9 tropes you need to stop using in your writing
Tropes are storylines, themes, or plot points that are so overused they’ve become predictable and weaken a story.
As soon as the main character’s only flaw is that they’re clumsy, I know I’m reading self-insert fiction and nothing bad will happen to the MC. There goes all the tension and my caring for the conflict of the story.
As soon as the villain starts expositing about their evil plan and doing lots of evil stuff just to be evil, I know the MC is going to get away and live to fight another day.
These are tropes that make readers feel cheated of an original story and make them resentful of the time they spent with your MC. Don’t give readers this chance!
Learn what tropes to drop in your writing to make your story a unique adventure with a unique cast of characters so that your readers invest in the story.
9 tropes to stop writing
1. The Mary Sue/Gary Stu
Mary and Gary are picture-perfect characters and can do absolutely no wrong – even when they do terrible things all the other characters still love them and find ways to shift the responsibility to someone or something else.
Mary and Gary tend to have faux flaws, like they’re too clumsy or too honest, which aren’t really flaws at all. Worse, these “flaws” only show up and disappear when it’s convenient. The character is never actually hindered by these flaws when the time comes.
Mary and Gary have no character arcs nor does any conflict really arise from their choices. We all read to escape and experience another person’s story, but we shouldn’t be reading about the life of Mr. or Mrs. Perfect.
2. Damsel in distress
It’s 2020, us ladies can rescue ourselves thank you very much. Unfortunately many writers want to make sure the love interest is strong and capable, thus rendering the protagonist weak and needing to be saved. Stop writing helpless women who need a Strong Man to rescue them!
3. The walking encyclopedia
We all have shared general knowledge and many of us have studied certain subjects fairly deeply, but there are few people who know everything about everything.
Having a character that has all the answers destroys some of the story’s tension and conflict as s/he will be able to solve any problem that comes their way.
De-power this character so they have to search for the answers or knowledge they need. Make them work for the right answer.
4. Instalove
I remember my husband’s and my first date perfectly and then we vowed to be together forever. Oh, no, wait. That’s just a bad trope that needs to die.
Instalove is where two characters have their meet-cute and know, they just immediately know, that they’re in love forever and ever and it’s the truest love of all loves.
Yikes.
That’s not how real life works. We like seeing characters fall in love, admit their feelings, and learn how to be together. That’s half the reason people loved The Office so much, to see Pam and Jim finally admit their feelings and start dating already!
Let us get to see the real chemistry between the two love interests and fall in love with their love story naturally.
5. Love triangles
Another missed opportunity when it comes to building realistic romance in your story is to throw in a love triangle. Typically we see a female protagonist torn between her love for the handsome, brooding bad boy, and the charming, gentle boy next door.
Whoever will she pick?
Answer: Most often readers don’t care or they’re going to be very upset at the end when the heroine makes the “wrong” choice.
Love triangles add contrived conflict and allow the protagonist to have their cake and eat it too.
6. Dead herrings
Stole this term from Das Mervin, but dead herrings are when an author tries to write a red herring and botches it completely. Essentially they’ll tease a plot twist by saying, “oh no, it’s definitely not what it is! Why would you even think that?” Wink wink.
It’d be like if when Harry, Hermoine, and Ron were trying to figure out why Snape was going after the Sorcerer’s Stone, Professor Quirrell came up to them and said, “Yes, it’s definitely Snape going after the stone. Not me! Continue investigating him so I can get back to trying to steal… I mean grade homework.”
Stop telegraphing your story’s plot twists. A red herring works correctly when attention is not called to it.
7. Super easy, barely an inconvenience
We’re not in the Matrix. Characters cannot have skills downloaded into their brain. It takes time to master things.
Show the main characters struggling to learn new skills or how to use a newfound talent or power. In the Save the Cat method, this is called the fun and games section – so make it fun for the characters and readers.
8. The villain taking their sweet time, often with a speech
Even The Incredibles made fun of this one by having the villain realize, “You got me monologuing!”
It’s always the same story, the villain has been chasing the hero down, losing their own henchmen in the process, and then when they finally have the hero trapped and a gun pointed at them, they start talking.
And they keep on talking and sharing why they’re evil and why they want to carry out their evil plan. They have the power and opportunity to kill the hero and they decide not to.
This weakens your villain or antagonist as it makes them seem incompetent. How can they not do the one thing they want to do?
A workaround is to make sure the villain doesn’t need to kill the hero right away or has a good reason for keeping them alive. You can keep the tension up by adding a timeline or ticking clock to when the antagonist will finally say enough is enough.
9. Twisting the mustache
If your antagonist has to become a Vaudeville villain and basically broadcast they’re evil, it’s not going to sit well with your audience. Everyone is the hero of their own story and even the villain feels this way. It’d be unnatural for them to declare they’re the bad guy, dress in all black, and make it super obvious with every interaction that they’re bad news.
What other tropes do you wish would be dropped from stories? Share your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter!
