My Top 3 Favorite Tropes To Write
Tropes. We either love them or hate them. Occasionally, we might find ones that surprise us, but for the most part, they are a good tool to help us decide is a story is right for us.
Today, I wanted to talk a little about a few tropes that I find popping up in my stories again and again and why I find them so important.
~Found Family~
I love found family. It is, by far, one of my favorite tropes, both to read and write. I love when people from all walks of life come together and go, "You. You and I are nothing alike, but I would die for you."
This trope is in basically every book I've ever written. I just love when a bunch of seemingly random people band together and choose each other as their family. It's something that I feel like represents how the church is supposed to be. We all come from different walks of life, but we have that one thing in common and that brings us close together.
~Graying of good vs. evil~
I don't believe people are "basically good". This simply isn't what we're taught in Scripture and, if we're very honest with ourselves, it's not what our own nature proves to us. If we delve deep down into our character, we know that there is a darkness held back. A darkness that, if not held in check, could very easily overwhelm our being.
In my stories, I don't necessarily make my main character "good". This especially comes in to play in the Monsters of Our Making series. My main characters in this series battle against their sin and the things that they have done. They have to grow past their shortcomings and seek forgiveness, both from themselves and from the people they've hurt.
It is the overcoming on sin, not the lack thereof, that makes their story compelling.
This trope ties in very closely with my next one...
~Redemption~
I believe anyone can be saved. If I can receive God's grace and mercy, then so can anyone. It's important to me to portray this hope that we have in Christ through my stories, even if there's no "religion", so to speak, in my storyworld.
Again, you will find these threads throughout all of my stories. I will have at least one character that has a redemption arc, where they overcome their past selves to become someone who chooses good over evil, even though it's a daily battle.
I find myself rooting for these characters more than any other because it tells me that I too can find forgiveness, no matter how far I've fallen.
There you have it!! Three tropes that you will consistently find in my stories, should you ever read them.
Onto y'all! What tropes do you often find yourself writing and why? Which ones do you like to read? Is there some overlap? Let me know all about it in the comments!
I feel like the Pirate Hunter books have all 3, lol
ReplyDeleteI love the found family trope, as well as the "whole family is close and going on adventures" thing (is that even a trope???).
Yes, it totally does!!
DeleteWe'll call it the "Goin' on a bear hunt" trope.
Found family! One of my very, very favorite tropes. :)
ReplyDeleteI do like the trope of greying of good vs. evil, although I'm going to have to disagree with you a little bit on whether we're basically good...because every human was created by God, and what God makes is good, so...we are fundamentally good. That doesn't mean there isn't room for deep darkness in what we've done or what we think we are, our moral system etc. Those things are all the result of the fall. But underneath all that...every human is fundamentally good.
Redemption arcs are also amazing!
Yes, found family is awesome!
DeleteI'm not sure you disagree with me, as much as you're using basically and fundamentally interchangeably, which isn't correct. Fundamentally, yes, man was created "very good". But now, after the fall, we aren't "basically good." That's not what Scripture teaches. Yes, God created man "very good", but the fall and resulting sin has corrupted man in his whole nature. Psalm 53:3 says that "there is none who does good, not even one." From our very conception, we are sinners, as we read about in Psalm 51:5. Babies are not innocent, blank slates where they can choose good and evil. They too are sinners. From Ephesians 2, we learn that we are "children of wrath" "dead in our trespasses and sins", making it impossible for us to choose good unless God works saving grace in us and "makes us alive together with Christ".
So no, we are not "basically good". We are dead in our sins from the very moment we are conceived. We cannot do anything good unless it is from God. All of us, if it weren't for God's mercy holding us back, would be capable of far worse sins than anyone in history, causing us to agree with Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15 where he calls himself the "chief of sinners" . As that old saying goes, But for God, there go I. That is what makes salvation so amazing: the fact that God can awaken our dead hearts! If, at any point in our lives, we were able to choose good, we wouldn't need salvation so desperately. But the fact is, we do need God's salvation with every fiber of our being because otherwise we have no hope. We can't choose good in and of ourselves any more than a dead man can walk.
Yes, I love redemption arcs!
You're right, I think we have very *similar* views on this. :)
DeleteYes, humans (which were created "very good") were marred during the fall. The fall left humans without sanctifying grace. (Now, we must receive sanctifying grace in Baptism). Just because something is marred in that way doesn't mean that it's not still good...it has been distorted, yes, but not irrevocably. We are sinners from the moment we're born, yes. However, just because we are sinners and inclined to sin doesn't mean that we can't do good before we receive sanctifying grace in Baptism--look at David. Obviously he was very flawed (as are all humans!) but he was still able to do good. We hear that he was a man "after God's heart". At that point, though, sure, there wasn't any hope of salvation, life after death, or escaping punishment for sin.
So in that sense, we are dead (before sanctifying grace). However, that doesn't mean that we're bad. God made human nature, and there is nothing that can take something God made and twist it so badly that there is *no* good left in it. In addition, Jesus took on a human nature. Yes, it was a human nature without original sin, but since he was born of a human, that implies that the marring of human nature can't be so bad as to be unfixable. And again, we receive sanctifying grace (that which we lost in original sin) in Baptism. Yes, salvation is amazing! It gives us the ability to have a relationship with God, and to be together with Him in heaven, rather than being punished for our sins, as we deserve! For even though we are by nature good, we *have* been distorted enough that because of our sins, we did deserve death.
I think that while our views on this are *similar*, they're not exactly the same...I'm not trying to change your mind on this, just explaining my view (in a fairly ineloquent way...my pastor could do way better, I'm sure. XD). I think this might be a place where we just agree to disagree, and that's fine! I know that there are a number of differences between the Catholic church and Protestant churches (that's why they're, y'know, separate XD), and this might be one of them. And I know you're probably not going to change your mind, and I'm not going to change mine. :)
Oh these are some of the best ones! Found family is my absolute favorite.
ReplyDeleteFound family is such a great trope!! I love it so much!!
DeleteI LOVE redemption arcs (as you probably know haha). I always have one, they're so fun.
ReplyDeleteI have a thing for romance tropes, too xD especially enemies to lovers for some reason? I shouldn't but I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
Amazing post!!
YES!!! They are awesome!!
DeleteI do like enemies to lovers when it's done well!
Thank you!
I do love found family and redemption arcs too :). I know the latter one has wound it's way into TWR for sure and found family will be in TMC. (oh crap, speaking of which, can you still access the TWR hangouts? I found your email was strangely doubled so I booted one of them out, but I think I might have booted the wrong one?? Tell me if I did and I'll fix it).
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily like the trope of the greying of good and evil, simply because there is so MUCH confusion about what is good and what is evil in today's society. I absolutely agree that overcoming sin is a wonderful arc. But I disagree a little with your statement that people can't be basically good. I immediately think of Mary, Mother of Jesus, a simple woman, but one who radiated God's goodness in everything she did. I can think of other saints too who were given so much graces from God that they rarely sinned (and on the flip side, I know many saints that were great sinners!). I think good characters give us something to emulate, especially as we strive towards getting rid of those "darknesses" or vices that hold us back. I think maybe a better way to phrase this trope would be "humanistic characters" rather than the "idealized" characters? But that's my just my honest opinion.
I did write a post in 2019 about what tropes commonly showed up in my writing but I probably should revisit it. Many are characteristics, not tropes, LOL. But one that does show up is "chivalrous man hero" because there can never be enough of those.