What are tropes and why are they important for your novel?
What are tropes in novels?
Tropes are common themes, plot devices or motifs that occur in novels. In other words, they are common scenarios and patterns that take place in your novel.
Some tropes are common in specific genres while others can be across all types of books.
For example, a popular romance trope is enemies to lovers. As the name implies, in novels using this trope, the love interests start as enemies but gradually fall in love.
A common fantasy trope is the chosen one, where the hero of the story has been foretold in a prophecy or legend.
For crime novels, we often see the red herring or lone detective.
Tropes are often thought of through genres, but they can also be divided into worldbuilding, character and plot tropes.
Please note that while tropes can also mean figurative language, today we are focusing on the plot-related meaning of tropes.
What are the common types of tropes?
Romance
Happy ever after
Love triangle
Rags to riches
Cinderella
Enemies to lovers
Forbidden love
Forced proximity
Fake relationship
Marriage of convenience
Fantasy
The chosen one
The reluctant hero
Quests
Damsels in distress
Magical creatures
Crime and mystery tropes
Red herring
Alibis
Trophies
Consulting with a criminal
Lone detective
Thriller and suspense
Race against time
High stakes
Gaslighting
Literary tropes
Coming of age
Intergenerational trauma
Family conflict or dysfunctional family
Worldbuilding tropes
Medieval settings
Elves and dwarves
Werewolves and vampires
Unicorns
Character tropes
The good Samaritan
The antihero
The mentor
The loner
The outlaw
The parental figure
Plot tropes
The price to pay
Rags to riches
The eagles. This trope has been popularised through Lord of the Rings where the eagles swoop in and save Frodo and Sam at the last moment.
Good and evil
What's the difference between a trope and a genre?
We've talked about how genres often lean into specific tropes, so what's the difference between a trope and a genre?
Genres are categories that distinguish books based on specific criteria.
For example, crime books focus on a criminal act while mystery novels focus on solving a puzzle or unsolved problem. Typically mysteries involve a crime, but the focus of the book is seeking truth, such as solving the puzzle of who committed the crime, while a crime book will grapple with the concept of good and evil.
A trope will be a specific device or motif, such as good vs. evil or lone detective, that can occur within a genre. Both crime and mystery novels can have the lone detective motif but the way they play out in a novel will be different.
You can also think of genres as groups of specific tropes.
Do tropes make my novel cliché?
Tropes signal to your reader the themes and motifs that make up your novel. That's not a bad thing and it's not a cliché!
I know you want your novel to be unique, but tropes are nothing to be scared of. It's the way you apply tropes in your novel that makes your writing unique, not the absence of these tropes.
I've talked before about my guilty pleasure for a good Cinderella story. If I see a novel described as a Cinderella story or rags to riches with evil stepsisters you bet it's finding its way to my to-be-read pile, likely in the priority queue.
We all have our preferences, whether that's enemies to lovers or marriage of convenience, or ancient setting to contemporary settings, so you should signal these tropes to your reader when you market your novel.
If you want your writing to achieve commercial success, you can also identify popular or emerging tropes and weave them into your story.
Conclusion
Tropes are themes such as plot devices or motifs that commonly occur in novels. Some tropes are specific to a particular genre while others can be found across nearly every genre of fiction.
As a writer, you can use tropes to help market your novel and make sure you're reaching the right audience. Tropes are nothing to be scared of!