it 🙂 . A cinnamon roll is a sweet, supportive, generally kind male hero. If he makes booboos, it’s usually because of a misunderstanding or good intentions gone bad. He’s the opposite of the domineering and forceful Alpha or Alphahole heroes.
Thanks!
Cinnamon Roll = a character that is sweet and squishy.
MC = Main Character.
Mary Sue/Gary Sue = characters that are perfect, flawless, everyone loves them and treats them as if they’re super-special. They’re seemingly able to do *everything* effortlessly, even if it makes NO sense…like a 14yo from Manhattan who has walked *everywhere* their entire life being able to backup a manual-shift tandem (pulling TWO boxes) tractor trailer into a tight parking spot as if they’ve been doing it for thirty years. No matter that they’re not old enough to have a driver’s license, much less a Commercial Driver’s License, and there’s never been one mention of them ever being behind the wheel of a car.
They always know/have/find the solution, to the point of suddenly developing/exhibiting a new power/skill they’ve NEVER had/shown/mentioned before; but they suddenly mystically realize how to do it flawlessly at the exact moment they need it to save the day.
Thank you!
+1
Those things smack of deus ex machina, which, while a device and not a trope, I hate with the fires of all the suns that has or will ever exist in this universe and beyond. I read a book once where the heroine was in AGONY over how to save her little shop. This agony was repeated from page one all the way through the climax and into the “next day in the hospital,” recovering, talking to her best friend who “oh by the way, I’m rich, here’s a check for the whole amount you need.” Lazy much? If the plot isn’t working, why force it? If you can’t actually resolve it, why was it so central to the plot? I lambasted that author in my review, then I stopped writing reviews for a while.
Knowing all the tropes (bit of hyperbole there, but a lot) I’ve gotten pretty jaded about things, and definitely hard to please. So I just loved it when I read a romance where it has _all the tropes_ – but gender flipped! Somehow, that made it so much better! And to make it even more meta 😉 the plot itself was about a woman needing to hire a male figurehead to be taken seriously, so also very much a comment on how “society” claims certain traits are “typically male/female”. Loved it. I mean, it still was all the same tropes. But at least it had me laughing out loud 😊
Also, yes, most tropes aren’t technically gendered – but how often is the billionaire a strong independent woman and the blushing virgin a man? How often is May the guy and December the gal? That’s what I meant by saying gender flipped 😊
You go girl! 😜 You are my heroine!
I know, right? Same for my sister. So why is it still so “noteworthy” when it happens?
Never mind me, I’ll be muttering “get off my lawn” and “them young ‘uns” next 😉
lol
Apparently with today’s 30 somethings – I can’t keep up with generational labels – older female, younger male is starting to be a norm. In my mid-boomer generation we joked about it – “Get ’em young, train ’em well” as one of my housemates put it – but it was still uncommon. Given the relative average emotional maturing process, the new norm makes more sense.
And they also have the teacher/student thing covered! (Which I personally find nauseating.)
Remington Steele TV show…one of my favorites.
My trope hot take is that it doesn’t count as a love triangle unless all 3 peeps are feeling each other. Otherwise is is just a love angle.
My favorite ones are grumpy/sunshine, only one bed, secret wizard, nerd/jock, single parent getting back out there, and friends to lovers.
I will not read non consent, slave/master, or age gap where the people knew each other when one party is a minor or student/teacher or professor. All of these speak to a gross violation of power. Sure these can sometimes be pulled off if it is like dad’s best friend, but the friend never knew the child as a child or if the teacher is teaching something to adults with zero stakes like knitting or pottery. I have issues with hot boss due to the power imbalance too although those can more frequently be pulled off.
I also am not the greatest fan of second chance romance since they are excepting me to buy that this relationship that already fell apart is going to be fine going forward. Also hate the “this storyline wouldn’t even be a thing if they’d just talk to each”. You are adults: communicate!
I like a synopsis of romance novel to have tropes so I can easily avoid the ones I hate. I rarely read reviews and don’t find those focusing on tropes helpful except as hastags but do write my own reviews with tropes I liked or didn’t like because I’m lazy.
You are my kind of people. 😁👍😁
When I tell people I’m living the second chance trope, I get one of two responses:
“That’s so romantic.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Is it perfect this time around? No. (No relationship is.) Do some past issues raise their ugly heads? Absolutely. Is it a good, solid relationship this time around? Without a doubt. Second chances can work, but only if the things that pushed you apart the first time can be resolved in some way.
Amnesia. You know, the heroine/hero can’t remember anything but is innately good and survived Evil Deeds but doesn’t know why. His/her longing-from-afar
true love interest (see, there’s a two-fer trope) is there until a conk on the head returns our protagonist to the present.
I try to make it to the end of every book, but have been known to quit in disgust when I realize I’ve fallen into this never-never land.
The older I get, the faster I am to bail on a book. The first one I should have bailed on was in my 20s I think – Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. Lesson learned! After that, I did bail as needed. Life is too short and there are too many better books out there.
I am so tired of the “an unputdownable Trope Trope trope adjective Trope genre” descriptions on Amazon.
Dislike–the my way or the highway “Alpha” portrayed as a Dom when they can’t be bothered to do aftercare.
like–oh no only one bed!
it’s not a troup (I don’t think) but gives me the complete ick when after a couple has ‘done the deed’ and the bloke gets a cloth and like, wipes the woman down?? What the heck is that?? So gross and makes me wonder what the hell has happened down there….
if I feel like that scene is coming up I’ll just skip ahead a few pages…..🤢
😂😂 I have always found that awkward to read.
Won’t read: nonconsensual, dom-sub, people beating up their partners
Annoying but I can read: heroine shackled in the spaceship but he’s a gentleman (seriously? Shackles in a spaceship? ) ; heroine kidnapped 3 times in one book (never learns?? Will probably end up shackled in a spaceship); evil twin Skippy
Most hilarious use of tropes: a fantasy that followed the whole Joan Wilder trope list: “killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my bible!”
Oops, posted twice. Sorry.
No worried, fixed it 🙂
Enemies to lovers and arranged marriages are two of the tropes that often catch my attention. Especially in Webtoons!
10 years ago any shapeshifter/vampire romance was my cup of tea, now it must have something really peculiar that intrigues me
Tropes I love: found family (misfits preferably) reluctant hero (Han Solo, or Steve in Stranger Things) undercover as spouses, double life mild-mannered by day powerful witch by night, the calvary saves the day.
Tropes I don’t like: Abuse, second chances, pregnancy, miscommunication (unless it’s funny) instant sex,
I love redemptions Those stories where you discover that the bad guy is not so bad,Or better yet, go back and say: “I can be good, or at least kill fewer people”
Another Hugh fan, I take it? Ilona and Gordon took the secondary villain from the Kate Daniels books and turned him into an utterly believable hero. Still an asshole, but that works, too.
+1 – I will die on the hill that there was NO WAY Hugh could be redeemed and the Authors *DID IT*
Right?!? They took a textbook sociopath and gave him a backstory that made sense of his entire character arc. That is freaking impressive. And, having undergone an unwelcome education on the biology and sociology of trauma over the past few years, I find it even more believable. To paraphrase a specialist, the hardest things to forgive, in ourselves and others, are the ones done under the influence of trauma (trauma being defined as a stressful situation that the individual cannot escape by their own agency). That pretty well describes Hugh’s backstory.
I like Second Chance tropes in romance especially when written by authors of the calibre of Jane Austen (Persuasion is my favourite Jane Austen novel) and Georgette Heyer. The exception to this is if the reason they parted in the first place was The Big Misunderstanding/ Miscommunication. I always think “ Why didn’t you just sit down and talk to each other before you parted? Surely if you cared enough to seriously consider a life long commitment you could have risked embarrassment by articulating what the issue is and giving the other person a chance to explain before heartbreak? “
Thank heavens the grumpy/ sunshine trope is disappearing. I always think that, after the honeymoon is over, the grumpy one will revert to type and ultimately this will wear the sunshine one down. Always having to buoy another up must be an exhausting way to live.
My favourite heroines and heroes are people who have agency, aren’t superheroes who are all knowing and perfect, are willing to learn and grow, are honest, mature in their outlook and courageous in the face of difficulties, in other words the kind of protagonists Ilona Andrews writes. I enjoy the way they ride right up to edge of a trope and then veer off at the last moment. I love the scene in Wildfire where Nevada very politely explains to Rynda that Rogan and she are committed to each other and he is not going to be Rynda’s Plan B. A lesser author would have fallen into the “ big misunderstanding “ trap. Which reminds me that it must be time for a reread/ relisten to the Hidden Legacy series. My Graphic Audio Innkeeper ‘ movies in my mind’ need a break!
Some tropes I would read in a particular genre but not in others.
For example I read romance, (including erotica I think), SF and fantasy, YA and some crime.
But I don’t want to read distinctly romance tropes in my YA and SF and not too deeply romance and fantasy enmeshed books either. I’d rather keep my proper romance tropes firmly in genre.
I don’t mind crime tropes making their way across all the genres yet I don’t want full on police procedural nor intuitive sleuths popping out and about even in crime.
However I’m happy for secret heirs, orphan heroes, hidden identities, quests and good vs evil to trudge across all of my genres willy nilly.
And these days my nihilism has had about it all it can take just living so will skip all the grimdark, post-apocalyptic, woe is me stuff. Nietzsche is not my superman.
Some interesting tropes there hehe. Learn something new every damn day. Crapsaccharine world! Hehehe
Thanks for a fun blog. Not really into tv much anymore, but those tropes all work for books too. And I agree, no stupid miscommunication plots or second chances! Ugh
Not sure if it would be miscommunication or second chance, but I really dislike the get together, hate each other, back together and HEA. And it seems to be almost every freakin’ book!
Redemption/rising to the occasion is one of my favorite tropes. The hero who didn’t know they could (or would) sacrifice themselves for someone else.
and I HATE fated mates and helpless hostage to romance (Stockholm love).
I am firmly in Enemies to Lovers camp … I hope it never dies because I just love the snark.. which would be why I love the Grumpy v sunshine trope too … the banter!
My other trope I love is Found Family – it makes me feel all squishy inside!
Yes, one of my faves is the opportunity for witty snark lines in” enemies to lovers”- HA does it so well!
I have a couple of least-favorites. One we hardly see any more, which was the shivering innocent girl and the taciturn older man who makes her miserable until she loves him.
The other is the miscommunication trope. It usually requires the heroine or hero to be stupid and/or emotionally stunted. Ugh.
As long as there’s no protracted miscommunication or misunderstanding trope, I can normally roll with it. A slight misunderstanding or miscommunication that would be realistic is fine, but piling it on as a plot device to move the story forward is like hitting your poor MC over the head for some convenient amnesia for the umpteenth time and hoping there’s no permanent brain damage this time.
I’m also a bit of a Waifu fan, so harem or reverse harem tropes aren’t really my style.
“Fated Mates (who smell each other; what were we all thinking lol?)”
Mod R, you are hilarious, that was a literal lol for me.
I’m a complete sucker for a Morality Chain. <3
Nesting error, sorry
In fantasy specifically:
-Magic competition/gladiator games. (Obv, Magic Strikes is my fav because of that)
-Escape from prison/some type of enclosed place
In general:
-Found family
-Revenge
I grew up on fanfiction and I wish you could tag books like you can on AO3 and I’d just find every book with a troupe I like with easy. Would also enable me to steer clear of the ones I don’t! Still a sucker for grumpy/sunshine and also where one is self aware and pines quietly and the other is oblivious and just gets whacked in the face with their emotions half way through! I loathe pretty much everything with accidental pregnancy so would like to blacklist that. Equally happy to see the back of forced consent asap.
Gotta say I will be skip happy to see the end of the grumpy/sunshine- ESPECIALLY when the female is ditsy teenagey woman who has these odd moments of genius mixed with “oh my goodness, duh” and are for some inane reason completely irresistible to all the men in their sphere.
I like bad against worse. Of course the bad one saves the damsel.
Is competence crush a trope (yet)? I love kickass heroines and heroes who are underestimated and win through, and that’s one of the attractions for another character
I’ve heard it called competence porn!
Your Trope Fu is absolutely stronger than mine; this old fogy is so out of touch that of the above mentioned were over my head. (Although Second Chance was something I could guess.)
But ‘The Butler Did It!’ was actually before my time. LOL
Does it have a trope name? Topping my list of NEVER ever is the current proliferation of “I just turned 40, my life/job/marriage fell apart. I inherent shop/B&B/Inn from some distant relative of whom I had no knowledge and discover I am a witch….”
I think the genre is now termed “women’s mid-life paranormal fiction?”
In any case, WTF? I just can’t relate. Perhaps it is because I spent that portion of my life continuing with a full time professional career, four kids, a good husband (still around) & no time to whine, moan …
Don’t forget the super hot yet grumpy with emotional baggage gardener/handyman/obligatory “guy”. I feel your pain. Being of a certain age, sometimes I like older MCs. Still having a hard time finding one that doesn’t try my patience. Give me competence porn any day😁
“accidental pregnancy” is not accidental when strangers have sex without birth control. I won’t even read the description let alone the book!!! Grrŕ
omg yes. especially when guy also happens to be a millionaire! 🤦♀️
The only book that got the “accidental pregnancy right” had a reasonable failure of the birth control, not a failure to use birth control at all and everyone’s surprised at the subsequent pregnancy. TOTAL facepalm!
Yes, if your birth control method is 97% effective, and you’re one of the 3% that gets pregnant, *you* are still 100 % pregnant. You always need a Plan B, though not necessarily the pill popularly known by that name. This cannot be stressed enough imo.
I’m a sucker for grumpy sunshine where a woman is occupying the grumpy slot (and genuinely properly grumpy not just selfish or mean). I also enjoy enemies to friends.
My list of never:
Secret baby
MM
MC is a sports player
Historical Romance
Since one of the BDH mentioned Hugh, I may be the only one but I can’t get on board with the about face from evil guy to great guy and how easily he was forgiven.
+1
If not handled well, the miscommunication/failure to talk trope can be more frustrating than enjoyable.
I don’t read damsel in distress books. She can need extraction or assistance, just not always or without her active participation.
Absolutely, without a doubt, reversal of fortune: when the main character is in dire straits and by the end their life is SO much better. Usually some luck but also their hard work. Silver Shark fits this perfectly!!
Another is competence porn: where the main characters are damn good at what they do and the big villains are external rather than internal. Burn for me, anyone?!?