5 Romantic tropes you can use in your novel and fanfiction.
Hi! I’ve been a writer by heart since I was nine years old. I don’t do it professionally (yet) but I surely do it for fun. I remember writing short horror stories in a yellow pad paper that I will share with my cousins so we can have a good chill in the dark stories to talk with during family reunions. When high school came, I discovered Wattpad and fell in love with writing stories about love. And not just love in general, but romantic love. I’m almost thirty, and I’ve been writing, and reading stories online (Fanfiction.net, Archive.com, Wattpad) since seventh grade so here are my five ultimate romantic tropes when it comes to writing love stories. Let’s start with the classic and spiciest, perhaps? This is the trope that everyone who read Pride and Prejudice surely loves. Enemies to lovers.
Enemies to Lovers.
Ah, Remember when Elizabeth hates Mr. Darcy so much? That’s a classic tale of enemies to lovers. This is the trope wherein both of your characters wanted to punch each other on the face every single time their eyes met. The tension between your character is palpable, and their chemistry? Heavenly. This is the type of trope that will make your readers root for the main characters to just kiss and make out after every heated argument. This kind of trope is the one who will make you laugh every time your character mention the word “hate” because hate means “love” and you’re not supposed to love your enemies. Remember Anthony Bridgerton’s famous line “You are the bane of my existence” to his now Viscountess, Kate Sharma in the Netflix series, Bridgerton. Ah! That is how you confess your love to your number one enemy. This is one of my favorite romantic trope because after all the arguments, hateful glances, rolling of the eyes, and raising eyebrows, one single kiss will turn their world upside down. It will make them obsessed with each other. It will make every touch and every kiss forget why they hate each other. It will make your readers feel that sometimes hating someone is not so bad after all, especially if it’ll end up in a steamy romantic kind of way. Oops. Now let’s explore the second one.
Friends to lovers.
The next trope you can explore is the friends to lovers type of romance. This is the trope that is somehow realistic because in life there is a bigger chance that you’ll end up marrying a person you call as friend. When it comes to this kind of trope, you can explore more. You can make your main character A be in love with Character B but it is unrequited. You can also make your character A and character B in love with each other but they don’t have the courage to ask and step up their game. You can also make your characters promised each other that after ten years if they are still both single, they will end up marrying each other. There are more to explore when it comes to this trope because having friendship as your foundation will make your characters be comfortable with each other, and with that comfortability comes, love. Speaking of comfortability, do you know someone who is comfortable with each other so much that they decided to create a ruse that is called “Fake dating”?
Fake Dating Trope
This is the trope that you can use when you wanted to write a romantic comedy type of novel. This is popular in films and I love it. When it comes to dating trope, it usually starts when one of your character needs to have someone to pretend as their lovers to dissuade someone who is hitting on them. This can also be done if someone needs to make someone jealous. Fake dating is fun to write. I have written a fanfiction about Piccolo, yes the Dragon Ball character, who entered a fake dating situation with Tights, another Dragon Ball character, because she needs to have a plus one on her classmates wedding. She wanted to show her seventh grade classmates that she’s happy and in love, so they decided to create a facade to fool every one, and voila, she ended up falling in love with the stoic namek. So who’s the fool now? This kind of trope usually ends up with one of your characters slowly falling in love with someone they are fake dating, I mean who wouldn’t? So now it will depend on you if they’ll end up dating in real life, or not dating at all. If there is fake dating, then of course, there is also dating by force. The next trope you can write is about forced or arranged marriage.
Forced Marriage.
This is the trope that can make your readers sob while reading if written very well. Forced marriage trope is when your characters needs to tie the knot because of duties and responsibilities. This is the trope where you can add a little more drama. For example, character A was forced to marry someone she doesn’t love because her family is in debt and she is, unfortunately, the payment. Character A is required to act according to her husband’s rules and regulations even if she opposes it. I’ve also written a fanfiction with this trope. It’s a Greek mythology fanfic wherein Eris, the Goddess of Discord, was forced to Marry Apollo, the God of Sun and Music to protect Olympus from an impending war. It started with a council meeting with the Olympians, and discords bitter reaction with the union. Their union started with resentment and ended with love. You can write this kind of trope if you wanted to write a love story that is dramatic and romantic at the same time. Since we all need a good drama, the last trope you can explore is “Forbidden romance” trope.
Forbidden romance.
Forbidden romance is also a classic romance novel trope. It can be a fantasy romance wherein a vampire fell in love with a werewolf and since they are mortal enemies, their love is forbidden. If you’re not a fan of fantasy novels then it can also be where a rich girl fell in love with a poor guy and because of societal status, they need to suppress their growing feelings for each other. Forbidden romance is the type of romance who can make your heart race in every turn of the page because of the anticipation if they’re going to be caught or not. The forbidden word itself is actually exciting because at some part of our life, we craved for something that is prohibited (Right?). And to add a romance to it? Well, for me, it’s chef’s kiss!
There are still many romantic tropes you can explore, it will now depend on you as a writer, what kind of trope you wanted to use in your next novel. You can actually mix and match every romantic trope there is. This is just a guide that you can use if you need a little prompt if you’re planning to start your first draft. Speaking of first draft, I’m going to start it now. Thanks for reading! Have a good one, writer! *wink* *wink* and Good luck!