Just like there are romantic tropes that I love, there are others that I dislike (of more genres than romance).
One of the first that pops into my mind is fridging (aka women in refrigerators). It comes from giving male characters the motivation to do something (kickstarting the conflict) by killing a woman: wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, daughter…The issue isn’t that a character is killed (or left in a coma until the resolution of the story), but rather that said character has no agency whatsoever. The female characters are written for the specific purpose of being killed (or being left in a coma…).
Another trope that I’m not super fond of is the sudden appearance of a long-lost sibling or friend who’s connected to the plot but who isn’t mentioned until the climax or right before it. It feels like an unexpected plot twist that, unless properly foreshadowed or hinted at, may come off more as a betrayal to readers as a deus ex machina.
And when it’s an identical twin who steals the main character’s life or where identical twins switch places…Sure, I bought it in Sweet Valley, but a) I was young; b) the twins switched for an hour or two; and c) they sometimes got caught. But switching places for a day, a month, or a year is too ridiculous to be in any way believable.
And yes, when it comes to literature (or other kinds of art), suspension of disbelief is a thing. But it’s a thing that has limits.
In romance, a trope I dislike are big romantic declarations at people’s work environments. I won’t name any books, but it just makes me mad. Maybe I take it too seriously, maybe it’s romantic for other people and that’s why it’s quite recurring, but, if they are coworkers or one (the man, usually) shows up and makes a scene, interrupting work and getting everyone’s attention, putting the main character in the spot of not always being able to turn them down (especially when the one making the declaration is the aforementioned boss or has a similar more powerful position), it’s disrespectful and demeaning and…no, just no.
In the same genre, forcing relationships between secondary characters for the sake of pairing them up, when they aren’t fully developed or there isn’t any chemistry or reason to be together (other than it being a “happy ending” so that everyone’s paired up) also leaves me with a “meh” reaction.
And a final point of slight irritation, although not a trope, is the death of the mentor after the hero has learned just enough to continue the journey. This is different from fridging as, in this instance, the mentor is involved throughout much of the story (or its first half), and they have agency and a clear motivation.
This is not to say that I don’t enjoy stories that include these tropes (except for fridging; don’t be lazy and give your male characters a different source of motivation to go kick butts), but sometimes it feels like a plot could be worked on a bit more to offer other situations that are more likeable. I also think that this is entirely subjective, so let me know how you feel about these tropes and whether there are others that you like or dislike! (And yes, this post was more of a rant to get things off my chest than anything else. Thanks for reading.)