I’ve been working on my current writing project for a few years now. It’s nowhere near done—the project is a trilogy and I’m only halfway through the first book —but I am considering potentially publishing this at some point in the far future and thus thinking about how to pitch it to potential readers.
The thing is I see people market their books using popular tropes. I’d get Facebook ads about novels and they’d say stuff like “enemies-to-lovers” or “found family” and all that, and the thing is I’m having a little trouble figuring out what (popular) tropes my own books use I craft the story with mostly the plot and characters in mind and never think of it in terms of tropes.
So how do you guys figure it out? Or do you just not think about it at all?
Unless you intend to start promoting your book right now, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Maybe your themes/tropes will change by the time you finish writing, or others will become popular instead.
What these tropes do is offer a bite-sized point of reference to the readers about what they can expect inside, and they vary by genre. For instance, you can have a locked-room murder for mysteries, best-friends-to-lovers for romance, etc.
In my opinion, though, marketing should be closer to truthful than to popular, coz readers whose expectations have been disappointed will hate your book even if it was good. Think about some comp title. What other books/media inspired you to write what you did? You may find similarities you can work with.
To answer your question, I also don’t actively think about working tropes into my story, but I could probably find some if I thought really hard about it (I can’t be bothered to lol so I don’t)
I don’t see why you couldn’t list tropes you invented yourself. If your book is totally original and doesn’t have any common tropes, why not list whatever tropes it has? Every trope has to start somewhere. It wasn’t that long ago that no one knew what “unhinged woman” meant, and then all these books came out that featured an unhinged woman. Your book could launch a popular new trope! ٩(˘◡˘)۶
Thank you guys for the replies! It does make me feel a bit better about not having my tropes figured out
Oh definitely, I totally agree! That’s mainly why I’ve been trying to figure out what tropes my books have—to tell people what kind of story I’m writing without droning on for too long. Instead all I hear from people who’ve read my current story is that I subvert tropes or expectations which is great because I don’t want to constrain myself to what’s popular, but it does make pitching my story a little harder, especially when I don’t want to spoil anything
Uh, all the inspirations for my stories are songs except for maybe one movie scene that inspires something in the backstory. I also suck at figuring out what my inspirations are
Absolute mood
By the way, the story I’m talking about is the same one you’re reading admittedly other people are better about pointing things out in my story than I am.
That’d be nice! I’d probably have to wait a couple decades for that though due to legalities related to the visa I’m on, I can’t publish books (even self-publishing) because it’d fall under “unauthorized income.” I would have to see where my future goes first before I can start the publishing process.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t stopped fantasizing about getting my books out there, though I blame my ex for that. He planted the seeds.
That’s good! Did they also happen to mention which tropes you are subverting, exactly?
I’ll let you knos if anything stands out to me, but I don’t really read fantasy so I don’t really know what passes for tropes around there. Chosen One is the only thinh that comes to mind
The mentor one comes to mind, more specifically about how in some stories, the protagonist’s mentor dies at some point in the story, typically early-ish in the book.
Another thing that my old roommate noted was how Arden was surprisingly feminine. Granted, it did take some time before it was shown, but I guess she didn’t expect her to be the “typical” strong female character and simultaneously be very into dresses and other girly things, while making sense for her personality.
(I do remember that last part being part of a critique directed towards this famous fantasy series, about how the main character was supposedly the best assassin in that universe, but had no action to show for it and instead made mistakes and got caught up in girly things. I haven’t read the series because I’m not interested in it, but it’s a common complaint I’ve heard.)
And this could be just a thing with my ex but he says I have an unintentional knack for building up sexual tension there’s a pair of characters that he’s utterly convinced are a couple, and when I try to tell him that they’re platonic he rolls his eyes at me and goes “sure, author” meanwhile my old roommate doesn’t see as much of it.
However, both agree that whatever romance I do have in store moves very slowly. My old roommate was surprised when two characters hugged in a more recent chapter, saying that while it was expected in a way, it did feel like a huge step. Meanwhile my ex told me to never write pure romance because it would take 100 chapters for anything to happen
Completely fair! You don’t need to be super analytical about it, btw I myself would struggle to be super analytical about whatever I’m reading because I’m not that kind of reader
To be fair, sometimes characters will just take us by surprise
Honestly same I supposedly have a literature degree, but I’ve never really understood those readers waxing lyrical about stuff they read. Having so many opinions sounds exhausting I just wanna read my cute lil murder mystery without getting a headache over whodunit until the author tells me who
As a recovering TV Tropes addict, tropes are everywhere, they are simply reoccuring patterns. Marketing based on tropes is like fanfiction tags more than anything else.
My current project is basically Cardcaptor Sakura x Black Clover with a Y2K twist-however, by booktok trope language, it would be “Strong Female Protagonist, Y2K Future, Cool Magic System, Massive Cast of Quirky Characters, Fast-Paced Action” etc and etc.
Funny how you mentioned TVTropes, because I scrolled a bit on that site for a while to figure out what my books have before giving up the pages that were related ended up being the more obscure ones.
I find r/TopCharacterTropes to be pretty entertaining, and sometimes the users do post things that my story contains!
tropes are a marketing tool; that some people use as a part of their creative writing process; but whether you do or don’t has no baring on which tropes will be used to market it.
a lot of things are generalized in marketing to fit the trope ; when a specific version of a trope becomes popular enough it branches into its own trope.
subverting the trope is still considered meeting the trope; its a form of meeting the trope. if your friends say it subverts tropes ask them what tropes exactly does it subvert; thats the tropes your books meet.
One recommendation is that, you’re essentially writing what you like, right? And, assumedly, you don’t want to associate with tropes because you’re simply focused on writing, and/or perhaps want to avoid leaning on the idea too heavily.
But, if you wanted to, you could take a step back from your book and objectively look at what elements and what parts of the narrative you enjoy–and how that relates to other popular works you’ve either liked, or took inspiration from, relating these functions/dynamics back to those tropes.
For example, I have a couple in my story I didn’t really write with tropes in mind, I just wrote them character consistently and didn’t think about what dynamic I was emulating, just creating theirs. However, if I were to step back, I can see that the structure of it does stand out as things to market. My character’s were best friends before getting together, so already that’s friends to lovers in the bag. Likewise, my MC is quiet, strategic, and calculating and that can come off cold to others. The LI is someone whose a bit of a social tactician, charming, and well-liked. Although I wouldn’t say my MC is “grumpy”, she does fit the idea of that, which means I could say there dynamic is grumpyxsunshine.
However, when writing it I tried hard to focus on what my characters, plot, etc. was actually doing from a narrative and thematic standpoint, and didn’t focus too much on subverting specific tropes (unless that’s what I intended to do). In the text, it’s much more dynamic and nuanced. But from a marketing perspective, those are two things I hit. You could do something similar with your book where you examine dynamics and narrative function from a sort of “simplified” lens in order to draw out which tropes you’re hiting and can bank off of.
—but I am considering potentially publishing this at some point in the far future and thus thinking about how to pitch it to potential readers.
I craft the story with mostly the plot and characters in mind and never think of it in terms of tropes.
which is great because I don’t want to constrain myself to what’s popular, but it does make pitching my story a little harder, especially when I don’t want to spoil anything 
admittedly other people are better about pointing things out in my story than I am.
due to legalities related to the visa I’m on, I can’t publish books (even self-publishing) because it’d fall under “unauthorized income.” I would have to see where my future goes first before I can start the publishing process.
I just wanna read my cute lil murder mystery without getting a headache over whodunit until the author tells me who 