Tropes, Cliches and Themes you LIKE

articshark · Apr 20, 2013

So I started a thread about the ones I didn't want to read anymore. I thought we could do one on the tropes, cliches and themes we DO want to read more.

I love westerns and hot cowboys. LOVE

I love friends becoming lovers.

Forlorn-ember · Apr 20, 2013

I love the friends become lovers too, and brother's best friend. Would like to see them both done in a different way to the whole "I've loved you for a long time" way though. That's the only way I've ever read them.

Karen Duvall · Apr 20, 2013

I love reunion stories. Past loves reunited. Swoon.

sunandshadow · Apr 20, 2013

Ahahaha there are SO many. Well, half of these are science fiction and fantasy tropes, but I like them specifically in the context of a romance. I like mars needs women, arranged marriage, captor/captive, angsty halfblood, secret baby, dark horse love interest (preferably the dark mage version, though dark knights are nice too), the outcast (sometimes the mutant), 98 lb. weakling, long hair, leather boots, and kilts/robes/corsets, first contact, interspecies love, lost in translation, culture clash, courtship ritual, heat cycle, soul bond, bond pet, equippable ally, color-coded for your convenience, blanket scenario, mpreg, nesting instincts, shapeshifters, dragons, marooned in space, mercenary troop, spaceship/airship, mechas/magical mechas, portal fantasy, magical testing ground, kemonomimi (aka animal accessories), love triangle ends up a threesome, and good guys turn out to be the bad guys so the MC defects from their side to the LI's side.

Ann_Mayburn · Apr 20, 2013

Older man younger woman, soul mates, and forced seduction are among my favorites.

---wonder what a therapist would say about that

Lil · Apr 20, 2013

I love arranged marriage/marriage of convenience/shotgun marriage stories. Also fish out of water stories and (Dare I say it?) amnesia plots. I am a sucker for amnesia plots.

ap123 · Apr 20, 2013

Fish out of water, culture clash, guy/gal from the wrong side of the tracks.

Forlorn-ember · Apr 21, 2013

A lot of people dislike it but I actually like the fantasy "The one" cliche. My favourite fantasy novels are all based on the idea that one person is destined to be the hero from Wheel of Time to Harry Potter.

sunandshadow · Apr 21, 2013

Lil said:
and (Dare I say it?) amnesia plots. I am a sucker for amnesia plots.

Oh yeah, I forgot about those! I've never written one, but I've at least 3 times dreamed I had amnesia, and the dreams seems like they would make a pretty decent beginning of a novel.

tarawriter · Apr 22, 2013

I'm a sucker for reunion plots, and I can't stay away from the arranged/forced marriage plots either. Even if some of the reasons why the marriage has to happen are a bit forced, I eat them up.

AJMcGough · Apr 22, 2013

I love the whole "This guy is the absolute worst person I've ever met on the planet" but after a few surprising moments she starts to see the best in him and even though she fights it they fall in love.

And I freakin' love the arranged/business marriage plots. Just finished Wife by Wednesday and I loved it. The Marriage Bargain is one of my favorites too.

ebbrown · Apr 22, 2013

sunandshadow said:
Oh yeah, I forgot about those! I've never written one, but I've at least 3 times dreamed I had amnesia, and the dreams seems like they would make a pretty decent beginning of a novel.

amnesia plots. Still get a kick out of them.

Forlorn-ember · Apr 22, 2013

I love amnesia plots but I've only ever read one book with it in. I can't find any others ^^

akaria · Apr 26, 2013

I'm all about second chance at love stories. Either MC finds new love after losing his/her first love or the hero and heroine reunite after a long separation.

Half the stories I write have the second chance at love trope, but I haven't read all that many. A lot of times authors end up making the first love evil to show how much better the new love interest is but I don't like that.

I also dig the supernaturally incompatible yet they fall in love (would this be wrong side of the tracks?) and enemies to lovers (I think TV Tropes calls it Slap Slap Kiss).

gingerwoman · Apr 26, 2013

Forlorn-ember said:
I love amnesia plots but I've only ever read one book with it in. I can't find any others ^^

Look through the blurbs of old Harlequin category novels.

gcsalamon · Apr 28, 2013

AJMcGough said:
I love the whole "This guy is the absolute worst person I've ever met on the planet" but after a few surprising moments she starts to see the best in him and even though she fights it they fall in love.

I'm with you on this one - that's my favorite!

sunandshadow · Apr 28, 2013

Would transformation count as a trope? I mean where a human heroine is transformed into a member of some alien or fantasy race at the beginning of the book. Or sometimes it's only a half-transformation, like some trigger awakens the partial alien or fantasy race DNA that she inherited.

thebird · Apr 28, 2013

Friends to lovers or reunited lovers are among my favorites. Generally anything where the main characters had a relationship before the story begins. I like to see stories build on something that's already there.

Silver-Midnight · Apr 28, 2013

I like the "Enemies to Lovers" trope. I also like "Friends to Lovers" and "Second Chance or Reunited Lovers".

Becky Black · May 9, 2013

I have a soft spot for stories where the heroine is disguised as a boy.

They can be lots of fun. Mare rarely is the boy disguised as a girl, but that can be fun too.

Maybe that's because I like "big secret" plots. As long as it's a good secret (like "I'm actually a girl.") and there's a good reason to keep it. Then there's suspense as we wait for the moment the big secret comes out and how it will affect their relationship. It had better have a big effect though. If I've been biting my nails for 200 pages wondering what the fallout is going to be, there'd better be something more than "it doesn't matter." It doesn't have to be super dramatic "we're breaking up I never want to see you again" type of fallout, but it should have some effect.

My first and fifth published novels I'd call "big secret" plots, and some of the others have at least a medium sized secret.

Cathy C · May 9, 2013

I love reunion stories, especially when it was a third party who broke them up in the first place (like a parent or such)

Also love culture clashes!

Ooo! I also like finding love a second time after a tragedy.

Calle Jay · May 9, 2013

Absolute favorite is the 'office romance'. I think I even write alot of colleagues-to-lovers stories. Second favorite is girl-and-brother's-best friend. Occasionally, I like the older man/younger woman.

Lately, however, I'm gravitating more toward mature couples in their late 30s/early 40s, though those are a bit hard to find.

Melinda Moore · May 9, 2013

I love secret blood lines--- Heroine is actually half human half fairy, dragon, goddess, etc. Male counterpart awakens her true nature

Oldbrasscat · May 9, 2013

Becky Black said:
I have a soft spot for stories where the heroine is disguised as a boy. They can be lots of fun. Mare rarely is the boy disguised as a girl, but that can be fun too.

Georgette Heyer wrote one about a brother and sister who switched genders and went into hiding after their father came down on the wrong side of the Jacobean rebellion. It's possibly one of my favourite books of hers, especially the scene where the heroine is 'caught out' by her love interest. It's called The Masqueraders.

Silver-Midnight · May 9, 2013

Calle Jay said:
Absolute favorite is the 'office romance'.

I've read a really good Office Romance. Those can be pretty good. Then again, a lot of the ones I've seen were also "enemies to lovers". Might be why I liked them so much. :ROFL:

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