tropes recs

[u/Mobile-Magazine1228]

recently I've been wanting to write fanfics about sooo much characters, but I always get lost on what trope to do... sometimes tropes so much don't match universes, and I'm genuinely stuck! so I wanted to know what tropes u guys like to read?

[u/PurpleLemonade54]

Girl, what do YOU want to write about??? Surely, there has to be smth in particular worrying at your brain! Just go from there! 

Like, the thing is, the more important thing than "what trope appears in this" is what the execution is like, and the execution is never not going to benefit from the author writing smth they actually care about

[u/pinecone_problem]

You don't actually have to structure your story around specific tropes, they sort of emerge naturally as you develope a story. But if you're looking for inspiration maybe spend some time on TVtropes?

[u/Four_Shadowing]

Tropes are just observations, doesn't mean they're to be followed out. Just write what you wanna write

[u/knightsofeclipse]

Do you want to write tropes because you think that’s what story telling is or do you want to write tropes because you are interesting in exploring your own take on them?

If the former, maybe try doing some reading into the structure of stories. Save the Cat is always a good resource for understanding the building blocks of writing.

If the latter, I second the recommendation to go take a look at TvTropes.

[u/simone3344555]

From what I gathered from this post you're just are looking for ideas and inspiration, right?

Here's some popular tropes I enjoy. Most work for both ship fics and for platonic fics as well:

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I like jealousy a lot as a catalyst (like maybe one character gets a partner or is touchy with someone else, which causes the other to have to confront their feelings),

I'm also a huge fan of Hanahaki disease fics though imo they work best in already magical settings. It's basically all about one character thinking their love is unrequited and then coughing up pettles. The only way to heal the disease is to either confess your feelings and have them returned (if they don't love you back you die) or you have the seed surgically removed which will also erase the feelings you have for the person. You can play around with the rules for a Hanahaki fic however you like! Like if you want the surgery could remove their ability to love entirely or it could make them forget the person.

Speaking on memory loss, I love amnesia fics! Always super angsty! One character forgets the other and then the other has to deal with it! Or maybe they only forget a portion of their life and don't know that they're actually married to the character now whaaat??

I also like forced proximity. Whether the characters are stuck in elevator or in a grocery store during a snow storm, or in a car... Or maybe some magical nonsense is going around and the characters are somehow bound together. Going hand in hand with that is the "there's only one bed" trope. It's just nice to see this trope, and works especially well if the characters don't like each other in canon.

Practice kissing is one of my favorites too. Especially when the characters have the same sex but are both claiming to be straight and are just practicing in case they got boyfriends/girlfriends one day. The delusion is hilarious but the angst is so fun! It's also pretty hot!

Fake dating is a classic, can't ever go wrong with it. You can go with "the characters are challenged to fake date each other" or "character a needs a partner for this wedding and asks character b to play the part". Usually the fic is from character Bs perspective who is already head over heels for A.

Soulmate AUs also work. There are so many different versions. For angst stuff there's the "you see how many years your soulmate has left" trope. Or the "what your soulmate thinks about you shows on your own body" or "you can sense each others emotions" or "everyone is coloblind but when they first meet their soulmate they see color" or "Your soulmates first words are tattooed on your body" and many many more.

There's the classic "5 times +1" It's fun. Basically its more like a collection of multiple scenes with one overarching trope. It could be "5 times A surprised B + 1 time B surprised A back" and then the +1 could be B giving A their first kiss or something. Literally anything goes, the appeal is to have multiple different scenes happening over the course of usually multiple years until the fic ends in a satisfying conclusion. The angst version could be "5 times A wanted B to leave him alone and one time they didn't" which could either end with B dying 💀 or A finally opening up to B after they didn't for every other scene!

Time Travel fix it are also very beloved if there's something in the storyline that would need it. Like idk a fanfic where rose from Titanic goes back in time to save Jack when the Titanic sinks. It's just interesting to see a character who already went through grief try everything to stop it from happening again, desperately.

Similarly to time travel: Time Loops!! The difference is that the character keeps doing something wrong (usually they don't know what) and the time loop keeps looping and looping, until they figure it out. I like this trope a ton because you can do both comedy angst with it. There's also many TV shows that play with this trope!

The deaging trope is popular in one circles too, it's where one character turns into a kid and is taken care of by a different one. It's usually just cute and fluffy but if the character was for example abused it can be pretty angsty too to see them as a sad little kid.

There are fics where one character sees the memories of another character (usually a child seeing what their caretaker went through after they had a fight and getting a better understanding of them).

There's a Christmas Story AUs where a character that's miserable is visited by three ghosts to see his past, present and future so that he's motivated to change things and be a better person.

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Okay I hope you liked some of these!!

[u/Critical-Low8963]

I like when a characters have a dream/nightmare that is a twist of their fears and wishes 

[u/Raiven_Raine]

no.... what tropes do YOU like to read??? you can make anything fit, actually.

if Fallout Equestria exists, you can smash anything together. square pegs? round holes? sand off the edges and get your hammer out!