OK, folks. Get ready.
I’m going to ask a terrible question: You can only read two tropes for the rest of the year. Which two do you pick?
Yes. Only two.
Amanda: I thought I would agonize over this one, but nope. My two picks came to me immediately without much second guessing, WHICH IS A RARITY.
The first would be enemies to lovers. I love a sense of antagonism in my romances and I definitely feel like it adds to the sexual tension.
The other would be the Morality Chain. I cannot remember the name of the reader who introduced me to this term. She asked for it in an SBTB Instagram Rec Request and I remember having to Google it. Once I did, it was like everything made sense.
(Note to readers, if this was you who requested it, let me know because you have my eternal thanks.)
For those who are unfamiliar (like I was) with a morality chain, it’s when a character is only “good” or “moral” for the sake of their love interest. Yes, it’s fucked up. I love it.
CarrieS: This first one is easy – Family of Choice (also known as Found Family). I’m a huge sucker for this one, and I don’t tire of it because every found family can be found differently and interact in different ways, and the trope extends through every possible genre and medium including but not limited to romance.
The second one is harder! I’m going to go for Deadpan Snarker. It’s a trope that can be found anywhere and that never fails to thrill my heart. Of course if I could add a third it would be Science Hero or Science Heroine – and I’ve noticed that Science people are often masters of the Deadpan Snark and exist best within the support system of Family of Choice.
Sarah: This was my question. I wrote it. This idea sprang from my brain parts. And what happened? I spent sixty-fifteen hours on TVTropes reading alllll the pages. What have I done?!
I love Deadpan Snarkers, and I love Enemies to Lovers. But for my picks, I’ve got two that are so similar, I should probably pick a third.
I love stories with Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl pairings, as well as Strong Girl, Smart Guy.
A number of the movies I re-watch often with my family fit this trope pair. Judy and Nick from Zootopia and Hiccup and Astrid from the How to Train Your Dragon franchise operate a little in both areas, even though TVTropes places Judy and Nick in both Strong/Smart and Savvy/Energetic while Hiccup and Astrid are in Strong/Smart.
This rabbit hole also re-introduced me to a ship I’d long, long forgotten: Encyclopedia Brown and Sally Kimball. I shipped them before I knew what shipping was. And I wonder if they influenced Hiccup and Astrid.
Well, there went another fourteen hours of my free time.
I like these two tropes because they subvert gender expectations on both sides, but still emphasize the need for balance and complementary skills sets when people work together. They also, as TVTropes points out, can work for non-hetero pairings, too:
Many works featuring male x male or female x female romantic relationships will also follow the trope, with one partner being perky and optimistic while the other is savvy and smarter.
I also wonder if there’s a proper name for the plots that rest on one character leaving notes for another, which amount to tiny portions of intimacy that reveal their true selves. It’s like a twist on epistolary novels, and is the basis for some of my favorite stories in romance.
Elyse: This is the hardest question ever, Sarah!
Okay, after much pondering and a few muttered swear words, I think I need to with a Pining Hero. I love a hero who pines. The pinier the better. I think that’s because this guy tends to be in direct opposition from The Boner Led Hero who is objectively The Worst. The Pining Hero has loved the heroine for ages and hasn’t been like “why do I suddenly want to put my wang in her? I don’t understand my feels at all!” No, he’s so much better than that.
For my second I have to go with Friends to Lovers. I think part of this is that you get some level of intimacy already established between the hero and heroine. Plus the best relationships have an element of friendship to them as well.
Now, if I can get Friends to Lovers with a Pining Hero? That’s the best.
Ok, your turn! You can only read two tropes for the rest of 2019. Which two are yours?
Thought this would behind too, but nope. Friends to Lovers and Found Family. I like Enemies to Lovers but if I had to choose, the warmth and the often inherient pining of Friends to Lovers made me lean that way.
My go-to favourite: opposites attract with grumpy, icy, reserved and/or stuffed shirt hero who suddenly has The Feelings for the heroine and doesn’t know how to handle it.
And I’ve been enjoying a lot of fated-mate PNR recently, so I’ll go with that for the second one.
Enemies to lovers with a slow burn are my perennial faves, but I’ll try to mix it up a little.
One trope I love, but don’t see very often, is a heroine who chases the hero. This was why I liked Sally Thorne’s new book 99 Percent Mine more than most of the people in my Goodreads feed. I guess I relate to this one since it sums up most of my (fortunately far in the past) single life.
Second would be forced proximity. Get trapped, sort out their shit and get bizzay. Yes please and thank you.
I don’t know if this is an actual trope…. but… trapped in a snowstorm. There is probably a fancy name for where two characters are stuck together in mild peril and the guy has to chop firewood. I love it. Probably along similar lines, when I was a teenage romance reader there was a rich vein of category romances in my life set in remote Africa, glaciers in Iceland etc where the couple had to band together, pitted against the environment. I’m guessing this was my Grandmother’s taste as I used to sneak her Mills and Boons.
like Lucy (comment above) I like a reserved, icy dude too. Mr Darcy and the surgeons of the british Mills and Boons medical romances that I (once again) accessed from my nan’s stash probably planted that seed. A recent example is Kulti. I’d hate that shit in real life but my romance reading brain just looooves it all.
I love trope-discussions and reading about people’s faves. Below are mine:
For me it’s definitely fake/pretend relationship. I don’t know why, but I have not gotten tired of that one yet. Along with this trope comes mutual pining, ideally paired with slow burn. So, I totally understand Elyse’s love for The Pining Hero.
I know that’s technically three tropes, but since mutual pining is pretty much part and parcel for fake/pretend relationships, I son’t think it counts as its own entity 😉
I like darker romances like Rhysand and Feyre in Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series and Cardan and Jude in the Cruel Prince and Wicked King by Holly Black.
So Enemies to Lovers definately. This trope also contains the sub-trope of Morality Pet stories, a character/love interest who turns a character back from the dark side. Like Buffy to Spike and Caroline to Klaus and Elena to Damon in the Vampire Diaries. Or Belle to Rumpelstiltskin in Once Upon a Time. Or vampire Lothaire falling for Elizabeth in Kresley Cole’s book (Immortals After Dark 12).
For my second trope, I choose what ever Eve Dallas and Roarke are. Gryffindor/Good Slytherin/Handsome Rogue? They are my favourite couple ever and I could just re-read the 40+ Eve books for the rest of the year.
I love it when a series shows the couple together after their happy ever after. This is one of the reasons why Urban Fantasy is a good genre for me. I also enjoy UF’s slow burn of building up the couple over the books.
Not a romance trope per se, but I love me a story where the protagonists have an inevitable doom hanging over their heads: destiny, curses, ancient prophecy, blackmail, sadistic enemy who manipulates them into an impossible position, etc. And I also really have a thing for guys who are turned on by the heroine being strong, badass, and capable.
Idea for a follow-on discussion: what about tropes we HATE WITH A FIERY PASSION? Mine would probably be:
Worst trope #1) Telling the heroine egregious lies to keep her out of danger. (I quit watching The Flash right around the time when the male characters all let Iris get chased by a killer for a whole episode, without ever warning her, all because they “couldn’t bear to see the light of innocence go out in her eyes.” Blech. How ’bout helping her stay alive, champ?)
Worst trope #2) The author slapping a main character with a disability as a cheap way to resolve conflict about their career or hobby. (Example: One Good Duke Deserves A Lover by Sarah McLean, in which ***SPOILER*** the heroine wants the hero to stop prize-fighting, and he refuses, and then SURPRISE! He receives a crippling injury which will prevent him from fighting, and . . . uh . . . happy ever after? I read another book in which the heroine was an aviatrix in the early days of flight, and the author pulled this same stunt by giving her a back injury to ground her so she can focus on her family.) Wouldn’t these characters feel some bitterness about losing something they were passionate about? And how is it romantic for someone to receive a serious injury, only to have their partner go, “Cool, now you can pay more attention to ME”? (Not talking about all romances with disabilities, only ones where the author specifically uses them as a plot twist to remove a difficult choice and force an HEA where it might not have happened otherwise.)
Friends to Lovers and snowed in! Those two tropes are my favourites.
Marriage of Convenience. Don’t know why, but that’s been a favorite since I started rummaging around in my mother’s Barbara Cartland collection (talk about purple prose). Also, the Slow Burn Romance. And I don’t mean “they knew each other four months before boning.” I mean “They knew each other for years, and slowly it dawned on them…” However, this is distinguished from “One Person Pining” which drives me batty. Speak up or move on!
Friends to lovers and Fake Relationship. As long as FR does NOT involve in ‘we must deceive the female about my identity’. I also dig forced proximity, although i just dnf’d Good Girl by lauren layne because in spite of the rundown louisiana mansion i loved, the hero MUST DECEIVE HER so she stays INNOCENT OF HIS HORRIBLE WEALTH. my eyes, they rolled.
Pet peeves: Deceit of any kind. Anything where the man is an alph-hole. Anything where he knows her body so much better than she does which is total bullshit.
Competence porn.
Emotional competence porn.
Such a fun post! Thanks for sharing. I would pick fake relationship and royal-themed romances. I really like those two.
First choice, hands down, would be enforced proximity—if it’s because of a snowstorm, so much the better. My second choice would be bodyguards—but only if the plot doesn’t require the heroine, knowing her life is in danger, to pull some TSTL stunt just so the bodyguard can rescue/chastise her (sometimes it’s a fine line between catnip and DNF). I go bananas when I find a really good bodyguard series and at least one of the stories require the h&h to stay locked-down for a while: Two favorite tropes in one. I also love the occasional bodyguard romance with a female bodyguard OR where the heroine (despite being the “guarded” one) has to help the bodyguard hero out of a jam. Yes please!
Marriage of convenience/fake relationship — don’t know why I love this one so much, but I it sucks me in every time. The other one is Competence Porn. I love me some characters who are excellent at what they do — whatever it is.
I guess both of these come down to Opposites Attract, but I really love:
-one protag is small/slight, the other is large (bonus points if its not the default teensy woman + hulking man; I like this one turned on its head & I also like it in queer books)
-one protag is grumpy/sarcastic/doesn’t believe in Feelings, the other is a bright ray of sunshine who comes into the other’s life like a Feelings Bomb.
Uggghhh this is is hard! I guess if I was forced to pick I’d pick the grumpy stuffed shirt hero who hates or doesn’t believe in Feelings and the completely unsuitable (he thinks) heroine who shows him the light I.e. Mary Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous. I also love shy wallflower/supersmart bluestocking heroines paired with the popular, beautiful hero like Tessa Dare’s A Week to be Wicked. I also like the Pining Hero but there aren’t too many of those to choose from. I’ll take a pining heroine too. Ugh, I knew I would be able to pick just two.
I can’t just narrow it down to 2, but I’ll limit it to 3
1. The Handsome Rogue who really isn’t as bad as people think.
2.The Slow Burn. I love when the h and H don’t even Kiss until about the midpoint, but tension is simmering just below the surface the whole time, ready to boil over at any point.
3. Mutual healing. Both the h and H are damaged and scarred, but together they work on their trauma and get better (aka the entire theme of Mary Balogh’s Survivor’s Club series.)However, this can quickly turn into a no-go for me if only one member of the pair is doing the “ fixing” .
Friends to Lovers, with a dash of Pining Hero. I also like Found Families. Friends to lovers is hard to find (especially in Historicals) because so many seem to go to the Best Friend’s Sister trope, which is not really Friends to Lovers for me.
If anyone has any recs for any of my tropes, hit me!
Like @Janine, I’ll blame the first on my early reading experiences, Lots of 70’s historicals and early 80’s categories: The Secret Baby Trope. I feel I’m in a safe enough place, that I don’t have to justify why it works for me. Most recent wallow: Simona Ahrnstedt’s All In, which had just about every possible permutation of the trope.
In no way second choice, The Grouchy Loner/Determined Heroine. I hesitate to use the word “perky” it seems to infer… silliness, maybe. I generally dislike silliness in a main character. I like when the Grouchy Loner meets is match, not is someone his complete opposite, but someone who just is not put off by his surliness. She’s there to get what she wants or needs and she doesn’t need him to play nice. I like when it works the other way as well. This I will blame on Cary Grant. The ultimate example would be with Leslie Caron in Father Goose. Which also works for you forced proximity fans.
@K.N. O’Rear, I call that The Scarlet Pimpernel trope. Where the hero allows the world to see him as one thing, a perhaps unlikeable thing, but is really something else entirely.
I love what I call the “Cinderella trope” where two people living in two very different worlds would have never met but due to special circumstances they are thrown together and have to overcome their individual circumstances to be together. Usually, there is a power imbalance between the two people, and I enjoy reading how the couple works it out.
Love this! Slow Burn and Enemies to Lovers! Could read these tropes non stop! Bonus if there is deadpan snark.
I haven’t found that many books with it yet, but one of my all time favorite tropes is suddenly falling for the(twin)brother/best friend of the guy she always liked (like Truth or Beard by Penny Reid).
For the second trope I was going to say grumpy heroes at first but I think I like very smart/geeky/nerdy hero and/or heroine just a little bit more.
Mine are rather specific:
1. Mutual pining due to a “we can’t be together” limit. Best example of this: “A Gentleman’s Position” by K.J. Charles.
2. A hero who is unapologetic about who he is, but has a vulnerability that only comes out with the love interest. Best example: “Treble Maker” by Annabeth Albert.
Honorable mention goes to:
1. Trapped in a snowstorm – especially if they have misconceptions of each other when they first met and now they have to get to know each other and work through those.
2. Slow burn – Not necessarily “friends to lovers”, but I want to see people falling in love, not just hot for each other. Give me cuddles on the couch, taking care of the other when they’re sick, etc.
First of all, I Love this discussion and getting to read everyone’s answers. (And yes, I do love the genuinely pining hero much more than the led by the erection hero).
Now for my answers…
I do love a good friends to lovers story in any time period, especially if it is the hero who has secretly pined for years. There was a Harlequin Blaze I think that I loved because of this trope. The heroine wanted a baby and asked her best friend, unaware that he was totally in love with her.
I think my second trope would be characters who deflect using humor. It is completely a normal response to discomfort and when I see that being used whether by either of the main characters, it pulls me in more because I can so understand the person more. (I think that’s why when I read Regency/Historical, I relate more to wallflower heroines than the diamond of the first water, confident debutantes).
I can always, always read the “Beauty and the Beast” trope– basically one person is injured or disabled (physically or mentally) and the other person is caring and nurturing. Along similar lines, my other favorite trope is opposites attract. I love a bluestocking/science nerd/proper/repressed person paired with a more experienced/free living person.
I can’t get enough of childhood friends who are separated and then meet again later in life. First examples that come to mind are from Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series: Mine to Possess and Heart of Obsidian. This list is a good one.
Kinda similar are romances where the couple were not childhood friends but they do have some sort of past/childhood connection they are both unaware of and the pieces come together as the romance progresses. I recently realized most of my favorite k-dramas follow this formula. Examples: Healer, While You Were Asleep and Thirty but Seventeen.
Likes: Second chances, forced proximity/out of your comfort zone adventures.
Dislikes: We can’t because society would disapprove. Would someone please explain why independently wealthy aristocrats are so afraid to upset “the ton”?
Definitely Enemies to Lovers – I love the spice of enmity gradually (reluctantly) becoming love.
And Fake Relationship/ Marriage of Convenience/ Forced Proximity, which are super related. Gradually, as the couple is forced to work together pretending to be in love, they find that it’s true.
I am sure someone could do a psychology study on links between favourite tropes and readers’ formative experiences! My 2 would be overlooked/downtrodden-heroine-with-masses-of-hidden-strength and beta hero.
Wounded warrior being tended back to health. I guess this comes from watching Ivanhoe at a formative age, since Ivanhoe basically spent a huge portion of the film/book wounded in bed, being tended by Rebecca of York.
Master/servant having a secret relationship, where the servant is the one who really calls the shots and is the cleverest (I’ve read too much Jeeves and Wooster and Merlin slash…).
Second Chance romances are my JAM. Love those!!
I like Marriage of Convenience and Fake Relationship ones too. Or the Determined Heroine-Grumpy/Anti-Social Hero. Or vice versa, although I haven’t encountered that one as often.
@MizFletcher, bullseye!
@DonnaMarie I love that you call it The Scarlet Pimpernel trope. That’s perfect.
For mine, I think Enemies to Lovers no question. It is definitely my catnip. I recently have been in a historical enemies to lovers mood because they seem extra angry/mean in the beginning. I don’t know if it is the addition of social constructs or something that I made up in my brain, and it is just the writers that I have found lately.
My second is harder though. Probably either Off Limits or Fake Relationship or Forced Proximity. I guess fake relationship/forced proximity are often the driving factor for getting over the hump of off limits. There is just something about it that works for me. I guess it is the act of finally giving in to “feelings we’ve been trying to ignore for reasons.”
Overall, I don’t hate insta-love but I definitely prefer a slow burn.
Oh, these are great! May I make a request tho: please cite books and authors of your favorite tropes!
My favorite trope of all: a hasty or forced marriage followed by years of separation, and upon his return He Does Not Recognize His Own Wife. She always recognizes him, though–women are clever like that. There is ample room for a Secret Baby or an Ugly Duckling in that framework too.
Number one trope for me is, as best phrased by Megra in Hercules, “I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day.”. Shelly Laurenston is awesome in giving us this character & having the Male lead help the heroine as a partnership.
2nd is currently the mates by fate trope.
I’m a sucker for banter and letters/text. Snark a plus.
My anti-trope would be the “secret/misunderstanding” that could solve the problem in an instant with a little chit chat.
I don’t think I’m sufficiently analytical (more likely I’m too lazy) to determine my favorite tropes. That said, I like books with witty dialogue; I also enjoy reading a book that makes me laugh.