Working on a story that is in on the joke about the really overplayed ya and new adult romance and or fantasy genre. What are some of your favorite and least favorite tropes? What are things youd like to see more of?
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The enemies-to-lovers trope seems to be VERY overplayed.
Then again I am not a reader of romance fantasy or romance fiction in general.
Honestly, I’d rather get to know someone then see if they are date worthy. I don’t want to date an asshole or some nuisance, if I am being honest.
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fluff is great. enemies to lovers is also great.
best friends to lovers? not great.
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Not a trope, but, miscommunication just for the drama.
The “there’s only one bed” cliche.
The evil guy was actually a good, misunderstood guy so MC falls in love with them (even though the evil guy is still evil and problematic. yay 
)
The main love interest is a thousand years old immortal non-human creature and very beautiful. MC is the most normal and ordinary human there ever lived. They fall in love for some reason.
The quirky female MC being all quirky.
I’ve been seeing so much of these lately: “who hurt you?” “grumpy x sunshine” “don’t touch her or you die” I’m so tired of seeing them 
but hey, it sells 
Another thing I see in some fantasy books that have lots of romance (not necessarily categorized as romantasy) is this: the romance is actually the plot. The fantasy bit? nah, the romance is the entire thing. The thing is though, the lore is fascinating, but the plot with the fantasy bit is executed poorly and honestly disappointing Give me a happy middle. Need a nice balance.
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Not enough monsters
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There was a point where I hard agreed to that and generally it isn’t great. I used to not really like it but someone got me into This is How You Lose The Time War and it changed my mind that it is possible for it to be good. So instead of it being these two people on opposite sides that are hateful assholes to one another than magically being huh i think i want you. It was more of a they just happened to be against each other and happened to find there equal and quickly they realized that where it should have been annoying it was actually pretty exciting and it just got out of hand.
But i’d say 95% of the time I totally agree thank you for the input.
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fluff can be pretty great. Enemies to lovers done right also great lol. How you lose the time war made me realize that trope can actually be pretty great. Yeah best friends to lovers is one of those things that can be super adorable and great in real life but generally is really hard to make good in a book. Thanks
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No problem!
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Yes, hard agree. It rarely adds anything to the story
I 100% plan to pick on this lol. Like a real gentlman would sleep on the floor for you. And if you really don’t want to sleep with the guy next to you…you’re going to pick the floor lol. Ik its not the same but i’ve 100% used the less cute alternative of “body heat or hypothermia” situations. But its normally not a willing thing and they are normally not happy about it. Less huh cuddling the hot guy more…welp ig thats a thing to be awkward about now.
Im big guilty of reading this and writing this one lol. Though, generally its 50/50 if its going to be good or annoying. If its insta romance love bombing no. If its they’re forced to spend time together and just end up having great chemistry, maybe. Done right, and with open acknowledgment i’ve seen mentally unstable/obsessed guy’s work. But i also like dark romance. And i tend to enjoy a well done “the protagonist realizes she’s not the good guy” arch.
I’ve seen a few good exceptions. Bride was great. But strong agree most of the time its just annoying.
I normally agree but for me this and
this goes hand in hand for me
.
So this might come back to me liking darker romance, but my stance is if she justifies him as good regardless of toxic behavior or evil things this is just toxic and i don’t like it. And I hard agree these can get old and be bad. **BUT ** if she just happens to be happy nice sunshine (or maybe she’s also a huge redflag) but also just really gets off knowing her man is actually toxic and crazy and she genuinely likes the idea of watching him kill someone for her…then i’m okay with it. But she has to want it not just ignoring red flags.
Yeah, I agree. Its boring as hell. So i’m really big on character growth driven story. I want to watch the characters struggle and grow and do things in the world. Other than fawn over the man. That was my biggest issue with A court of thorns and roses. It was painful for me to read because it was almost all romance. Which I realize was nessesary for set up and i can respect it in theory. But it was painful.
Anyway, thank you, defintely gave me a few things to think about.
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I agree in most cases. thank you
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You familiar with Rumiko Takahashi’s work? That would be very inspiring.
a little
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Be sure to take notes from other writers in this subgenre.
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Yes, if she acknowledges it and there’s some talk about it, and yet, she still prefers to be with him, I’d think “okay, you’re problematic, too” and I’ll be willing to accept it
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Yes lol
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