Fan Favorites: Examining 6 Popular Tropes in Fiction
For most of my (relatively short) working life as a corporate girlie, as the internet would say, I’ve spent a significant amount of time writing blog articles. I like to think of them as essays, researched and structured in a way that breaks down what might be a complex topic into something that’s easy to digest, except instead of being graded by a teacher, I’m being graded by the SEO gods.
My true passion for writing, however, started and will always be in fiction. The funny thing is, I don’t spend very much time reading - though I’m genuinely trying to get back into it - so I can’t say whether I’m a good writer or a bad writer, whether my style or language or sense of pacing matches what people want or expect. But I enjoy it, I spend much of my free time doing it, and I can’t see that ever changing.
Full disclaimer: over the last six years, all of my fictional writing has been fanfiction. I used to write original characters and plots, but I was never great at developing fully-realized characters from scratch. Besides, I’ve always been a fangirl at heart, switching from fandom to fandom every few years or so, whether things started getting old or whether I found something new. So in today’s blog post, I’ll be discussing and rating different tropes commonly used in fanfiction from a fan writer’s perspective, and not from the perspective of someone who reads original works.
Magical & Fantasy Settings
While most people associate this type of AU (alternate universe) with popular works like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings, it’s really a catch-all term for anything with some element of magic or fantasy to it, whether it’s set in modern times with a touch of magic or a high-fantasy world with the depth of lore that George R. R. Martin would love. Fan creators usually take something that’s not set in a magical world and turn it into something that is. Alternatively, some do a bit of universe-jumping; for example, what Hogwarts houses would the Stranger Things kids be sorted into? How would Marvel superheroes fare in The Hunger Games?
I think for many fan creators around my age who grew up with the Harry Potter series, writing Harry Potter AUs is one of the most common ways to write a magical AU because its universe’s rules aren’t too complex. There are also a wealth of official and fan resources out there that help people incorporate spells, creatures, and plots that feel true to the source material, thanks to the size and passion of the Harry Potter fandom. That’s not to say other fandoms aren’t huge or passionate, but Harry Potter’s lore feels especially accessible since it was written for a younger audience.
Mixed feelings about Potter’s creator aside (if you know, you know why I’m never consuming any officially licensed Harry Potter content again), many fan writers opt to create their own fantasy worlds with original lore. This is something I’ve dabbled in myself, where I used the same set of ‘verse rules for the same fandom in two completely different settings: one was a modern-day slice-of-life set in a boarding school, while the other was a 1920s murder mystery inspired by canonical events. I also started (but didn’t finish) a third fic applying the same ‘verse rules set in the Regency era where the characters were intertwined in Austenian levels of drama that one can only find in society’s most elite circles. I absolutely loved working on that fic, but my brain switched fandom allegiances partway through, and I was never able to find my voices for those characters again.
For those who are curious, this is the basic lore I created for my own magical universe:
Everyone has some varying level of magical sensitivity in their genetic makeup, which is often passed down through their bloodline
People choose whether to study magic or not; when they come into their powers at five years old, they encounter their familiars in an animal form of their choosing
They also take a test to determine their magical area of expertise; for example, they could be necromancers, arcanists, empaths, etc.
Familiars and artifacts (small objects people keep on them at all times) help concentrate and amplify people’s powers
Familiars can also cast low-level protective or healing spells independent of their master
People use their powers to earn money and gain influence, especially those who produce tangible goods like alchemists, healers, artificers, and so on
Those who have sworn into a family or clan get additional benefits, like legal protections and access to rare resources, and a portion of their income goes back to the family
Obviously, given that I created my own ‘verse, I absolutely love magical and fantasy settings, especially when creators do something original. There’s so much opportunity to get wild with it, even if it doesn’t always land. The only reason this fictional trope doesn’t get full marks from me is because a) after years of consuming fanfiction, I’m sick of Harry Potter AUs and b) some original works can be hard to follow, either because there’s too much going on or because it’s not explained well enough.
Trope rating: 4/5
Fake Dating
Something I love about the fake dating-slash-pretend relationship trope is how utterly absurd it is and how it almost never happens in real life - at least, not to my knowledge; maybe my life just isn’t exciting enough. The idea of needing to pretend to be with someone on a long-term basis for some outlandish reason (emphasis on “outlandish”; I don’t want to sound like I’m discounting very legitimate reasons like safety and security) is hysterical and complicated and provides so much opportunity for mutual pining, and that’s why it’s always the very first trope I write, without fail, for every single fandom.
In fact, here are all of the reasons my characters have had to pretend to be in a relationship:
To win a contest (and a lot of prize money)
To gain fame as the perfect celebrity couple
To get their parents to stop setting them up on blind dates
To learn how to write the perfect love song
I think when it comes down to it, that really is the appeal of this trope: that it almost never actually happens, and so when it does, it’s entertaining and engaging and it helps us get lost in a good book or movie or whatever it is we’re enjoying. Whether it’s two friends who pretend to be together and realize they’ve liked each other all along, two enemies forced to collaborate who find out they have more in common than they think, or two people who already have romantic feelings but were always too scared to admit it, this trope is both flexible and just plain fun.
Now, is this trope overdone? Absolutely, and I say that as someone who’s written 260,000 words of it (yes, you read that right). Are we all going to keep doing it? Also absolutely, because it works. It’s easy to write and easy to digest, and readers love that moment of “oh come on, just say you actually like each other already!”, even if they’ve experienced that feeling hundreds of times before. So I’m not going to stop, and neither should anyone else.
Trope rating: 4.5/5
Coffee Shop AUs
If you’re not familiar with this one, you probably haven’t been in any online fandoms ever, especially circa the early to mid-2010s. This trope has actually been around for a while, back when everyone was on LiveJournal and not AO3 (or god forbid, Wattpad). Simply put, it’s exactly what it sounds like on the tin: characters meeting and falling in love in a coffee shop, usually where one is a barista and the other is a customer.
Despite how unremarkable it may sound, they actually take up a sizable percentage of online fanworks. This is likely because it often acts as the inverse of a fantasy AU - taking something set in a magical world and transporting it to a familiar, everyday environment. Instead of slaying monsters and casting spells, they’re sipping lattes and leaving their phone numbers on napkins. It’s a way for writers to provide relief to their favorite characters, especially if they’ve been through something traumatic in canon.
Some people have mixed feelings about this one. For some, this trope gets dangerously close to romanticizing workplace harassment. Servers working in coffee shops, bars, and restaurants don’t want to be hit on by patrons, especially because they know they have to tread carefully and be kind to them or risk losing their job. In fiction, it seems romantic to have someone come in during your shift to talk to you - but in real life, that can quickly become a nightmare. At best, it’s annoying; at worst, it evolves into stalking or something even more sinister.
Another common criticism of this trope is how mundane it is, where replacing a character’s backstory and character arc with something simpler often strips them of all their complexity and nuance. Characters might even feel out of character because of this - we’re shaped by the people and events in our lives, after all - which can take readers out of the story. Writers need to walk the fine line between catharsis and monotony to pull this trope off successfully.
For me, this trope gets old really, really quickly, most likely because I like writing broader settings and broader concepts with more room to play. Coffee shop AUs are pretty formulaic, and I think there are other slice-of-life tropes like high school and college settings that are much more interesting to read and write. I get the appeal, but I can’t say I understand the appeal of reading them over and over and over again.
Trope rating: 2/5
Bodyswap
Continuing on the train of “tropes I understand but don’t personally like”, the bodyswap trope is also pretty self-explanatory. Characters wake up and find that they’ve switched bodies through magical, scientific, or unknown means, ala Freaky Friday. Disney in particular loves using this trope in their TV shows, but it can also be seen in works like Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, Face/Off, and the Zero Escape series.
This trope tends to only work when applied to characters who are complete opposites. Otherwise, what’s the fun in swapping characters who already know each other inside and out? It also usually happens after two characters have some sort of argument where they accuse the other of not understanding them - walk a mile in the other person’s shoes and all that. Characters spend a day or weeks, months, even years as someone else, learning to adapt to their new life and learning why they were wrong (or maybe why they were right) in their assumptions about the other person.
I don’t hate this trope by any means - in fact, compared to coffee shop AUs, which I always avoid, I will read a bodyswap fic if it sounds interesting enough. But like coffee shop AUs, bodyswap usually operates on a very narrow set of parameters that make them all feel the same. Characters fight, characters wake up in each other’s bodies, characters get into silly hijinks as they figure things out, characters start to uncover things about each other they didn’t know or understand before, characters make up (and possibly make out), the end. Maybe I’m just cynical, but there has to be a touch of something unexpected to convince me it’s worth reading.
Trope rating: 2.5/5
Royalty AUs
Tale as old as time, royalty AUs often go hand-in-hand with other popular tropes like arranged marriage and enemies to lovers. At least one of the main characters is a member of the royal family, while the other may also be of noble blood, or may be a commoner, a servant, or even the leader of an opposing faction like a rebellion group. Like fantasy AUs, they can also take place in a historical time period or in modern-day, giving writers a lot of creative freedom. For example, is it set during a time of carriages and candle-lit dinners and knights on horseback, or cell phones and social media and indoor plumbing? Do they secretly communicate via handwritten letters or long-winded emails (hello to all you Red, White & Royal Blue fans)?
Also like magical AUs, royalty AUs can be as complex or as simple as the creator wants them to be, which is why they work so well. The outcome will always fit the writer’s knowledge, interests, and skill level, whether it’s a sweet one-shot of a noble person falling in love with a stablehand or a lengthy, complex plot about war and political intrigue. As for my personal experience with them, I’ve only written a handful, but they really are a joy to explore. What are the circumstances of the characters meeting and connecting across social classes or battlelines? How can we place secondary characters in a way that feels true to canon? What are the rules and consequences of nobility? How do the characters themselves feel about it?
One thing I will say that may count as a strike against royalty AUs: many of them are based on the British monarchy because it’s the easiest point of reference, which can feel a little inappropriate at times. Inappropriate, in that I personally find it kind of uncomfortable when people take characters whose countries were colonized by the British monarchy and place them in the British monarchy. I think it’s much more interesting to research how each country’s nobility and/or government came to be and apply their rules instead. It doesn’t have to be complex, either - simply, did they have kings and queens, and are they still around today? Do they have presidents, prime ministers, or something else? How do people rise to power or fall from it? How involved are they and their people in policy-making? To me, this feels more authentic and more interesting than recycling the same old story, and I say that as someone who genuinely enjoys (earlier seasons of) The Crown.
Trope rating: 4/5
Enemies to Lovers
Perfection. No notes here.
Trope rating: 100/5
In all seriousness, though, enemies to lovers is so much fun. Like the fake dating trope, it’s cliche, it’s unrealistic, it’s been done to death, and yet, it’s popular for a reason. Characters can oppose each other for justified reasons, or maybe they just hate each other because it’s funny. Whether someone stole someone else’s boyfriend or someone accidentally stepped on someone else’s toes, there are unlimited possibilities as to how the characters’ relationships kick off - and how they evolve into something more. Trite, yes, but satisfying when done right.
Nearly every single pairing I’ve ever written for or even just enjoyed casually has been enemies to lovers, so clearly, I have a type. In my Disney Channel days, my favorite love interests for the lead characters in Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place were the ones who often started shouting matches. In The 100, a show that managed to unite its feuding fandom by disappointing literally everyone, the lead male character started off by calling the lead female character “princess” in a derogatory way, only for it to become a term of endearment. Ace Attorney basically perfected the rivals-to-lovers trope in visual novel form, and finally, one of my favorite shows ever is basically a queer, Asian, modern re-telling of Romeo & Juliet if they went from childhood enemies to secret lovers (and no one died in the end).
For this trope, I’m only knocking off the smallest of points because there is an opportunity for creators to use it to force a relationship between two characters who really shouldn’t be together, or worse, if what starts off as hatred eventually turns into abuse. Using a harmless insult as a nickname can work when done right (though not a romantic example, one of my favorites is Gun’s mother calling him “buttface” in My School President), but hurling vicious words at someone you supposedly love is never cute.
Trope rating: 4.8/5
