First off, what’s a trope? A trope is a plot device, character, or setting that has been repeatedly used in writing. There are some tropes that exist across all genres like the fabled “Deus Ex Machina,” but most tropes are specific to their genre. Fantasy has the “chosen one” trope, adventure has the “dead parents,” etc.. Tropes can encompass the whole conflict of the story—like the “love triangle”—and they can also be as small as clothing choices for a type of character.
Some tropes became so influential that they became affected the way we looked at people in the real world. There’s a research hole for anyone who wants to look at how lesbian pulp fiction covers use the blonde/brunette or femme/butch pairing to create lesbian stereotypes, or how the Hay’s code created the trope of “flamboyant” villain.
A trope is just anything that is repeated so often across stories that people have started to take notice. They’re often seen as unoriginal or predictable because they tend to follow specific beats.
So they’re bad right?
“Trope” is one of the first words you learn in media criticism. When you read enough to start recognizing the patterns in your favorite genres, you start to see things appearing over and over.
You’ve seen the new teen drama, the one on that one channel you don’t watch, with its basic rich mean girl, and that girl who’s not like other girls, and the jock with a heart of gold—we all know where that’s going. You’ve read a book before where you realized that the main character was just a blank slate chosen one. You’re outraged about how women are used as damsels instead of being whole characters in themselves. But just because a story has tropes doesn’t mean it’s unoriginal.
Its tropiness is a testament to its literary impact.
We need to remember that tropes didn’t appear out of nowhere. At one point or another these “tropes” weren’t as over used as they are today. When they were first being written about, they probably felt to the audiences like how the world really was, or they felt like a more empowering version we wish we had. The first femme fatale probably felt like a breath of fresh air next to the much older damsel in distress. After a while everything becomes a trope, and its tropiness is a testament to its literary impact.
Tropes also don’t just “exist” in genres like cows on a farm. They help define the genre. Genre is built on tropes like biological evolution is built on skeletal structure. We look for them when we try to categorize a book. And we categorize the book because we want the audience to be able to find stories they might like. While you might complain about a trope in your favorite genre, it’s something you accept when you decide to keep reading.
And some tropes are fantastic. Found families are a great comfort in the hellish landscape of a ruined world. Enemies to lovers can create some fantastic chemistry if done right. And I can’t deny that love that the dynamic between a big, burly, world-weary man and a young, innocent woman who teaches him to care for another human being creates, just tickles that lizard part of my brain and makes me smile.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve written cliché in big red letters on a number of drafts before. There is definitely a dissatisfying way to write tropes. There are even harmful tropes we should avoid altogether. The “white savior,” the “dangerous queer,” and the “noble savage” are all examples of tropes that feed into real stereotypes that affect the way that people see the people around them. It’s important that we examine the tropes we use and judge whether the perpetuation of stereotypes is necessary. And this isn’t just a good social justice thing, it’s a good writing thing. Tropey characters like these are static, unchanging, and easy to argue against. They can make for bland conflicts and predictable endings.
The important thing to remember is: it’s not having a trope that makes a story bland. If that were the case you would never be able to enjoy any story. What makes the difference between a boring story and an engaging story is how we choose to use old ideas to make a new ones. Try and build on your tropes and don't get lazy. Just because a character is a trope doesn't mean you can ignore thinking about their motivations and history, and just because you're writing a certain type of story doesn't mean you can't come up with some new wrench in the plan. If you get told your story is cliche, then think about whether you could push things further and ask what's specifically falling flat.
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