Romance Tropes

[CrystalAlice]

I'm planning a romance series featuring a set of sisters/friends. What are your favourite/least favourite romance situations (e.g. friends-to-lovers, secret baby, love triangle, second chance, enemies-to-lovers...)?

I think all romance tropes can be quite predictable, but i really like enemies to lovers!! Its just a bit more interesting than friends

Enemies to lovers every time…

Slow burning enemies to lovers for sure! And then some kind of forced proximity scenario where the characters have to confront the love/hate thing 😊

Oh yes, a good old forced proximity scenario works every time.

I’m a sucker for the whole fake marriage trope, as long as there’s a vaguely convincing reason why they get into that bargain in the first place.

I won't read enemies to lovers.

I like a love story where the love is really for something else... ideally a house.

@Thurlow

Oh yes, a good old forced proximity scenario works every time.

I’m a sucker for the whole fake marriage trope, as long as there’s a vaguely convincing reason why they get into that bargain in the first place.

Yes to fake marriage or fake fiancé!

I like it when there is the dashing seeming cad and he turns out rotten so the heroine ends up with Alan Rickman. Very specific.

@theotherfossilsister

I like it when there is the dashing seeming cad and he turns out rotten so the heroine ends up with Alan Rickman. Very specific.

I'm laughing because you reminded me, not of Sense and Sensibility, but of a novel-length dystopian Harry Potter-universe fanfic in which pureblood wizards are forced to marry by draconian marriage laws issued by an increasingly abusive Ministry of Magic, and an adult Hermione ends up marrying Snape for fear of being married off to a stranger.

(Written midway through the book series, so Hermione/Ron is not a thing.)

I like Love In Dire Circumstances - war, plague, post-apocalypse.

I also like Heroine Sees the Light romances where she is struck by some handsome shit but then realises that her trustworthy friend is really hot after all.

@PleaseBeSeated ah that's amazing

I am now trying to construct a frame for widow and younger man to get together.
I've been reading Georgette H. It's an antidote to her usual pairings.
There must have been many widows after 1815.

I also enjoy reading enemies to lovers and thinks this works well but it has been written a number of times.

I'm having difficulty with a romance trope in my novel. Don't want to de-rail your thread op but as part of the discussion it seems relevant to this thread, it's going in this direction currently but may have to change it around as a bit stuck

Unhappily married lady with admirer. Admirer is good and solid and won't approach lady believing she is happily married (she puts on a good front etc.) Dc in the mix and this is when they meet with others so never really alone. Does lady have to live on her own for a while (and be strong which is ideally how I would like to see my protagonist) but then perhaps difficult to write with time lapse as appropriate or another possibility of the good old cliche of something happening to husband. It all seems so predictable (perhaps predictability works).

@Thewhitsunwedding I think the important thing is that your heroine should be heroic - she should take steps to save herself and kids from the bad marriage, not be rescued by the admirer. Their relationship should be based on solid values and shared experiences, not gratitude.

If your book's set in the present day, I'd avoid killing off the husband in a convenient car accident or similar. Better he waltzes off with another woman or has a blatant affair, thinking our heroine will just have to suck it up and be penniless, but in fact she has all her ducks in a row, has taken her share/got all the paperwork/the house is in her name or whatever, and hubby is in for a nasty surprise and maybe a prison sentence from the tax inspector as well as a divorce.

Alternatively, hubby could be secretly gay, but nice, decides to come out, so they can all - including kids - be happy at the end.

(she persuades hubby to come out for his own sake, NOT so she can shag admirer - she's already convinced herself she's lost admirer, just wants her husband to be happy)

but i really like enemies to lovers
another vote for enemies to lovers especially if there is misunderstanding involved. I read pride and prejudice (for the eleventy billionth time) again recently and thought what a perfect set up it is.

I do love an enemy to lover trope, I worry what this says about all of us though 😂
Others I like are the love against all odds tropes, every obstacle, shouldn't work on paper but very much twin flames.
I also like tropes where the male leads are sort of unattainable, very closed and it's not really the initial trope you think it's going to be but deep down he has a deep love for the female lead and it's a bit of a surprise.

I don’t like the “best friend turned love of her life” - just let people from opposite sex be friends!
I don’t like the misunderstanding after they fall in love where a simple chat will have solved it, but no! The heroine just ends it all and cries
i quite like the enemies to lovers, if it’s well done

You sound as if you are reading 'A Husband for Fanny' which has exactly that trope - as does 'Bath Tangle' which I like a lot less (also has the enemy to lover angle - ish).