I’ve been reading books since I learned how to read, and I’ve dipped my toes in a little bit of everything since then… long before I learned that there was such a thing called a trope. And to be honest, this was something I didn’t notice at all when I was younger. I just kept reading and reading and reading the same old things—the chosen ones, the love at first sight, nerd x jock, et cetera. Maybe my brain’s pattern recognition wasn’t fully developed then, but I devoured whatever book I could find.

Then I got older, and the pattern recognition kicked in. Suddenly, everything was the same. Some stories were even so copy + paste that only the characters’ names were different, and I thought, “Why?”

Why do these stories keep showing up? And that’s when I learned about tropes.

First of all, tropes aren’t bad. They exist for a reason and are not lazy by default. They’re psychological shortcuts that tap into deeply rooted human desires, fears, and fantasies.

• The Chosen One? It’s the need to feel special in a world that makes us feel invisible.
• The Grumpy/Sunshine dynamic? It’s the fantasy that love can soften the hardest hearts.
• The Found Family? It’s the hunger for belonging when blood ties have failed us.

Tropes are comforting. As readers, they help us know what to expect. As writers, they help us in building blueprints for our stories.

I like to call them guides—training wheels, even—’cause they provide a stable, comfortable foundation. But that comfort can easily slip into predictability when the guide becomes a mass-produced cookie-cutter that makes everything look the same, and so a lot of stories end up… well… boring.

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1. Pattern Recognition = Safety

Humans are wired to notice patterns. It’s part survival instinct, part mental efficiency. When we recognize a structure (like a familiar trope), our brain relaxes. We feel safe knowing what kind of emotional journey we’re in for. That’s why romance readers keep coming back to enemies-to-lovers or slow burn: they already know what kind of payoff to expect. It’s like craving your favorite comfort food—predictable, but still satisfying.

2. Wish Fulfillment + Fantasy

Tropes are often distilled emotional fantasies. They give us what we wish would happen in real life:

• The Bad Boy Who Softens = “I want someone to change just for me.”
• Enemies to Lovers = “I want passion to overcome conflict.”
• The Found Family = “I want people who choose me, not out of obligation, but love.”

They scratch itches we don’t always admit we have. That’s also why tropes can feel cringey or shallow when done badly, because they expose something vulnerable. If there’s no emotional depth behind it, it feels fake or pandering.

3. Repetition Triggers Emotional Recall

Tropes are emotionally associative. The more we see a pattern in stories, the more it links to a specific emotional response. Our brain remembers that warm, cathartic feeling from the last slow-burn romance, so it anticipates the same high again. That’s why tropes can become addictive. They build a feedback loop.

But if the trope is executed in a hollow way—without tension, stakes, or character depth—that emotional recall fizzles, and it just feels tired.

4. Archetypes + Shared Mythology

Tropes often stem from Jungian archetypes or recurring motifs in myth and folklore. They’re part of our shared cultural psyche:

• The Hero’s Journey is everywhere from Moses to Moana.
• The Wicked Stepmother goes from Cinderella to Tangled.
• Forbidden Love is as old as Adam and Eve.

These tropes live in our collective unconscious. They’re like cultural DNA. That’s why people across cultures can resonate with similar stories even without shared language or background.

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1. It works, so repeat.
   A trope hits. Readers love it. So naturally, the industry chases the high.
   
2. Repeat, but don’t twist.
   Instead of reinventing, people replicate. Same structure, same beats, different names.
   
3. Don’t twist, so don’t think.
   If the blueprint already exists, why bother building your own? Critical thinking takes a backseat.
   
4. No thought? Cue laziness.
   The trope becomes a shortcut not just emotionally, but creatively. It props up weak plots.
   
5. Using the trope instead of story.
   Writers rely on the trope to be the plot. But a trope is a container, not the substance. If you strip the story down and all you have is the label (“it’s a grumpy x sunshine romance!”), it’s hollow.
   
6. Ignoring character logic.
   Characters start acting out of character just to fulfill the trope. You see a slow burn where the tension isn’t earned, or a love triangle where the conflict feels forced, because “that’s what’s supposed to happen.”
   
7. Mistaking familiarity for depth.
   Writers assume the emotional impact is automatic because the trope is familiar. But if it’s not grounded in character motivation, the trope won’t land.
   
8. Writing to trend, not truth.
   Some writers don’t even like the trope they’re using—they’re just following what’s popular. And readers feel that disconnect. You can’t fake authenticity in a trope that’s meant to hit deep.

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I have a baby BookTok account that’s not even a month old. There, I posted two carousel sets called “Seven Book Tropes That Need to Die.” And while they’re not viral-level yet, the response really surprised me. The first post got over 4,000 likes, and the second one is pushing 1,000. That’s not a lot when you consider there are millions of readers out there, but it’s not small, either.

It’s enough for a micro case study.

Because when readers are commenting, sharing, and cursing at the same tropes again and again, something’s clearly broken. And maybe it’s time we stop blaming the readers… and start fixing the writing.

What really caught me off guard were the comments that TikTok filtered out. Some people were furious. Like, I don’t even have that level of emotional response to most tropes, but they were out here cussing them out like they owed them money.

So, who were the culprits?

• Love triangles where we already know who the endgame is from page one
• Misunderstanding tropes that could be solved with a single text
• Creepy age gaps disguised as “romance”
• Tropes that flirt with incest or throw in surprise babies no one asked for
• The cliché poor girl x billionaire fantasy that ignores all nuance

It’s not just a few readers nitpicking. It’s a collective exhaustion with how tropes are being used. We’re not saying the ideas themselves are evil. But when they’re handled without care, without depth, and without intention, they turn lazy.

And lazy? That’s what readers are rejecting.

As a publisher, those are insta-rejects for me too. If a manuscript relies on a trope to carry the weight of the story without doing the work to make it mean something… it’s out.

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Tropes aren’t the enemy. Careless writing is. And readers aren’t being “too picky.” They’re just tired of being served the same empty formula, dressed in different names.

The truth is, tropes can still work—if you actually do the work. If you understand their roots, twist them with intention, and build characters that feel like real people, not just pawns in a checklist romance or plotline.

This is just the beginning. In the next posts, we’ll break down some of the most used—and misused—tropes in fiction. Not just to complain, but to ask: What would it look like if we did this better?

Because if readers are done settling for less… then as writers, maybe we should be, too.

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