It’s not surprising that I have an opinion about the worst romantic cliches. In my day job, I’m often thinking about sweet contemporary romance tropes, and as a recovering workaholic, I’m planning to read a lot more romance—all genres, especially historical and paranormal—on my own time again.
However, it’s no more than that: a personal opinion. And because so much depends on how the write handles the story and the characters, it’s altogether possible that I might turn right around and enjoy a story with one of the worst cliche romance plots I talk about here.
I also happen to believe that it’s okay to have so-called overused romantic cliches, if the story is written well. As a reader, there are some stories I will happily enjoy over and over again. I’m going to write about my favorite romance writing tropes next week! And believe me, some people are going to think those are the worst romance cliches!
Here are my votes for romance tropes to avoid, but no need to cringe if that’s what you’re writing. They all have lots and lots of fans!
I’ll also talk about ways to potentially subvert each trope.
billionaire hero
The fantasy here is that an impossibly hot, impossibly rich guy falls for a regular woman, so she gets both love and unfathomable wealth.
There are a few reasons why I don’t dig this trope. The fantasy of that much wealth feels shallow and immature to me. Besides, I like heroines to solve more of their own problems. Finally, nobody should be a billionaire. If you have that much money, you should give a ton of it away.
How to subvert the trope: make him a philanthropist who’s given away or is giving away most of his fortune; make her the self-made billionaire.
antihero
In the past few years, we’ve seen a lot of morally gray and even downright appalling romance heroes—including, egregiously enough, a prominent romance between a Nazi guard and a Jewish prisoner. I also heard about someone writing a romance with Vlad the Impaler as the hero. That’s right—the man known throughout the ages for inhumane torture and cruelty. I’m also irritated by people writing inquisitor/witch romance, because the inquisition was genuinely evil on a large scale.
If you’ve read my romance, you know that I like heroes who are very good guys, so naturally, this trope isn’t going to work for me. I’m not interested in mob bosses or bully romance. I think the appeal is in vicariously imagining what it’s like to be a powerful hero unrestrained by morality, and/or imagining being able to reform a really bad guy. In my opinion, not all men are redeemable or worth redeeming. A hero can be a good guy and still grow and change throughout the story.
How to subvert the trope: make him an outlaw because he’s rebelling against an oppressive government, or a fake bad guy (he’s undercover, for instance).
the awful other woman
For whatever reason, I see this a lot in submissions. The hero’s girlfriend or ex-girlfriend is the worst. Invariably, she’s drop-dead gorgeous, but she’s vain, selfish, and greedy. She might be obsessed with shopping. If she’s the ex, she usually schemes to get the hero back. Because she embodies the worst stereotypes of femininity, she doesn’t seem like a real person, and her characterization reeks of internalized misogyny.
Her character becomes the conflict, and it’s not a particularly engaging or believable one. Since she’s so awful, why in the world did the hero ever date her in the first place? It makes him look like a weak person, an idiot, or both.
How to subvert the trope: have the heroine’s first impressions of her turn out to be totally wrong; she’s a decent person. Or, make the other woman intimidating for her brains rather than her beauty.
underage or barely legal person with much older person
Gross.
How to subvert the trope: A May-December romance, but the younger one is already well into adulthood. This isn’t really a subversion, of course; it’s a popular trope, and it’s fine. For real subversion, make the heroine the older one.
[AdSense-B]
Remember, other genres have their overused tropes and cliches as well. Fantasy novels have prophecies and magical weapons. Crime novels have grouchy police chiefs and brilliant serial killers. Literary fiction has dysfunctional families and protagonists who can see how messed up Society is. And can you even write a high seas adventure without a pirate? I’m just writing about romance because it’s my genre!
What are the worst romance cliches, or just overused romantic cliches, in your opinion? (I’m sure some of you will bring up romance writing tropes I actually adore, but that’s fine!) Let us know in the comments!
And if you’re reading this because you want to write a novel that’s ready for publishing, pre-order my book Blank Page to Final Draft. You can do one step a week for a year…I break the process down into manageable chunks, so you can do it even if you have a hectic life! Of course, if you want to go faster and do two steps or more a week, you can do that, too! [spacer height=”20px”]
Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!
I agree with all of your feelings, as I don’t like reading/writing them. I am not a huge fan of the sappy romances, where the boy and girl meet because of a tragedy. I believe romance should be based on happy occurrences, even if that’s not how the real world works. This is fiction, people! Make it happy, sometimes!
Oh, that’s so interesting! Now I love people meeting over tragedy…but I can see your point, too!
I agree. I also don’t like step-brother & secret baby tropes. They make me cringe, although to each his/her own, b/c people love them. There’s always one of those or the ones you mentioned surrounding PG reads.
Totally agree with you on the step-brother and secret baby tropes. Cringeworthy for sure!
Hahaha, I almost wrote about secret baby! I don’t like it. But so many people love it so much, and it’s harmless! And I bet I’ll read one I like someday. 🙂 I just don’t care about stepbrother romance. It doesn’t squick me out, but I’m not interested, either. 😀
I can’t believe this! I’m trying to put together my blurb and cover for a story with BOTH these. My female MC is 23, and has just found out who her father is. He never knew about her. When she arrives at his house, his stepson is there (so they didn’t grow up together) and he thinks she wants money. So, maybe I’ve circumvented the tropes. 😉
Thank you for this, especially the underaged one. I cant do step siblings. Especially if they grew up together. And absolutely no to student-teacher romances. You might say “but you wrote one” True! But it was a woman in her late 20s, tutoring a man in his mid thirties who is trying to Finally earn his High school diploma. As soon as they admit their feelings, she refuses to be his teacher and her principal steps in to handle his grades. As a high school teacher myself, the power dynamic with student teacher relationships is one that has to be respected, and I’ve seen way too many kids get hurt because of these scenarios. Write all the stories you want about teachers! Let them find love! And if there’s a little “detention” in the bedroom, have at it. But make them adults, make it consensual, and PLEASE stop with the college professor and young ingenue. Just as dangerous in my book!
Hi RL! Well, philosophically I agree with you re: student/teacher. But it makes me kind of a hypocrite, because I was in a long-term serious relationship with someone who started out as my college instructor. I was very much the aggressor, and he was only seven years older than me, but still. I went on to be a college instructor myself, and I would’ve NEVER dated a student. I think the romance you wrote sounds just fine!
I’ve read fake fiance and marriage of convenience books I like, and I may write one at some point, but it seems like such a common trope for something that I don’t think is that common in modern times.
I am with you that I don’t like villain:hero romances. I know why people love that and I respect it but for me, no. For me it weakens the character of the female hero if she sees a hot tragic evil guy and suddenly her values aren’t important anymore. Just doesn’t appeal to me personally.
Likewise when the relationship starts out abusive for whatever reason. I’m not a fan of the enemies to lovers. I’m much more of a friends to lovers person. I really do think it can be just as exciting. There are plenty other barriers/challenges that can be used.
The only caveat here is that I’ve actually only read a few romance novels however these tropes happen everywhere because love interests come into play in most all stories. Also, I read a lot of romance in terms of fanfic! And that’s similar as well.
Hey there! Yes, EXACTLY. “Oh well, he has great abs and he’s charming, I guess I’m fine with him being a murderer.” WTF. I do like enemies to lovers but for me, the guy has to be basically decent from the start.
I don’t know how to move your comment! Haha. But that’s okay. 🙂
Sorry, I replied to your comment instead of the blog and now I can’t figure out how to delete it!
Fake fiance and marriage of convenience are so much fun but very hard to pull off in contemporary romance! Some writers do a great job (like Rachel Magee in Beach Wedding Weekend.) I think they’re easier in historical.
I’ll have to check it out. I’m writing contemporary, so that’s what I read.
I’m going to go out on a limb and saw it off. I think the theme overplayed is the big city high powered executive going back to a small home town. Then arguing with an ex, only to have fortunes throw them together to save the family business. They fall in love again and the exec. turns down the huge promotion to stay. There needs to be fresh ideas. Those are not real people. The salt.
Just my opinion.
Thanks for the heads-up, Bryn. I’ll know not to turn my family history into romance novels. Great-grandmother who was told she was adopted after she was grown and requested to marry her brother. She did.
Parents who met at a double funeral.
There’s even some para-normal in my own life. Nobody needs to worry. I never was any good at writing romance anyway.
Sorry, that’s not para-normal, it’s a curse.
Those could be interesting stories, I’m just not sure whether they’d be good fits for happy romance. The double funeral intrigues me.
BOOM
????????????
Hahahaha!
Hi Bryn,
Thanks for bringing this up. I have to say that I’ve been trying to weave a romantic story into my odd-ball spy-thriller-comedy-whatever-it-is.
However, as a person who doesn’t exactly read romance at all (I was raised that that wasn’t a guy thing, although I went through a few steamy and trashy bargain bin stuff from the drug store during my lustful stage as an adolescent).
I can watch romantic comedies in film to a degree, and during a lonely period right after college watched things like Garden State, The Notebook, Bridget Jones and Elizabethtown with some joy, so I get the general idea.
The romantic subplots thrown into the spy thrillers and action movies I like seem like they were put there as an after thought and I really don’t give them attention (and honestly they’re not due any).
Now I’m writing a spy character, and I’m imbuing her with all the awkwardness I felt from my late adolescence through my grad school years. And part of that awkwardness comes from my experience as an unbalanced fake grownup. To give a taste of what I want my character to be, here’s a bit of my life…
Growing up, socially I was very poorly developed. Latent health issues, bullying, etc. I never felt on equal footing with the very smart girls I was in classes with who were (lucky for them) not raised by working class people with no social network as I was.
And so my relations with the other gender were stunted, and ever so cautious. I was easily embarrassed growing up right through the end of graduate school. Again, never feeling socially mature enough to confidently interact with the other gender, and to a degree not even my own.
Though I was admitted to a competitive MBA program, worked successfully under instruction of female professors, and in my prior working life collaborated with both female peers with advanced scientific and engineering degrees, and indirect female managers with great success in a public company, outside of those professional bounds I was lost in the wilderness.
In grad school I made few attempts to engage the other gender, and fewer attempts at asking people out. Thankfully my future wife and I found each other on a dating site, and our awkwardness and inexperience equalled out, and finally gave us both an outlet to discuss freely our inadequacies without reservations.
On the sexual front, yeah I’m as uncomfortable dealing with or discussing those issues, beyond the privacy of my marriage, as I ever was. Again, inexperience, growing up teased and feeling inadequate while the world “got it on” messes with a person. Not getting to partake in various rights of passage messes with a person. Working at a Staples while your entire class is having a night at the prom messes with a person. Going though college with no girlfriend among a community that is 98 % male and full of “bro” future pilots messes with a person. Practically leaving grad school a virgin messes with a person.
And so you go on in life to encounter the bro guys and their accompanying alpha-women who you despise, or stuck going to events with “friends” where couples are playing sexually themed card games requiring obscene answers (that you can concoct as you have the knowledge but not experience or practice) and you have to stow your discomfort and present as if you’re having a blast and this is all hilarious while you’re stewing inside. Thank God I’m good at faking like I’m having a good time much better than the “Hide the Pain Harold” meme.
Then you go for counseling and like 98% of the people in the field are women. Great. So I get to divulge my private weaknesses to people I have no comfort with. In a medical community like Boston, research is a big thing, and for a time I liked participating in things that could advance the treatment of issues I have problems with (plus you’re paid). And then you get a moron who refers you to a Mass Mental Health place (that will not be named) to do an EEG while you look at dirty pictures; guessing looking at emotion recognition from electrical activity in the brain. I won’t go into details but the study was so poorly done, uncomfortable and crappily mishandled you’d think it was put on by a lab at a community college by drunk interns. And that wasn’t the first or last of their fuckups.
So by this point in life, I’m mentally on guard about the other gender (admittedly without good reason), particularly those I must divulge private information to, like I’m a sentry and they’re a person approaching my checkpoint in Kirkuk. I mask that well with official pleasantries that vary in degree. Some are deserving of a very open and congenial, yet guarded, me. Others get the me who speaks with the care of a corporate counsel at a sworn interrogatory. But that’s me. The kid who never grew up. Again, thank God I found someone as awkward as I am to marry.
I hope you all can forgive the long-windedness. But, that’s the essence of the character (despite her being a woman) I’m building up, Zoey. And I’m enjoying it. It’s cathartic. And if I manage to successfully interweave a functional romantic story, it’s going to be full of awkwardness but dealt with better than I have my life…and so hopefully that’s interesting to readers. I don’t know that It will be. Perhaps it will just be cringeworthy.
But thanks Bryn, for your advice on what works and what doesn’t and I look forward to learning more on how to put my ideas into practice.
Hi Chris! Well, it’s true that romance is mostly read by women, but about 15% of the readers are men. Those are some of my favorite movies you listed there! I know what it’s like to be that working-class kid in college. I was always really free-spirited about these things, in writing and in life, but the good thing about romance is it doesn’t have to have any R-rated scenes at all!! It can be completely G-rated. In genres outside of romance, a lot of readers really DON’T want any intimate scenes in the plot.
That EEG thing sounds like an absolute nightmare. I’m sorry you went through it!
Writing Zoey sounds like a lot of fun. I’m sure so many readers will relate with her!
Thanks for your honesty, Chris. Glad you found someone you could relate to and who can relate to you as well. What a gift.
I agree with all of this. I suppose in Regency the overdone would be arrogant peer and/or gentleman’s daughter (although what do you know? I’ve written a couple of those). ha ha. I think a really hard one to write – and I’m scheduled to write one as part of a multi-author project – is marriage of convenience. How do you get them to grow in their feelings without consummation until the feelings catch up, and make it be believable? This one’s going to be hard.
I agree with the billionaire trope (boring), however I disagree with the others. Maybe it’s because I read a lot of history and psychology journals, but nothing people do surprises me. For instance, the antihero troupe with the example of the Nazi guard and prisoner, it happened quite a bit. One such case was between SS guard Franz Wünsch and Helena Citrónová, where he helped save her and her sister from the gas chambers of Auschwitz and went on to look for her two years after the war. She even came to his defense in the 1970s when he was put on trial for war crimes.
We like to think of Nazi’s, and the like, as monsters, but they are worse. They are people. They are flesh and blood and contradictions. We do things according to our environment, even if it’s against our better nature.
I do think that any topic that might go against the grain of society norms should be handled with sensitivity, and should probably be left to those writers with innate and honed talent.
I agree that anything can be made into a good story, but I don’t think it’s a good fit for a romance novel. Literary fiction would be more likely to pull it off and not present it as an unironic happy ending; I mean, the obvious question to pop up is, was it really love or Lima/Stockholm Syndrome, and if it was love, how could they be certain? And what did each of them think of all the Jews he didn’t try to save? Could be interesting, but it would be dark as heck.
I think I love all your comments. F*** billionaires, I demand socialist romance! Royal/noble characters don’t bother me as much, maybe because they don’t seem as “real”, but since real billionaires are screwing up the world for real, yeah, it feels different.
The “evil other woman” has its much worse big cousin; every single other female character the female protagonist encounters is ugly or bitchy or stupid or otherwise lacking, at least in the protagonist’s eyes, while she gushes purple prose about every male character she encounters (including, in a particularly egregious example, her own immediate family members). Bonus points if she nicknames the women based on their physical features while using the men’s names, even when she should have known the women’s names for a long time, or when a character seems fine but is treated as lacking and you get the uncomfortable feeling that the “flaw” is that she’s not Caucasian (also applies to male rivals for the heroine’s affections, though “not a billionaire” is more common there).
Lovers being on opposite sides of a war can be done fine, but the WW2 one specifically is creepy and disrespectful. I guess it could be pulled off in Deep, Meaningful Literary Fiction by a very skilled author, but… yeah, ow. Equally offensive are the ones where the hero trafficked the heroine for sex (upsettingly common) or murdered her parents (also upsettingly common). How dumb are the heroines that they ignore that?
Well, we just agree on everything. 🙂 BUT, oh my gosh…I have never read a romance where the hero trafficked the heroine for sex, and that is messed UP. No, no, no. And I haven’t read one where he murdered her parents…wow. I think that could be okay if her parents were seriously evil villains? Or if it was a horrible accident. But if the hero is just basically a murderer, it’s not for me.
Yeah, “dark romance” is an often-distressing niche in general. I poked through a few because I thought the name of the subgenre meant it would be a romance plot with horror trappings, not romanticisation of outright evil. I’m actually more into horror than romance, personally, and love grimdark material, but when the writers put it on the page and then have the characters behave as if it isn’t there, it comes off like they’re trying to gaslight the reader, which is just weird and uncomfortable. I’m sure there are people who can pull it off, but it’s very much not a thing I like.
A further point of creepiness in some billionaire stuff I’ve noticed; if they start having no-strings sex and then fall in love, that’s fine, but if he buys her inappropriately expensive gifts before they fall in love but either while they’re having sex or to encourage her to have sex with him (which a certain character with the initials C G does), isn’t that basically prostitution? Not to mention extracting sex in exchange for gifts/treats and, in some cases, basic amenities (say, if he’s her employer) is a modus operandi used by child abusers, which in combination with the childlike behaviour of some heroines which is supposed to emphasise their naivete and submissiveness… well, can go to some not-good places.
(Though I will say,regarding the billionaire thing, billionaires usually don’t really “have” a billion dollars the way we think of having money; most of it is stock in their companies or property they own, not actual ready cash, and if they liquidised it all suddenly to give away that would mess the economy up too. Simple solutions don’t tend to work in real life, and I don’t know enough about economics to propose one which would work, which is why I won’t be trying to write billionaire-focused fiction any time soon.)
What would say about romances where one of the characters is in their early- 20s or at least 17 while the other character is much older (vampire or non-human), but looks and acts close to the same age as the first character. For example: I have this story where the main character is almost 19, but she falls for a 427- year-old vampire who looks to be around 22 at the most (no relation to Twilight. Sam would scoff at the thought of being compared to naïve little Bella Swan, and Asher once got arrested for burning a copy of Breaking Dawn that belonged to a library he was visiting with his magic after reading one chapter of it [as I’m sure you can tell, I don’t like the Twilight Saga. I’d rather spend the night in Derry than read the books again, and I’ll never watch the movies willing because of how terrifying the books were]. Besides, they’re really more like Emma and Captain Hook, or Snow and David). In this same story, the MC’s parents are eventually revealed to be Death and his head reaper and fiancée Adrienne Bianchi (Death is an immortal angel who existed before time itself, and Adrienne is a young witch [now dead] who fell in love with him when she was around twenty and left when she got pregnant around 3 years later).
In another story of mine, the MC, a 17 year old changeling at the beginning, (around 23 in epilogue and sequel. not human, similar to faeries. Raised on Earth and thought she was human) ends up with a 750-something-year-old half-breed who looks around twenty (Clara ages slower than him, so she looks about 18 in sequel), and in many ways acts a hell of a lot younger.
I’m writing a novel myself, so I enjoy reading other peoples opinions on tropes and cliches. My novel has 2 persons who both happen to have mental issues for their own reasons. One with an insane fear of abandonment because of severe bullying in his past and present. The other is ignored by his family emotionally while they still force him to live up to their expectations which causes his to become more independent and believe that no one wants to understand him, so he learns to say less and do more making him unsociable.
I really dislike the trope where the little sister is off limits to her brother’s best friend. Over the years a lingering yearning for each other persists bla bla bla. Invariably she was too young but now she’s hot. He platonically loved her skinny pigtailed body but now – vavoom.
Another is the one who got away but didn’t. For some reason there is no solid communication between these supposed soulmates so they spin endlessly around one another through a series of missed calls, missed messages, misunderstandings until some external force pushes them together.
Hmm, I see no reference to LGBTQ+ romance. Is Lesbian romance a trope to avoid? Or does it possibly have its own niche and therefore would only have specific publishers that would even be open or approachable to any work with including this type of intimacy? Example: lesbian main characters in a cozy mystery set in Ireland. Thank you