July 2026 …
I recently attended a Writers Victoria workshop about how to be successful in short story competitions. It was presented by Amanda Scotland, one half of the ‘Not Quite Write’ podcast duo. She is a judge of their own NQW Flash Fiction competition. During the presentation, she aired the idea that entrants tend to use one of a dozen ‘tropes’, and that short fiction judges become jaded about those entries, no matter how well-written.
This made me wonder about tropes themselves. A trope can be defined as ‘a recurring theme, motif, or device in storytelling, art, or media.’ The word tends to carry the same pejorative tone as a ‘stereotype’ or ‘cliché’. And yet, I think tropes have a role to play in the development of a writer’s craft.
One expression of ‘trope’ incorporates the use of particular turns of phrase; language styles. Another expression of ‘trope’ is as a common or standard story plot; e.g. boy meets girl, they fall in love, have a misunderstanding, separate, realise their mistake and ultimately get back together.
Many genres have their set tropes. In a crime story the reader knows, from the start, that the investigator will solve the crime. Often, the investigator will be weighed down by some tortured background that impedes their investigation. Readers who choose to read crime stories do so because of the trope. If the story pattern is not followed, they often feel let down. The joy of reading genre fiction does not come from being surprised by the general outcome but following the path of the story to get there and recognising how the author has used familiar elements; in a crime novel, for instance, it’s about how the investigator confronts their personal and professional challenges to solve the crime.
The key concept is that readers ‘choose’ the genre. In short fiction competitions, the judges have no choice as to what they read. They are compelled to read every story and form an opinion. When there are multiple stories with similar plots, how does one choose the best? They don’t. They put it in the ‘trope’ basket and choose a story that is different.
This is disappointing. I see tropes as an important developmental path, a writer’s playground. An author may be developing confidence to write a story with an enticing hook and a tension-filled middle, rising to a climax, followed by a satisfying resolution. Tropes provide the basic form to practise that technique. The characters and plot are already lightly sketched so the author’s task is to let their imagination fill in the colours. After a while the author may get bored and begin testing different starts, more dramatic middles and wild or exotic, twisting resolutions. Their imagination is allowed to stretch while retaining the essentials of storytelling, not to mention the correct use of grammar, sentence structure, powerful words, and the avoidance of redundancies. There are too many other things to practise!
Writing tropes is part of the apprenticeship toward proficiency in the craft. Reading and writing stories with diverse genres creates the capacity to add new dimensions and insights to tropes. It is essential to celebrate all well written, interesting stories, whether or not they follow a trope. That recognition encourages every writer to remain in the literary playground, continuing to experiment and refining their imagination.