By Angela Ackerman

Character tropes—familiar character ‘types’ used often in stories—are sometimes condemned as being cliché and something to avoid. And it’s true that in the wrong hands, tropes can lead to flat characters and stereotypes. But used skillfully, tropes accomplish a ton of things at once, including:

1. Giving writers a valuable starting point for character-building. Just as a blank page may intimidate, so can a lump of character clay. Kickstarting the process by choosing a special skeleton for someone is a great strategy to get things moving.
2. Being able to orient readers quickly. Tropes provide a snapshot of who someone is and their role, giving readers the context they need to feel anchored in the story.
3. Speeding up connection. Knowing fundamental details about a character makes it easier to empathize and relate to their struggles, needs, fears, and unspoken desires.
4. Satisfying a reader’s expectations. It’s rare to choose a book blindly—people usually go looking for a specific experience. The genre guides readers to the type of story and often features certain characters: Rebels, cowboys, monster hunters, bad boys, etc. Character tropes help us deliver a story cast readers want to engage with.
5. Subverting expectations! The best part of making readers happy by giving them the characters they crave is the ability to go off script just enough to provide a character who is fresh and new. This is the key to making tropes work, so let’s dive into that a bit more.

Breaking Away from Predictability

Characters feel hollow when they are reduced to something – a trope, stereotype, mental health condition, set of circumstances, etc. Rather than having  depth and complexity, they get labelled – the washed-up detective with a drinking problem or the aloof teen with dead parents. When it comes to important characters, these labels let readers down. They want depth, not cliff notes.  Unless a character has a walk-on part, we still have much work to do.

Breakout characters and showstopping stories rely on trading generic characters for those who fascinate. Here’s how to write a character who will transcend their trope.

1.    Know Their Why

To develop a character further, understand what shaped them in the first place: What past events led here and what pain do they carry? How did they succeed and fail in life? What experiences, caregivers (or detractors), and challenges nudged them to align with this trope?

The past influences the present, so dive into their backstory. Not only will you feel closer to them, but you’ll also be able to write their actions and choices with greater authority.

2. Go Deeper

After thinking about their past circumstances and experiences, turn to other pieces of their identity. Questions like these will help you:

1. What are their best qualities (traits, strengths, values, beliefs) and how do they display these to the world through their actions, relationships, and motivations?
2. What do they fear most, and why?
3. What do they need most but believe they are unworthy or incapable of having?
4. What flawed ideas, beliefs, and misconceptions are holding them back?
5. What dreams and goals do they keep to themselves, and why are they important to them?
6. What emotions are hard for them to experience, and why?

By answering these, you’ll gain the knowledge you need to elevate a trope into an individual, a character who feels human, true, and easy for readers to and relate to.

3. Steer Clear of Trope Danger Zones Like Cliches & Stereotypes

As you’re building out who your character is, take care to not repeat overdone aspects of a trope. For example, if your jock is the star quarterback, has great hair, a cheerleader girlfriend, and is a total jerk…yikes. A carbon copy is boring and flat, and readers deserve better.

4. Give Readers Something Different than They Expect

Readers love to be surprised, and tropes are a great opportunity to make this happen. When someone recognizes a type of character, they make assumptions: The protagonist is a starving artist! I bet he’s talented, misunderstood, and trying to break through a glass ceiling in his field. Look how excited he is over this latest piece! Someone needs to take a chance on him because he probably works a dead-end job to pay the bills, and his family harps on him for being a hopeless dreamer.

Readers love to feel like participants in a story, and tropes make them feel like story masterminds. With the first piece—a basic understanding of a character’s layer—they start forecasting what the problems will be, where the story will go, and what will need to happen for a protagonist to reach their goal.

When using a trope, readers should let some predictions land but subvert others in meaningful ways. Maybe the artist’s family is supportive, but the character doesn’t believe in themselves. Or the excitement over their latest work isn’t a sign that it will be their breakout piece, it’s the euphoria of knowing the cottage they’re painting belongs to someone they’ve decided to kill. Thinking outside the trope offers big rewards. Here are more ideas for twisting a trope.

5. Use an Arc to Elevate the Trope

Tropes work well on minor characters, helping readers see how their role or function fits within the bigger story. When a main character fits a trope, though, these characterizing details shouldn’t be window dressing, they should tie to their internal arc. For example, an Adrenaline Junkie heroine shouldn’t chase thrills ‘just because.’ Maybe for her it’s an escape mechanism, a way to avoid life’s painful moments. And, in her story, a difficult blow--her twin’s terminal diagnosis—shows her how she needs to step up in the moment rather than try to skydive away from it.

Tropes are excellent tools, but like anything else, should be used strategically and masterfully. If you’d like to browse a wide range of archetypes and tropes and learn how to write them into your story, check out One Stop for Writers’ Character Type and Trope Database.

About Angela

Angela Ackerman is a story coach, international speaker, and co-author of the bestselling book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, and its many sequels. Available in ten languages, her guides are sourced by US universities, recommended by agents and editors, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, and psychologists around the world. To date, this book collection has sold over 1.3 million copies.

Angela is also the co-founder of the popular site Writers Helping Writers®, as well as One Stop for Writers®, a portal to game-changing tools and resources that enable writers to craft powerful fiction. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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