Recent years have seen a rise in the use of ‘tropes’ in discourse around books. This is particularly the case with TikTok, and more specifically ‘BookTok’. While tropes are by no means a new invention, ‘BookTok’ and the discussion of books online, has contributed massively to how tropes are used in the writing, marketing and discussion of books.
Whilst the term ‘genre’ is used to refer to a type of story format like mystery, or romance, tropes refer to more specific plot mechanisms often used within certain genres. They are storytelling devices that can be described as characteristic of a specific genre. Examples can include slow burn, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, light/dark academia, chosen one, love triangle forced proximity, best friend’s sibling, fairytale retelling, hates everyone but her, grumpy x sunshine, love at first sight, loses their powers at the end, reluctant hero, mystery with a ticking clock, and so on. Within that have emerged extremely specific microtropes that may refer to a specific scene that happens in the book, such as ‘only one bed’, or ‘who did this to you?’.
There are certainly merits to using tropes. Firstly, they can be an extremely effective way of finding new books to suit your tastes, and in topics that you already love. Many people love a story about best friends falling in love – and now its easy to find a plethora of stories that contain this, alongside finding a community who also love them. People should be allowed to enjoy their reading hobby as they wish without having to change their reading habits, just because they are looked down on for enjoying certain tropes. Tropes can be very useful ways to recommend books, as people understand what you are referring to. They can make new reads feel familiar and enticing to those who know they already love similar stories. With the short attention span of the internet and the nature of how book recommendations are changing, referring to a trope can be a way to quickly communicate about the nature of a story.
Tropes have proved to be extremely effective tools in marketing as they can be an enticing quick ‘hook’ to attracting new audiences to a book. Additionally they can help authors connect with niche audiences that will love their books. Even in bookshops, tables are set up so that books with similar tropes are grouped together, to attract browsers who enjoy them.
Tropes can also be extremely useful in the crafting of stories, as they provide building blocks that stories can be developed around, and a starting point. Whilst the love triangle is not one of my favourite tropes, I can appreciate it done well. For example, the love triangle in The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins, represents a wider choice and ideologies that Katniss has to choose between. In choosing Peeta, she chooses hope and compassion symbolised in his diplomacy, gentleness and artistic creation which balances out her fire. Whilst she needed Gale for survival and shares similarities with him, once the war is over, she realises that she doesn’t want to her life to follow the anger and vengeance he is consumed by. This raises an important point – that the most important factor is how the trope is executed and integrated into the story.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for the way tropes are harming the individuality of books. By reducing entire stories to a single concept, or even a single microtrope, vast and varied stories lose an element of their uniqueness and nuance by being lumped together and defined by just one of their features. It feels almost barbaric, that thoughtful and beautiful stories are increasingly being defined in this way. If I was to recommend one of my favourite books Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo to you using tropes, I could say that it includes enemies to lovers, found family, the ‘hates everyone but her’, and so on. But I don’t think this would sum up my love for the book well at all. It doesn’t convey my deep love for the idiosyncratic characters and their well-developed relationships, the book’s core messages about hope and pain, what I find so intriguing about the world building and writing style. Nor how it made me feel. Instead, it makes tropes feel like a clinical checklist!
Perhaps even more alarming is the idea of books been written to fulfil tropes, over books being marketing as tropes thereafter. Authors have admitted to doing this. Books that have achieved success of BookTok have been followed by a flood of copycats which contain the same tropes, and are produced to fit the demand. These books are often criticised by their lack of originality, or even lazy writing in some cases, where readers were disappointed by the lack of quality. For example, the dark-haired, grumpy love interest in fantasy fiction, which many readers love, has been criticised for being overdone, and done lazily. These are very appealing starting points for a character – but when a character is not given a background, unique features or development arc beyond this, it can be a let down. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros has faced much of this criticism. The book appealed to the high demand for romantasy at the time and contains many of the desired tropes in this genre. However it, and particularly its sequel Iron Flame, faced much criticism for its seemingly rushed production to meet the demand, which meant that the story lacked nuance and editing. Whilst it had many appealing characteristics, a lot of these were not developed beyond the standard tropes.
There is also the point to be made that tropes can ruin the surprise in reading if the storyline is predictable. For example, if you know you are reading an ‘enemies to lovers’, even if the two characters hate each other at the start, you know where the end is leading inevitable, which may remove some of the excitement in the tension and build up. It can feel like everything in the story is then just a device to get these two characters together. Though many find they can look past this and enjoy the build-up regardless. Likely it comes down to a matter of personal opinion.
One of the pinnacles of this discussion is around the question – are tropes ruining media literacy? Is it concerning that when asked to recommend or describe a book people turn to catchphrases like ‘enemies to lovers’, and nothing else? Does it encourage this collective mindset or attitude about a book, and discourage readers developing their own definitions of the book, recognising their own emotional responses, their likes and dislikes, and healthy criticism?
To me it seems that tropes themselves are not inherently bad. It’s when they come to define the core or heart of a story without being developed beyond the structure they provide, that there’s a problem, and I think it’s important books don’t lose their individuality from being defined and discussed by tropes. We should continue to define, reflect on and share books by how they make us feel, what they comment on or inspire in us, and so on.