Links Mentioned in This Episode:

The Trope Thesaurus: An Author Resource

Trope Lists to Develop Your Story (FREE)

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon

How to reach Jennifer Hilt:

• Substack
• Youtube
• Facebook
• Website

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. Today we're talking all things tropes and I have with me Jennifer Hilt. Jennifer is a USA Today bestselling author who's worked as a plotter and concept creator. She's written 24 books across four pen names as well as an urban fantasy series, the Undead Detective. She teaches craft classes and is a podcast regular extolling the virtues of. She's also the author of a couple of really great resources, the trope thesaurus, horror trope thesaurus and trope thesaurus romance. She lives in Seattle where she collects dictionaries in unfamiliar languages, binges Scandi noir series and shouts out tropes from the comfort of her couch. Welcome Jennifer, so glad you're here. 

Jennifer:

Thanks so much for having me Rhonda. Yes, my poor family. I don't think they're like, they've all been scarred now. They can't watch anything.

Rhonda:

I like you're watching like, I don't know, Shetland and you're like, you know, amateur detective trope. Like what, like what are you? 

Jennifer:

Yeah, those kind of things. Like, on my, like, they were really into the Mandalorian when it came out. And then with such great storytelling and I'm not generally a huge Star Wars fan. I mean, I know about it, but, but then like just hearing them talk about it, I was like, oh, like you know, I could tell there were all these tropes in it that they were twisting into a very specific world building that people were like heating up, you know? But they were, when I mentioned that to my husband and teenage son at the time, they were like, oh, like they thought it was like all new. And I'm like, but that's original. Yeah, exactly, but it's like, that's all right. They created a, you know, but they use these familiar building blocks to create this thing they loved. So it was kind of funny that I feel like I ruined their TV on a regular basis. So. 

Rhonda:

I love that. So, let me then ask you, let's just kind of get this out of the way. So tropes, they're not bad, right? We're not talking about like, you know, because you often hear like, Oh, the tired trope, so can you talk about how you define tropes and why you love the trope? 

Jennifer:

Yeah. Um, so back in the, during the pandemic era, I had a lot of time on my hands and I started, um, when I was working with students realizing, Oh, we were using these common language elements to talk about story like oh this person's an orphan or this is like a forbidden love or something and and then students would be like oh but i wanted to write a good story that's a trope and I'm like yeah it's a trope but then I was like but we need to use these anyway so I went on this like huge deep dive which was great because it was a pandemic watched a ton of things and went back and read all my favorite books and was like able to kind of in my mind separate the difference between a trope and a stereotype. And so I think of a trope as a neutral idea for story building. So like the idea of an orphan or the, you know, best friend, or it can even be like enemies to lovers. It's just, it's just an idea. A trope is something that you, when you hear it, you know what it means if you're like, you know, a sixth grade level and above English speaker.

And you don't have to go into a lot of description. You're like, okay, I got it. I got the concept and we can move on. Where I tend to think of stereotypes as having really negative connotations and things of like gold digger or the dumb jock. Like there's like a negative connotation affixed to it. So in my mind, that was kind of how I separate out tropes and stereotypes. And it's so much easier to develop a trope because you're just like, taking this common element and then you can add various things to it, to whatever you want to do, where if you have a stereotype, it's like harder to do that twisting, because you're kind of pushing against that kind of negative connotation. So I like the kind of neutral element about tropes. And so, also at the same time, I feel like there's just been this huge resurgence or, you know, we've been using tropes forever. If you go back and like look at, talk about Western storytelling in particular is what I'm most familiar with. Like all the fairy tales and things like that have those the tropes are are based in those. 

And we just keep you know going back to them because tropes are really relationships. They're things that we're familiar with. So like one of my favorite tropes, it doesn't matter what the genre is, I almost always read a book if there's a twin in it. And what I love about twins is like the promise of like oh, there's going to be a swapped identity. There's going to be some other, like, you know, you wouldn't, if you have identical twins and you don't have them swap identities, like why, you know, that's kind of the promise of that trope. And so it's just kind of, it gives the reader like this idea of like, Oh, this thing I like is going to be in there. 

Rhonda:

Expectation built into it. 

Jennifer:

Yeah. And then you, and then it's on us as authors to know what is the genre we're writing in? What do like, you know, if I'm reading a mystery, there better be some like action in it to figure out who the criminal is and some justice at the end. If I'm reading a romance, I want to see how this relationship with these two people goes to a satisfying conclusion. So it's like on us as authors to know the various genres and be able to play with those ideas. But the idea of the trope is just like I said, it really became apparent to me, oh, they're just the building blocks and they're in like everything. So. 

Rhonda:

Right. And you talk about trope twisting. So is that your way of talking about like basically how to take a trope and make it fresh and new and original? And so that people feel like they're not reading a stereotype. They're reading this new story where you've used tropes as your building blocks. 

Jennifer:

Correct. And the way I think the best way is to do that is to take, you know, I think it's easiest to not look at our own work, but to look at like, you know, your favorite story or something you know, on movies, something on Netflix or whatever, and just start to look at it and see, okay, how is it made up? What's it made up of? What are the tropes that are telling who the characters are? What are the tropes who are talking about the places? And what are the tropes that are helping to move the plot along? And so those are kind of like three baskets per se, that you can kind of think about tropes and using them to kind of help the stories. And that helps with all the twisting, because the thing about tropes, I think, the power that they have is that we're using them almost like Legos stacking them on each other. You're not just using like one or two. 

People think, oh, you know, I want to have, you know, a trope in my story. It's like, no, if you think of something like probably everybody's pretty familiar with The Witcher, that has like, I think, probably 40 tropes. I mean, it's great. The first season is my favorite because it has so many tropes in it. But they're, the way that they're added on with each other and kind of twisted around. You don't feel like when you watch it, you're just like, oh, there's a trope, there's a trope, there's a trope. You're just like, what's gonna happen next? And oh, I'm worried about these characters. And oh, I didn't see that coming. And so, but yet it's all based on familiar elements. If we think of, you know, Hunky, Geralt, he's like, you know, definitely the reluctant hero warrior, loner, you know, definite scars in the past, secrets, all those kinds of things, that's him, you know. But then, it's mixed with some other, it's mixed with so many other fresh storytelling.

Rhonda:

You have like the ugly ducking, you know, woman who becomes the beautiful. 

Jennifer:

Yep, the sorceress, yep. And she's got like her physical scars too. The queen I thought was a fascinating character, you know, as the ruler. And then also the young girl whose name I'm not thinking of, his charge, you know, and there's that whole element of that like guardian relationship. And again, like, you know family and all this kind of thing. So, so. 

Rhonda:

My daughter is a big reader of fantasy. And so we've sort of joked over the years, like, is it even like a high fantasy novel? If nobody walks into a pub out of a rainstorm with a wet, woolen coke, that coke cloak, and has a like, you know, has some meat or some ale from a pewter goblet, is it even fantasy? Right. Like where's the stew? If there's no stew, it's not fancy. Exactly. I'm just gonna joke about these things. But it's true that as a reader, you read them and you're like, oh yeah, I'm in familiar territory. I really, I like this. That's why I come back to it. 

Jennifer:

Right, and then it has like, you know, its own, you know, its own kind of twist to it. Because, you know, yes, they had those elements that you just talked about in it, but then they had his little, his sidekick, I think Yasker is how you say his name. 

Rhonda:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennifer:

He was great. You know, like they just had these other little elements that you just, they would have add things on there that would like take you by surprise. So it's like, okay, yeah. 

Rhonda:

He ended up like with his own little subplot of a little love story where then he was betrayed, you know? So like it's trope on trope on trope on trope. 

Jennifer:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there were so many, like I said, I it's hard to think of what, um, what they didn't have, you know, in there, but it was just well done. And the other thing about tropes I think is important is that not every, because I think of them as like building blocks or almost like, um, you know, if you think of like paints and, um, like a paint kit that kids get in you and you, um, like watercolor, water paint that you're going to add some water to is like, not everything is going to be used in the same strength. So I mean, you know, his kind of wounded hero, that was a huge trope, but then, um, I'm just trying to think of a smaller part, uh, uh, trope. That was a small, something small in there that was, um…

Rhonda:

I wonder what some of the stuff in his, remember when like he goes back to his family and there was like some little like secrets and betrayals and stuff all in there. 

Jennifer:

Right. Right. And a lot of that, like I think was explored in later ones. So a lot of times we see more of those kinds of things, but it's, I guess the thing I want people to know is, you know, we don't use all, you're not going to like put, you know, 20 tropes on page one or in early parts of your work and just leave them there. You're gonna like sprinkle them throughout the stories. They're gonna have their own arcs. They're gonna be used, you know, some are gonna be more diluted than others, you know? And so that's why I think that there's a lot of power to them because they make those connections with readers, you know, and you're like, oh, I don't, you don't have to lose somebody in this whole thick, dense block of text explaining that this person is, you know, on a revenge quest. If you just, you know, throw that in there and then you can go on to describe how that is gonna be happening. 

Rhonda:

So I love this. I think it's really liberating to, especially for anyone who, you know, it didn't start writing genre, maybe now they're getting into genre. That's me, I'm like trained in the literary world. And so when you come from a literary background, it's like every freaking thing you write has to be fresh and original. Right, right, right. Or the form and you know, da, da, da. And then you're like, well, wait, when I'm reading, I actually really like some of the things that feel a little familiar and they're all rooted. Like all of these tropes are just, they're rooted in ancient stories and ancient storytelling. So we've been using these since the dawn of time, right? 

Jennifer:

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't, the other thing I discovered about tropes is they're, it's not only genre fiction. So like I'm a huge Tana French fan. And like her books are like, there's so many tropes in there, but her characters are so well crafted. She puts so much detail in them. You know, there's none. So it's not like there's everything has, her characters have so many different sides. And so, and they're like, she's not afraid to have people be ugly, you know? And like really go dig down into like, I think what a lot of, not all of us have the courage to do because that's a lot of work, emotional and otherwise. But I think they're really in every kind of storytelling.

And it's just a matter of like you trying to figure out, well, what kind of story am I trying to tell? And like, how do I want to do it? And the other thing that I was just gonna mention that I really think is super helpful is knowing what your character's goal motivation and conflicts are. And it's been like a big revelation to me as a writer because I spent a lot of time, I don't know about you, maybe some similar like wandering the desert of like pantsing my way through all these stories. And it took me, you know, and then you gotta like, cut all this stuff. 

Rhonda:

Yes, yes, yes. And it goes that tangent. There goes that. 

Jennifer:

Exactly. So if you have that if you have an idea in the beginning of like where you're going with that goal, motivation and conflict, it really helps support the idea that we've heard this a lot, you know, complex characters, simple plot, and even something like the Witcher that had a very simple plot, right? He's trying to get to find the girl and get her to safety that and there's a whole bunch of other things that happened. But that was like the big plot you know. So those are just kind of like some things that I think work really well with tropes when people are like thinking about working on their first stories and think about, you know, what do my characters want? And more than just that, think about what they want in a tangible way of like, you know, they don't wanna just be happy, you know, so if they wanna have it a way that's measurable, so we can see in the end of like have they achieved that goal or not? It makes it so much easier. 

Rhonda:

Did they get married? Did they not go on the trip? Whatever the... 

Jennifer:

Did they get rescued? Did they stop the explosion? You know, all those kinds of things. So I think those, I think it's like there's things we can use with tropes to develop them. So it's not just them on their own. And then the other important thing is that people bringing our storytelling voice to it is what like if you and I picked the same tropes story to story, we would even in the same subgenre, we would write totally different stories. 

Rhonda:

Totally different books. 

Jennifer:

Exactly. 

Rhonda:

All about who you are as a storyteller. 

Jennifer:

Right. And I think it's really important not to suppress that when you're, especially if you're just starting out because it's like, oh, you know, we get all these, I still do all these like literary crushes like, oh, I just did this amazing, you know, but you can, you could try to sound like somebody else, but that isn't really going to touch readers the way you pull out your own voice. That's really what makes the difference. So those are just kind of like the little things I like people to think about with when they're, you know, starting stories, working on stories, getting stuck, those kinds of things, like how can unstuck tropes can help. 

Rhonda:

Yeah, do you think that, I was actually just gonna ask you that, like I often people, you know, they're 30,000 words into a manuscript, now they're feeling stuck, they're in act two, they're like, I don't know what to do. You feel like tropes can help us like plot out the middle of a book? How would you?

Jennifer:

I do, I think that I do, I go back to though, I do think you need to know what your goal is. And that is, you know, it sounds easy, right? Cause you hear like goal, motivation and conflict. So, you know, you think, oh, you're just gonna sit down and in two minutes you can like write those out. But I find when I'm working on stuff, it takes a lot of revision to really dig down. To get those things. Cause you really want you know, their goal and the conflict to be an opposition to each other. So the more opposition that you can get, that's what your middle of the book is. That's what your plot is. 

Rhonda:

Yeah. I feel like people sometimes we'll avoid that. We're like, I made this beautiful character and love this character. And so we think we think conflict is like, you know, a piece of dialogue that is where people are sniping at each other. And that's true, like that's one form of tension and conflict, but there needs to be something bigger into which that's rooted. 

Jennifer:

Or it needs to be referring to something deeper, like when you say about dialogue and stuff like that. That's why I'm such a huge kind of Tana French fan because Donald Maass, in one of his, he has a writing book I really like, I think the, I was like, Writing the Breakout Novel workbook and I really good exercises in it yet. And one of the things he talks about in there is like tension on every page. And I was like, tension on every page, who can do that? But when you read like some, some like your favorite author, why they're your favorite author is they have tension on every page. It doesn't have like an explosion, but it's like some little thing where they're, they're dealing with maybe something from their boss or did I leave the stove on this morning or some other thing that's just that's just kind of picking at them and making it hard for them to focus on whatever they're supposed to be focusing on. 

Rhonda:

I love that book. I'll link to it in the show notes. And also, do you know the one Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon? That's a really good one, GMC. So I'll link to both of those. 

Jennifer:

Yep, those are, yep, I think that's really important. And I think even though it's, like I said, it's not, you know, and you can have like, you'll have a goal motivation and conflict for your character. They might not be aware of it it's what we need to know. But also there'll be like smaller subsets in there too, of like, but it really helps when you're, to get a handle on your story, when I find, I get, you know, talk to people and yeah, they're 30,000 and they're not sure what's gonna happen, what's happening, or they don't like to be mean to their characters, is to really think of like, what do they want? And how is life gonna make it, you know, pretty much impossible for them to get it? And- 

Rhonda:

How are they in their own way? 

Jennifer:

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yes. 

Rhonda:

So speaking of books, that we might want to have on our shelves. You created something called the Trope Thesaurus. I was like, Thesaurus, Thesaurus, Thesaurus, Thesaurus. Yeah. Trope Thesaurus. And you've got a few of them now. So you've got horror, romance, the Trope Thesaurus. And is there one more? 

Jennifer:

Yes, the fantasy and sci-fi one came out. And what is like different about them is they, it's not that the tropes are different. So like, obviously like you're gonna have like I talked about before, like best friend or orphan, but you're gonna use them and combine them. I use a lot of examples from popular movies and books is like how you're combining them and like what are the expectations for like, because like, as we know for like romance, I think I talk about like there's 10 different sub genres that I talk about in there. And there's just like things you gotta know if you're working on a romantic suspense versus like a sweet romance or a YA or something like that. 

And so it's like really important on us as authors to know what the expectations are of our genre or subgenre when we're, you know, getting to that point. If you're just writing your first story, you just want to write the book that you want to write, that's great. I'm not discouraging anybody from doing that. If you want to like, try to get that published or move further, then you need to do, then you need to like school yourself. And because sometimes people are like, oh, I don't want to read my genre and to get influenced. I'm like, unfortunately, you have to, you need to know. 

Rhonda:

Yeah. And there's nothing that takes a reader off like more than like reading their beloved genre, picking up your book cause it’s supposed to be in that genre  and then you violate all those expectations and like, not in good ways, because it's. You can play around with tropes. Like you can kind of like, cheese people and be like, Oh, you thought it was a secret, but it's not that kind of secret. You know, but you've got to have it. You can’t violate the expectations of the reader or you do that and you're parallel I think, um yeah.

Jennifer:

I totally agree. So it's just part of like our work as authors being educated about like what else is out there and how other people are telling stories and what works and doesn't work and stuff. So I like, like you said before, just I encourage people to read as widely as possible, and not just in definitely to know what's going on in your area, but other stuff too, because you never know what's gonna inspire you or make you think, oh, hey you know, I could do that, but what if I set that in a world where X happens? 

Rhonda:

Little mashup, little crossover. Yeah. Yeah, really cool stuff. 

Rhonda:

So Jennifer, you have a free trope list. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about that? 

Jennifer:

Yes. 

Rhonda:

I'll put that up in the show notes as well for folks. I think it's a great resource. 

Jennifer:

It's really how, just some different ways that you can, like different categories that tropes can fall into because I like to think because there's a lot of, and it's not hard to go to the web and find a list of like of tropes A to B, you know, or alphabetical listing. But one of the ways that I talk about in my first book is like thinking of what other functions do tropes, like you can use them to help with character, you can help them with setting. And so the lists are kind of like help separate them into those different categories. 

Rhonda:

Oh, I love that. Okay, so that's a great brain-finding tool. 

Jennifer:

Yeah, yeah, a lot of, I really feel like that's the thing with tropes is like, there's not a way I can tell you, oh, this is how you need to use them. Um, I want to encourage people to play with them more and to like understand, okay, this is the basic, you know, okay, we have this basic idea. How do I bend it and add it with other things to create my own thing and to not, not be afraid of them and not feel like, oh, it's this, because sometimes people are like, oh, I know I need to have tropes in it in order to like you already have them in there. It's like you just have got to like pull them. You know, and because you've already, you know, if you're writing a fantasy, you've got a quest story in there, you know. So it's, it's kind of interesting of like this kind of embracing what are the things in there that you can bring out that are like from make familiar to readers and then at the same time, intrigue them with your world. So that's kind of the work that I do is really wanting to empower people to not be afraid to use them and embrace them to tell their best stories. 

Rhonda:

Oh, fabulous. Thank you so much. I'll link up to the free resource in the show notes, but also people should definitely go and check out the thesaurus. I've just ordered mine. So you got to have those on your shelf. And because I think we, you know, we need to be thoughtful about the tools that we're using and how we're using them. So I just, I really appreciate you being here with me today to talk all things tropes. Thanks, Jennifer!

Jennifer:

It was super fun. Thanks for having me.

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

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