3 Common Tropes in Fiction and How to Give Them a Fresh Twist

If you’ve ever taken a look at your book shelf and recognized a lot of common character arcs, plot devices, and recurring themes, congrats you have a type. Or rather, you have a favorite trope. Maybe several.


While a story should not be boiled down to a shallow explanation of its tropes, I do see the appeal in using them to choose what stories you want to read and what you want to write. If I’m looking for something to read and, based on the tropes, I know I have enjoyed books like this in the past then “yay!” my search is over. Likewise, I might be writing a story without any planning and realize later that it utilizes many of my favorite tropes because I’m already so familiar with them.

Draft the cat looking smug while sitting on a desk that has a pile of books and a lamp on it.

Tropes Are Useful When Not Overused

While labeling and explaining tropes can be useful for both readers and writers, it’s up to all of us in the literary community to remember not to judge a book by its cover, or in this case, the “enemies to lovers” and “chosen one” labels on all the marketing. Each story is unique and distinct despite basic commonalities because all writers have that “something special” that sets them apart from others. The only way to find out what that is, is to give the story a chance!

A Fresh Twist On Classic Tropes

For the fun of it, and to possibly create something new and never seen before, let’s take some popular tropes and add a twist. Choose one and use it as a writing prompt or if you have seen it done before, let us know on Instagram.

Classic Trope: The Chosen One

This trope is an old classic. The main character has something special, maybe feels like an outsider because of it, and soon realizes they are part of a big prophecy to save others and stop the bad guy, or in some cases become the bad guy. A good example is Rand al'Thor from Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. Rand’s prophecy names him a hero destined to fight the Dark One and save the world. With this prophecy looming over him, it shapes his expectations, reactions, and his entire journey.

The Twist: To give this trope a twist you might make the character reluctant, or incredibly bad at the skills they need to accomplish their task despite all possible practice. In the end, maybe someone unassuming steps in and defeats the bad guy?

Classic Trope: Enemies To Lovers

A classic example of this trope would be Pride & Prejudice. Elizabeth and Darcy do not see eye to eye because of Darcy’s pride and Elizabeth’s assumptions of how he views the lower class.

The Twist: In the classic trope the characters start as rivals before falling in love. We need them to fall in love or otherwise it’s a completely different trope called “enemies to friends”. In our story, they start as enemies, they fall in love, and then a wizard turns one of them into a rabbit with no cure in the world. With a somewhat tragic ending, they’re destined to go on tour as a magician duo.

Classic Trope: The Mentors Death

A great example of this trope would be in Star Wars. Obi-Wan is Luke Skywalker’s mentor and guide. He teaches him about the force and how to become a Jedi. During a fight with Darth Vader he sacrifices himself so that Luke and others can get away.

The Twist: It’s not enough to simply have the mentor surprisingly come back from death. Gandalf did that already. Instead, the mentor could experience a snap in personality and become the villain. Another option, the mentor is so clumsy that they have had three near death experiences. Each event is incredibly emotional for the main character until after the third time when they have no reaction, thinking everything is fine, only to find out the mentor really did die this time.

Your Turn

Did one of these twisted tropes get your creative gears going? Have you read a story before that switched up one of these tropes? Is there another trope you have in mind that you’re just dying to recreate? Tell us all about it on our socials or our Discord Community, and we can’t wait to read your story over on StoryForge!

Previous
Previous

What Your Favorite Literary Genres Say About Your Personality

Next
Next

5 Tips to Cut Distraction From Writing