to trope or not to trope

Is that the question? Perhaps for some writers. I can honestly say that in the course writing a novel, I have never consciously thought about tropes. 

Not until recently, when listening to a romance-writer friend talk about her process and spitball ideas for a new series. She apparently picks a trope first and then writes around that. 

This blows my mind. I can’t conceive of any circumstances in which I would—or even could—develop, structure, and write a story in this fashion. 

How stifling. And how…artificial. 

It was an insightful conversation, though, if only to see how another writer’s mind works and how she views her process and tries to find her place in a saturated market. 

To be clear, I do recognize that there are major differences between genres. Romance seems especially reliant on tropes, and the more you can cram into a story, the better. I don’t read romance—beyond hers, as a friend does—so I’m talking (pontificating?) as an outsider here. 

I write character-driven, character-focused contemporary action-adventure and historical fiction. Compared to genre romance, the standard tropes are a little less…creative. An action-adventure yarn that takes place in “exotic” locales seems pretty straightforward compared to “arranged marriage to a grumpy billionaire.” (Every male protagonist in romance is a grump, I’ve learned. And many are billionaires. Where are they all hiding?) 

I’ll hold my tongue on the arranged-marriage trope, except to say that it is the year 2024. Really? 

“People love it,” says my friend. 

Who??? 

Okay, I guess I didn’t hold my tongue. Setting aside my skepticism, it was instructive listening to someone describe how she wanted to write a story around this. The characters, the plot, the structure, the story arc all come later. Characters will be developed to fit this trope, and they will enter that arranged marriage no matter what. 

I could never. 

I’ve always started with characters—a journalist, a spy, a soldier, a security consultant—and their stories developed as I began to understand who they were. Tropes followed naturally.

The female journalist and the soldier belonged in a war (possibly the most common trope for historical fiction). But which war? 

I went with the Vietnam War. A time of change and upheaval, a time of evolving gender norms, a brutal and unpopular conflict that that U.S. did not win. That’s exactly where my journalist and soldier belonged—given who they are, there can be no other place for them. The Vietnam War is not, in the world of historical fiction, a popular timeframe. It’s still a sore spot for many Americans on all sides of the political divide. There are risks to sticking a toe—or cannonballing—into waters that still roil. 

Might I have preferred, from a commercial standpoint, if the characters had allowed me to be a little more “traditional” from a historical-fiction trope perspective? Maybe…but that book would not have had these characters, and these characters deserved to have their story told. 

There are wonderful works of fiction about the Vietnam War, but few with a female protagonist who gets herself as dirty as the guys. I glance at or ignore many of the most popular tropes for historical fiction with A Summer of War, because they simply don’t work for the story. 

In the novels of The Sandstorm Series, the spy and the security consultant belonged in the Middle East, fighting terrorism and sometimes each other. Exotic locale, check. High action? Yes, but there’s not a car chase or hand-to-hand combat in every chapter. A larger-than-life threat? There are threats to life, to property, to ideas and to ways of life, but no one is saving the world from nuclear catastrophe at the hands of a madman. My spy and security consultant are badasses, of course, but their brains tend to trump brawn, and they grapple with the consequences of both success and failure in quests large and small. 

I’m very picky about what I read in the action-adventure and thriller genres because of what I consider to be, broadly speaking, shallow characterization. For those stories with larger-than-life threats, the plot tends to devour the characters. My characters will always be the stars of the show, even if that show doesn’t perfectly mesh with the genres’ tropes. 

My characters have made clear they won’t tolerate being shoved into a box for the sake of easy categorization on Amazon or because readers have certain expectations within genres, and I’ve resigned myself to acceptance of their wishes. Telling their story is the most important thing, and if I want their cooperation in that regard, they get to do what they want and be who they are. 

But now I know, on the occasions I sink into the depths of writer’s block, when my characters aren’t speaking to me, I can always force someone into an arranged marriage. 

People love it.