I want to talk about the sometimes-maligned trope. You might be unfamiliar with the word, or struggle to define it, but I can guarantee you’ll immediately recognise it in every genre fiction you read.

Are you a fan of enemies to lovers, or rags to riches (and vice versa!) or a good old jump scare? Do you prefer the novel you’re reading to begin with a meet-cute and end with a HEA (happy ever after), or are you eager to step inside a haunted house and find a different face staring back from the mirror? These are all tropes.

Tropes are one of the building blocks of story, a narrative element that, certainly in my writing, occurs naturally. I don’t start the novel writing process by thinking about tropes, not specifically, but perhaps subconsciously as they are all-pervading. And tropes work brilliantly as storytelling tools. Mix them up to misdirect the reader (but never cheat the reader out of the HEA or other trope they’re anticipating). Or turn a trope on its head. Damsel in distress? Choose princeling in peril instead. It’s still a trope.

Tropes offer a certain level of security to a reader keen to become ensconced in a novel. To an extent, we know what to expect when we settle down with a book. A romance should end with a HEA, or at least a HEA for now. A hero might be reluctant but they’ll still save the day.

Don’t confuse trope with theme. The theme is the underlying message in the novel, the background onto which the tropes are layered.

In my debut novel, The Ragged Valley, the theme is human resilience in the face of disaster, while the story reverses the damsel in distress trope for a meet-cute with a difference. You’ll just have to read the book to find out more.

So, are tropes clichés? Sometimes, but remember, a cliché is only a cliché because it is true.