Trope
A trope is a recognisable storytelling convention that lets a writer use the audience's familiarity as shorthand, rather than building the same understanding from scratch.
The word has two meanings, and searchers usually want the second.
- In rhetoric, a trope is a figure of speech that turns a word away from its literal meaning: metaphor, metonymy, irony. The Greek root means "a turn".
- In storytelling, a trope is a familiar pattern that readers recognise from other stories, and the rest of this page is about that one.
Trope examples
- Characters: the mentor who dies, the reluctant chosen one, the grumpy one and the sunshine one.
- Plots: the heist that goes wrong, the locked-room mystery, the fake relationship that turns real.
- Relationships: enemies to lovers, found family, the rival who becomes an ally.
- Settings: the haunted house nobody will sell, the small town hiding a secret.
These are the conventions that let a reader arrive already knowing how the machine works, so the writer can spend the pages on what is different. Genre readers do not want them removed. They are, in large part, why the book was bought, which is also what comp titles tell an agent.
Trope vs cliché
The distinction that settles most arguments is functional, not a matter of taste. The wiki TV Tropes draws the same line: a trope is not a problem in itself, and it becomes a cliché when it turns intrusive and the audience notices the device instead of the story.
That is why "avoid tropes" is bad advice. The question is not whether a trope is present but whether it is doing its job, and a trope has gone wrong when the reader recognises the move rather than the moment, when they can see the author reaching for it.
Making a trope your own
The useful move is the counterpoint: take the expectation the audience brings and set one thing against it. Hannibal Lecter, the cultured cannibal. Shrek, the sentimental ogre. The trope still does its job of orienting the reader, and the contradiction is what makes the character memorable.
- Change one variable. Keep the heist; make the crew all retired, or all siblings.
- Follow the consequence. The mentor dies. What happens to the lessons nobody wrote down?
- Use a foil. Put a character who knows the trope next to one who is living it.
- Watch the ending. Tropes turn into clichés most often in resolutions, where a convenient rescue becomes a deus ex machina.
Frequently asked questions
What is a trope in writing?
A trope is a pattern readers recognise from other stories: a type of character, plot, setting or relationship, such as the reluctant hero, the heist crew or enemies to lovers. It lets the writer skip explanations the audience already has.
Is a trope the same as a cliché?
No. A trope is a tool; a cliché is a trope used so predictably that the reader notices the device instead of the story. The same trope can be either, depending on what the writer does with it.
What does trope mean in rhetoric?
In the older, rhetorical sense a trope is a figure of speech that turns a word away from its literal meaning, such as metaphor, metonymy or irony. The word comes from the Greek for 'a turn'.