Friday, March 22, 2013

Tropes Aren't Always a Bad Thing

This post on YA Highway made me reflect on my favorite tropes. Here is a list that is in no way exhaustive. It includes tropes I like in YA fiction as well as things I'd like to see. A lot of these are from TV shows, as I am unapologetically a huge fangirl when it comes to TV. If I were an agent, these things would make me very inclined to request more:

1. Road trips
2. Summer
3. Couples that start out hating each other
4. Unlikely friendships
5. Friendships like Shawn and Gus from Psych
6. Characters who reject fate and destiny
7. Parental substitutes; Giles from Buffy, Bobby from Supernatural
8. Wanderers
9. Characters that usually play the field falling in love
10. Tarot
11. Estranged brothers getting to know each other again (a la Stefan and Damon from Vampire Diaries or Sam and Dean from Supernatural)
12. Characters getting to know each other through dance
13. Characters making music together
14. One character being in unrequited love with another, then later the dynamic flips
15. Evil uncles
16. People who used to be friends but fell apart
17. Stories that take place over one day or night
18. Forbidden love
19. Love story that's not romantic: friends, parent/child, siblings, etc.
20. Fantasy or sci-fi from non-Western cultural perspectives
21. Teenage private detectives

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