Tropes I’m Thankful For
Treasures to Keep, Use, and Give Me More Of
I’m sure this feels like a stunning turnabout, one I have not prepared you for. Most of Shelf Life is about things I hate and suggest writers do not do. Today’s Shelf Life is about things I love and would not mind seeing more of. You’re in for a short article today because mostly I hate stuff. Every now and then I can grudgingly admit something isn’t so bad.
Not every trope is terrible. As a refresher, I’m talking about commonly recurring plot points and motifs that we see in fiction. As I discussed previously in The Plot’s the Thing, there are no new plots under the sun. All the plots there are have already been used. A friend said to me recently that she discards a lot of ideas she has because they don’t feel original enough to her, but nothing is original anyway. Every plot has already been used. That’s okay. People always want more stories. Every writer layers their own story in their own words on top of a plot that thousands of people have used before. That’s just writing.
I’ve talked at length a few times (in January and then again earlier this month) about tropes that I’m tired of seeing, and there are a lot of those. A trope is a trope if it’s used a lot, again and again, many times to the point of overuse. But there are a few I can think of that I never get tired of: Tropes I’m always happy to see in the wild. There are fewer of these than there are tropes I hate, but at least there are some. This is a day for counting blessings, so here are some literary blessings to count.
Forced Proximity
I am always here to read about two characters who do not want anything to do with each other having to work together or otherwise being trapped in close proximity together for some or all of the story until they get over whatever it is they find objectionable about one another and figure out how to get along.
This is a trope that turns up in a lot of romance and in other genres with romantic subplots because it’s a great way to turn enemies or rivals into friends or lovers (another great trope I’m not tired of yet). It’s also a great trope for forcing two characters who haven’t been able to admit their romantic feelings for each other to finally have it out when they get stuck together on a long journey or in a tight space.
How do two people who don’t like each other get stuck in each other’s company? Depends on the genre. In YA there might be a project they have to work on together or a school play they’re both in. In science fiction this is easy because people are always getting stuck on spacecraft for long hauls. Somebody’s kidnapped somebody else. Two people have to team up to achieve a shared goal. There’s all kinds of reasons. Maybe the intermediary was removed suddenly.
As somebody who doesn’t read much in the romance genre and prefers science fiction and fantasy, I don’t see this trope as much as I would like to but every now and then I find a gem. I recently read The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen, who shoved three characters who didn’t much want to do with each other into a long and arduous journey. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell is another good example from fantasy (oh my god, they were roommates). You can enjoy like 600 glorious pages of rivals trying not to become romantically entangled in Possession by AS Byatt, which repeatedly traps the main characters in unwanted close proximity. A masterpiece.
Platonic Life Partners
This is a trope I don’t see often enough and wish I saw more: Two friends—of any combination of genders but ideally two characters who are romantically attracted to each other’s gender—who do pretty much everything together and just stay platonic friends without either kindling a romance between them or letting the friendship go when one of them begins a romantic relationship with another character. For instance a hetero guy and a hetero gal who are just friends. One isn’t secretly in love with the other. There’s no unresolved sexual tension. They’re just friends.
It doesn’t have to be the straights. Two women with Sapphic inclinations, for example, would also work. The important part is that these two don’t engage in a romantic relationship even though they could.
This is a hard trope to love because oftentimes, when you think you’ve found it you let your guard down and then suddenly a romance blossoms and you end up disappointed. It seems the longer a platonic life partnership goes on, the more payoff the writer or creator thinks they’re building for when they inevitably form a romance. I reject the belief that sooner or later every friendship must turn romantic if the possibility is there.
When I was in college, a person I dated told me that I would never be able to hold down a lifelong friendship with a man because it’s impossible for men and women to be friends without ever exploring a romantic relationship. This is false, even though a lot of people believe it’s true. It’s not unrealistic writing to have two characters who prefer each other’s friendship to other types of relationships, or who continue to make their platonic friendship a priority even if one or both of them is involved in a romantic relationship.
A great example of this trope is the relationship between Kizzy and Jenks in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.
Families of Choice
It’s Thanksgiving and not everybody is on great terms with their family of origin. Some folks aren’t on great terms with their family of origin any day of the year. But there’s good news: The family members you’re born with aren’t the only ones you’re allowed to have. Family of choice is just as real and valid as family of origin and I always appreciate when fiction touches on that. The six students in Julian’s classics course in The Secret History by Donna Tartt are a prime example if not a happily ending one.
I always enjoy reading about characters who assemble their own families out of the loved ones they make on the journey. Found families are characterized by deep, meaningful bonds between characters based on their shared experiences, mutual interests, reciprocal care and support, and respect for each other—anything except the happenstance of being born into the same family.
As in real life, characters who participate in a family of choice usually are estranged from their family of origin or their family of origin is extinct. Found families are best when made up of members who are wildly different from one another, contrasting a genetic family where members may all have similar physical characteristics and developed similar personality traits. A favorite example of mine is Sophie and Howl’s family in Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, which is made up of Sophie, a hatter; Howl, a wizard; Calcifer, a fire demon; and Michael, an orphaned kid and Howl’s apprentice. The movie also adds the Witch of the Waste and a living scarecrow named Turnip Head to their family.
I’m sure this goes without saying, but the criminal found family subtype—like the ones in Six of Crows (by Leigh Bardugo) and the Gentlemen Bastards series (by Scott Lynch)—in which a group of ne’er-do-wells in criminal enterprise together form a family, is the best of all possible families of choice.
Intellectual Animal Companion
I realize this one is relegated to speculative fiction so I placed it last, while the above tropes are all universal and can appear in any genre. This is your bonus trope.
An animal companion that communicates with their human (or other type of person) counterpart and helps them out with stuff is the best. If you have (or have ever had) pets then you have almost certainly had the experience of wishing your pet could communicate with you with more than tail wags and meows. Any book with an animal companion or familiar that communicates with its person verbally or psychically is is the fulfillment of that wish.
These might take the form of something that isn’t really an animal but takes the form of one, like Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon in His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman; or a fictional fantasy animal that has the ability to communicate with humans, such as Chih’s companion hoopoe, Almost Brilliant, in The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo; or a real and ordinary animal who is able to communicate with a person through that person’s special ability, like Fitz with Nighteyes in Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy.
These also pop up quite a lot in science fiction as well, though often in the form of an alien species that seems like an animal like the Fuzzies from Little Fuzzy by H Beam Piper or the Mrdini from Anne McCaffrey’s Tower and Hive series. This trope is delightfully subverted in The Pride of Chanur by CJ Cherryh, which features a human as the weird sentient alien pet.
That’s it, those are the tropes I am thankful for this Thanksgiving and most days actually. There are probably more and I’ll write about them some other time when I need to phone it in. I hope everyone celebrating Thanksgiving today has a great meal and a great time with their families of origin or choice. I gotta go put a turkey in the oven.
If you have questions that you'd like to see answered in Shelf Life, ideas for topics that you'd like to explore, or feedback on the newsletter, please feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from you.
For more information about who I am, what I do, and, most important, what my dog looks like, please visit my website.
After you have read a few posts, if you find that you're enjoying Shelf Life, please recommend it to your word-oriented friends.