How to Strengthen Our Story with Tropes

Given that inherent pattern recognition and predictability, how can we possibly make tropes strengthen our story?

Tropes and their patterns tap into universal experiences and emotions. Readers recognize and are familiar with the patterns of those experiences and emotions from other stories they’ve been exposed to, even if they’ve never come across them in real life. With that common background, tropes can help readers instantly grasp complex relationships, emotional flips, and storytelling turns.

So while tropes can be shortcuts to lazy writing, their patterns and expectations can also be shortcuts to relatability and understanding for readers. As long as we’re then building on those shortcuts rather than expecting them to do all the work, our story will be stronger. In other words, rather than relying on tropes to the extent of shortchanging unique details or character/story development, we can use tropes to improve readers’ connection and provide opportunities for deeper development.

Example: How Tropes Can Strengthen Our Story

Let’s say we want readers to feel more connected to a minor character. Here’s one way we can use tropes to shortcut a starting point for the character’s development (which we then build on) and strengthen the character’s connection to readers:

1. Recognize what tropes/patterns the character represents: The character is an intelligent precocious child, and thus readers will expect a know-it-all who’s always a step ahead of everyone else.
2. Lean into the trope in a way that adds relatability: Make the child more relatable by showing them as an outsider or dismissed in some respects.
3. Recognize the trope’s expectations (and common subversions): Readers will believe that when cornered by the bad guy, the child will come out on top.
4. Subvert the trope in a way that adds opportunities for depth: Instead, the child doesn’t realize the bad guy is manipulating them, because…they are still a child. (Note: Sometimes this step isn’t even on the page because the opportunity is what’s important, not the subversion.)
5. Use the opportunity to add character and/or story development: In the reveal of the child being manipulated instead, use the opportunity to deepen their character development, such as by exploring their feelings of outsider-ness or being dismissed, or maybe their precociousness is a result of feeling like they’re not allowed to make mistakes, and this was a big mistake.

In this example, between the child being a victim of the bad guy’s manipulation and deepening their character development on the page, readers will feel doubly sorry for them and thus more emotionally connected to them. As a result, the story will feel deeper and stronger.

Focus on the Opportunity for More, Not the Subversion

There are plenty of advice articles out there about how to twist or subvert a trope:

• Change the context
• Gender/role reversal
• Layer tropes to come up with something unique, etc.