In the context of literary genres, tropes are common motifs or literary devices that crop up in stories so regularly that readers become familiar with them and even expect them. They're a big part of genre fiction because popular genres come with reader expectations and conventions. Fantasy fans read fantasy novels because they enjoy the conventions of the genre and the tropes that often appear. It's virtually impossible to write a novel within any genre that doesn't feature a common trope somewhere!
Here are some popular tropes you'll recognise from your own reading, along with the genres they're most common in. These pop up in middle grade and/or YA often!
- The chosen one (fantasy)
- Love triangle (romance as a main plot or any genre as a subplot – YA and above)
- Haunted house (horror)
- Enemies to friends (contemporary as a main plot or any genre as a subplot)
- Friends to lovers (romance as a main plot or any genre as a subplot – YA and above)
- Abandoned house / isolated setting (horror)
- Found footage (horror)
- Meet-cute (romance)
- Forbidden love (romance or fantasy)
- AI out of control (science fiction)
- Police are useless (mystery and horror)
- Zombie apocalypse (horror or science fiction)
- Radiation causing superpowers (science fiction or fantasy)
Check out TV Tropes for thousands more!
Tropes are especially important in books for a young audience. Children who are still gaining confidence as independent readers and learning what they like and don't like can find genre conventions and tropes reassuring and comforting: they go in to a book with an idea of what to expect and they get it! I'll talk much more about this in a little while.
You'll spot the same devices and motifs popping up in stories time and time again, partly because readers enjoy them but also because they act like a shorthand within genres. If you see 'chosen one' or 'friends to lovers' on the back of a book it's like a code: you immediately know what sort of story you're getting, what genre it's likely to be and whether you're going to like it.
There's a lot of advice out there warning authors away from tropes. People often assume 'trope' equals 'cliché' – and sometimes it does. A cliché is something that's overused and tired and if a trope is used lazily or in the wrong story, it can feel like a gimmick or a sign that the author ran out of ideas. But when done right, a favourite trope can feel like an old friend to your readers.
That's why it's important to know your genre really well. You'll learn which tropes are popular, which ones feel overdone and how you can put your own twist on the tropes you love.
Don't treat tropes as a to-do list. As with everything in this course, the more you understand something, the more you're equipped to make deliberate, informed choices. When you know your genre well and are truly a fan of those types of stories, you will almost definitely be including popular tropes in your manuscript without even realising. Does your murder mystery feature red herrings and figurative smoking guns? Does your futuristic science fiction novel have characters zooming across space like it's nothing? Do your romance protagonists first meet in a big, adorable way? Trope alert! You're nailing it already.
I don't want you go walk away from this course thinking you have to jam as many tropes as you can into your manuscript or completely rewrite your book so it aligns with all the common genre characteristics.
Maybe, after doing a bit of research, you'll realise your book's tropes align much more closely with a different genre and that's how you should be pitching it. Or you'll spot that you have included a trope without noticing and decide to lean into it further, really making sure readers recognise and enjoy it.
Look out for tropes when you read other novels and ask yourself: did that contribute to my enjoyment of the book? Did it signpost genre for me? Would it have been just as good without it? What other books do those tropes remind me of?