Let’s talk about tropes! Specifically romantic tropes since this is the month of love and all things romance! Some of you might already know about all the tropes, so geek out with me!
The definition of a trope in the literary and TV/movie sense, is a situation between characters that is expected and moves the story forward.
Many popular tropes are used over and over, which can seem boring, but as long as they’re done uniquely, readers and viewers love it.
So most of these are pretty obvious by their names, but I’ll describe them for you anyway!
Enemies to Lovers: The couple are enemies in the beginning. They hate each other but are around each other for some reason* and ultimately fall in love with each other. The tension is fun to watch/read/write, which is why this is such a popular one.
Friends to Lovers: The couple begin as platonic friends and over the course of the story they fall in love. The obstacles they can face is the fear of becoming more than friends might ruin their friendship. Or they worry if it doesn’t work out, their relationship might never be the same.
Enemies to Friends to Lovers: is a mix of the two, but usually takes all lot of time together to go through the entire cycle.
*It’s obvious that you would want to stay away from your enemies. So another group of tropes in romance is the thingthat forces the couple to spend time with each other. Here are a couple of them:
Forced proximity: This can be literal, like they’re handcuffed together, they’re stuck in an elevator or in a car. Or it can be like they’re paired together at school for a project, or work together. All of these things can make enemies (or friends or whatever) spend time together in order to fall in love.
Fake dating: She doesn’t want to go home for Christmas without bringing a boyfriend, so she hires someone or asks a friend to pretend to be her plus one. They’re fake dating because he wants to make his ex jealous, or she wants some clingy guy to leave her alone so he pretends to be her boyfriend. Fake fiance, or even fake spouse falls under this same category.
I hope this was interesting! Next week, I’ll bring you Part 2!