What Happened To Our Tropes?

I was doom scrolling the other day, as we do sometimes. Almost every other video was an advertisement for those AI short dramas, and something occurred to me. They are literally all the same story, over and over again, just in a new setting. In these rinse-and-repeat stories, the popular tropes have been reduced to 2D, extreme caricatures of what they were supposed to be. They can produce stories in half the time because it’s the same, over and over again. 

I know why they do this. It’s because people pay to watch them, no matter how many times they change the setting. It sells. These AI short dramas are not even the first to do this. Hallmark has been doing this for years. Some intelligent people analyzed people’s favorites and created a formula that could be used over and over again with minimal changes. But it sells. So they are going to keep doing it.

Now, Hallmark and the AI short dramas are two very different examples of the same thing. Hallmark tries to adjust and insert some originality into the confines of the formula, but the formula allows for very little wiggle room.

It doesn’t help that Hallmark uses all the same actors over and over again. I think I should clarify that I don’t dislike Hallmark, but I do get board with it quickly. I’m good for maybe one or two, then I’m ready for something else. But I have some family members that love it, and it’s on all Christmas season. When we watch them we don’t usually remember the character’s names, but use the actor’s names. Because the character’s names don’t matter. They are all the same character, over and over again.

The AI short dramas are different. There is no desire to make something new, only to feed a voracious consumption. The only “new” is to try to entice people to continue watching.

I think some of this is happening in writing too. It used to be okay to have soft female characters without them being punching bags. Our morally grey characters used to still have morals. And out book boyfriends might have had a red flag or two, but overall still be safe choices, even in real life. But, in an attempt to create a new version of their inspirations and what is so widely enjoyed, there has been this gradual shifting away from where these tropes started.

I remember soft female characters like Ella of Frell and Daniel De Barbarac. They were strong willed, kind hearted, and who stand up for what was just, even if that wasn’t with always with a sword. They didn’t get weaker because they led with their heart, they showed us that kindness and gentleness can be a refuge and it’s own kind of strength.

I remember morally grey characters like Drizzt Do’Urden and Geralt of Rivia. They still tried to do what was right, but were built in a way that they were comfortable crossing lines to make sure right was done. They could see when the rules of a society had failed, but were just outside of the norm and in a position that allowed them to break convention to do what was right.

I remember broken book boyfriends like Harry Dresden and Bruce Wayne. They were still heroes, though often unsung and making just as many people upset as they were saving. They had things that made them difficult to deal with. Not perfect, but issues they still worked to overcome. To be better. And he was still a safe choice. We like these tropes and character types because they are relatable. Isn’t that the first rule in writing to get readers to care about your characters? We all have things that make us difficult, that we try to overcome. We all know that sometimes the right choice is done by breaking the rules. And not every woman is ready to go to battle with a sword and a gun, but rarely are those women to be taken lightly, and they are usually the ones we run to when we need comfort and safety.

Just as with Hallmark and the AI short dramas, there is a spectrum to the distortion of our favorite tropes and archetypes. I have read many books that stretch these tropes, that I have found to be brilliant. I have also encountered some stories that feel just like the short dramas: overused, unoriginal, and produced like on a factory assembly line. I have also read some in-between, where the story is original and the author did a good job, but the tropes and archetypes were stretched beyond what I was okay with.

I will NEVER tell anyone what they “should” or “should not” read. It takes all kinds to make this world go around, and the most important part is that people are reading. I also believe that nothing is discovered if boundaries are not pushed and explored. Greatness cannot be found by doing the same thing everyone else is doing.

But I do feel there is a hunger for our tropes and archetypes to come back to something we remember. Go on any book social media space and you’ll see so many videos of people begging for originality, for something new, for something outside of what the next biggest book fad is. I, too, am looking for something great outside that exhausted formula and it’s what I work towards in my own writing.