By Jason Wu
The fantasy genre is one of the most popular genres in the literary world. With many categories and subcategories, it can seem daunting to choose tropes. As a writer myself, I often found difficulty in choosing the perfect trope(s) for my story. A trope is essentially a recurring theme or plot device that can be seen throughout literature. Tropes became popular thanks to William Shakespeare indulging in its use in his many plays. One of the most popular examples being the trope of “star-crossed lovers” in Romeo and Juliet. Tropes are used now to help readers find stories with similar elements that they already like, sort of like categorizing books based on story elements. This is why knowing what tropes to use is important, it helps identify an audience for the writer. While some may assume tropes would just be chosen from the stereotypical list with items such as ‘Damsel in Distress’ or ‘The Chosen One’, these tips give insight to tropes that are much more specific.
A lot of fantasy books follow the ‘Good vs. Evil’ theme but it doesn’t have to be the case, as sometimes the “Evil vs. Evil” trope is used. For example, The Sith Order in the Star Wars films operated under the Rule of Two: There were to be only two Sith in the Galaxy, a master and an apprentice. If the apprentice wanted to become the master, all he had to do was kill his master and take the title for himself. The Rule of Two was specifically designed to prevent this trope on a massive scale, as in-fighting was as big a threat to the Sith as the Jedi were. A step away from the normality of the ‘Good vs. Evil’ trope would be beneficial to making a story more interesting and compel more viewers to read on. I’m not saying ‘don’t use the dominating tropes of the genre’, but rather make changes within its constraints, so that one could create a story that is uniquely theirs. For example, in my own work, Empery X Couple: Tryst Heartstrings, the main character Clyde is “The Chosen One”, but not everything in the story happens in a way that is always beneficial to him. He experiences many setbacks in war and loses friends in the battles. While in the grand scheme of the storyline, he does eventually win the war, it is not without loss throughout.
The process of choosing tropes should be not solely based on a single trope, but rather a selection of several tropes. For example, in Harry Potter, there is the ‘Good versus Evil’ trope as well as ‘The Chosen One’. A writer should utilize a set of tropes to focus on. A story shouldn’t bring only one trope into the light, but rather multiple tropes. How a writer uses a combination of tropes is what makes a story unique. Tropes exist for writers to mix and match to fit their story.
Many tropes have sub categories too, for example, the ‘Good versus Evil’ trope also has ‘Evil vs. Evil’, and ’The Chosen One’ has ’The Unlucky One’. There are a lot of trope options out there, and it can be confusing. Figuring out which ones you want to use takes a lot of time and research. But then again, it’s all part of the brainstorming process.
In conclusion, in order to master the fantasy trope, you will need to do a lot of research, play around, and just figure out what tropes will work with the kind of story that you want to create.
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