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Romance and romantasy are taking the publishing world by storm. Neither genre has ever been as popular as it is now, despite having existed for decades. Platforms like BookTok and Bookstagram are arguably what we have to thank for this sudden growth in readership—or blame, of course, if romance isn’t your thing or you’re tired of seeing the same books being touted on the internet over and over again.
Now, anyone familiar with either romance in general or romantasy more specifically will be well acquainted with the concept of tropes, which are story beats and character archetypes that can be found repeatedly in all of fiction. Tropes are an integral part of storytelling in any genre. After all, how many “Chosen One” stories are out there in the world? But it’s hard to deny that they are utilized most effectively, brazenly, and frequently in romance and its offshoots.
The core promise of romance is that the main characters, whoever they may be, are guaranteed a happy ending. In romance, it’s all about the journey, not the ending. Tropes can help romance authors shape that journey and the characters’ developmental arcs. What if the protagonists were enemies at the beginning and morphed into lovers? What if one was a ray of sunshine and the other was a grumpy grouch? What if two friends decided to fake-date each other to get their families out of their business (and fell in love in the process)? These are all well-known and beloved tropes in romance, and romance authors try to put their original spin on these tried and tested concepts all the time.
Marketing or spoiling?
Tropes aren’t just being utilized in the stories themselves, however. Tropes are now also used as a major (sometimes even primary) marketing tactic. On publishing platforms like Amazon, romances are being listed with their tropes right in the heading. Marketers produce cute graphics listing every trope in the book alongside an image of the cover art. Tropes are a selling point in romance—I’m partial to rivals to lovers and grumpy sunshine myself—but at what point are we simply reducing these authors’ hard work to a checklist? What if these tropes make finding stories within our comfort zones easier but harder to find something outside our usual wheelhouse?
I am not in any way blaming authors for using their story tropes to sell their books. The publishing world is incredibly tough to enter, and the competition is overwhelming. Anything that helps you stand out should be utilized. But if every author lists tropes as a main selling point, how many tropes should you name? How much is enough? At what point does it start affecting your work and your readers’ perception of that work?
The few tropes I’ve listed are only the tip of the iceberg. We can’t forget friends to lovers, marriage of convenience, fated mates, second-chance romance, accidental pregnancy, sibling’s best friend, forced proximity, love at first sight, and more. I would classify those as major tropes, though. There are also the micro tropes to consider.
In this case, I’d define micro tropes as tropes that happen on a scene-by-scene basis rather than ones that influence the overall structure of the narrative. Examples include only one bed, the doorframe lean, touch him/her and die, caretaking, a reluctant kiss followed by a passionate one, and so on. These micro tropes can all be exceptionally impactful in a romance story, but do I want to know about every single one beforehand? When do you cross the line from giving a reader an idea of what to expect to spoiling most of what happens in the novel?
It’s a tough line to walk. On the one hand, I love being surprised by a novel. I love not knowing what to expect and then reading what should be a familiar scene unfold in an entirely new and unexpected way. On the other hand, some readers want to know all the tropes a book might employ, as certain scenes might make them uncomfortable. It is their right to try and avoid that kind of content, the same way a trigger warning might make them change their minds about a TV show or movie.
The main thing for me, I think, is that I don’t want authors to be weighed down by the expectation of tropes or feel pressured to include them to the detriment of their work. I don’t want an entire genre to be forced to adhere to a certain subset of tropes because they are what sells and sells loudly. Yes, we love tropes, and yes, they can be used to market a book effectively, but no matter what social media might tell us, readers aren’t entitled to dictate an author’s work. We’re just lucky enough to be brought along for the ride. If authors want to hide more of their story from us before we dive in, who am I to argue?
