Hey, girl, HEY! Welcome to your Thursday installment. I’m Lexx and I’ll be your Thursday Tour Guide. ICYMI, I write paranormal romance and a little bit of horror from time to time. I love dogs, coffee, and my favorite Disney prince is Kylo Ren. That probably tells you everything you need to know about me…
So let’s talk romance. Of course, you can’t talk about the romance genre without talking about tropes. Tropes are ever-changing conventions that appear in literature. Those comfortable little plot points that we can nestle down in and escape. Some people are of the opinion that tropes are bad. That our jobs as writers are to break new ground and blow those tired old tropes out of the water. And I can definitely understand that point of view. I like to read different stories that aren’t like every story I’ve read before. But I can also appreciate the familiarity of a tried and true trope that makes the story an escape. And in the age of Amazon, tropes have become the way we find what we love. A few keywords and that bondage romance where the hero is really into jello and cold pasta can finally be yours! And– a thousand other books just like it!
We all love things we can predict sometimes. Take the success of Midsomer Murders, the British detective series that’s been running for a thousand years. If you watch it on a regular basis, you start to notice a formula: a body is found, Inspector Barnaby is called away from some quirky family business to investigate, they talk to everyone in the village that has reason to want the person dead, you think you know who the murderer is until that person gets murdered before the commercial break, the killer ends up being the person you least expected, and we all live happily ever after. People tune in for it week after week because the comfort of that formula is there. And considering the world is a dumpster fire right now, I am never going to begrudge someone a comfy escape.
Tropes do this for romantic stories in a very effective way. We want there to be twists and turns, but we have those elements that we look for when we start searching for a new favorite read. My favorites at the moment are: enemies to lovers, fake dating/marriage (coughTheLoveHypothesiscough), and “touch her and die.”
Tropes also help us find our tribe. I know you probably have that thing in your life that you could talk about for hours, not noticing your friends’ eyes glazing over. Personally, I could talk about that mole on Adam Driver’s cheek for at least twenty minutes. But I digress. Tropes have created these little micro-communities within the romance genre where people can get together and geek out about their favorites. And I think that’s beautiful.
All right. I’ve rambled enough. But I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment and tell us what your favorite tropes are. Come stalk me on all my socials and let’s chat!
Later ‘Gators!