When you read as much as I do, especially as much romance as I do, you learn pretty quickly what your favorite things to read about are. And it doesn’t take long before you’re looking for specific things that you want to enjoy over and over and over again.
These things are actually Tropes.
And romance readers?
Ho’ boy. We love our tropes.
If you wanted, you could name literally an unlimited number of things that could be considered tropes.
I think there are two different categories of tropes - Plot Tropes, and Scene Tropes
Plot tropes are tropes that impact the overall plot, things like:
~enemies (or friends) to lovers
~secret identities
~Cinderella Stories/rags to riches
~Fake Romance
~Fated Mates
~Secret/Surprise baby
~Arranged marriages
~Second chance
These are the sort of thing you’d pull out when you’re explaining what a story is about. They’re the broad concepts that help us to mentally catalogue what we can expect out of the book.
And then, there’s the other kind of tropes, the Scene Tropes. These are the kind of things that get me giggling into my book. These are the meat and potatoes of a good romance novel.
~Only One Bed
~The Alpha Hero (I call this one a scene because you can throw this character into all kinds of plots and all kinds of shenanigans and tells you more about the character than the content of the story)
~The Masked Ball
~The “Glow Up”
~Grumpy Butt and Cinnamon Roll (Just like the Alpha Hero trope, this is applicable in all kinds of plots and stories.)
~The Sickbed Scene
This is just a taste of the dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of tropes you’ll find in romantic fiction. Naturally these are some of my favorites. But now I’m curious, what are yours? What ones do you see over and over that don’t quite have a name? What makes your heart pitter patter or giggle like you’ve got a “dirty” little secret? Inquiring minds want to know!