Top 10 Tuesday: Favorite Tropes

On By Jane @ Greenish BookshelfIn 2019, Just for Fun, Top 10 Tuesday

Welcome back to Top 10 Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week’s topic is Favorite Tropes (a trope is a commonly used theme or plot device). I am super excited about this topic! I haven’t put together a list like this before so I hope you enjoy!

 

Multiple Perspectives // The first trope that comes to mind is when we get inside the heads of multiple main characters. It’s fun to have more that one narrator giving us the story from their eyes.

Flashbacks // I love when we get the story in pieces through different time periods. Books that give us flashbacks throughout the novel are so fun to read and piece together!

Clever allegories // I love books that can be interpreted in different ways or that offer a new way of engaging with a classic story. Narnia immediately comes to mind as well as The Wilderking Trilogy.

Happily Ever After // I’m a sucker for a happy ending. Whether its a love story or a fantasy novel or anything in between, when the good guys win and everything is sorted out in clever ways, I am satisfied.

Overlapping Plots // I love in novels or in series when the stories overlap in time so you get to see certain scenes from two different perspectives. Often characters focus on different details which make the whole scene more interesting. Plus, I think this adds depth and dimension to the stories.

Classic Hero’s Journey // I love a great plot that takes our hero on a journey of discovery. The protagonist must discover who they are and then fight for what they believe in. This trope is all over the place in middle grade fiction especially (a favorite genre of mine lately).

Dramatic Irony // I must admit I have a love/hate relationship with this trope. Sometimes it’s fun to know something another character doesn’t know. And sometimes it drives me crazy. But usually, it makes for a good book!

Object(s) of great power // I can think of several great series that center on objects (Harry Potter, LOTR to name a few). These books are exciting and engaging as the characters (and the readers) search for these objects or try to stop the villains from accessing them.

Subtle clues to a twist ending // You know the books that surprise you in the end, even though they left subtle clues along the way? Those are so fun. I love when ending surprise me but even more when I can see the clues on a reread.

Words on a page tell a story // I always appreciate authors that use the physical words on the pages in clever ways. Whether the words slide down the page or they use empty pages intentionally, the physical words become part of the story.

What are some of your favorite tropes?

15 thoughts on “Top 10 Tuesday: Favorite Tropes”

  3. I love the specific flashbacks where you start in medias res, where you find out something (usually bad) happened, and then the book goes back to the beginning and shows the events leading up to this moment. It gives the readers some tools to kind of diagnose what might be happening and it’s a lot of fun to play detective as you read.

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  6. Yes to happy endings. I don’t mind twists in the tale, as long as you genuinely can’t see them coming – it spoils it if they’re signposted a mile off! I actually don’t like flashbacks, especially when books start with the main character in old age, so you more or less know what happens to them before the story’s even started. I quite like old style books in which a character “reforms” along the way, as long as they’re not too preachy. And I like dislike-turns-to-love romances, like Elizabeth Bennet with Mr Darcy or Scarlett O’Hara with Rhett Butler – much more interesting than love at first sight!

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