In my last post, I talked about how I’ve gone from seeing tropes as a pitfall to be avoided to seeing them in a whole new light this year. Three things have contributed to that shift, the first being conversations about tropes with other writers, as I said last time, and now it’s time to dig into the second and third: science and K-dramas.

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts online about the neuroscience involved in rewatching shows and movies (or re-reading books) and about how shows with repeated tropes (like K-dramas) can have similar effects: calming your nervous system during times of stress or overload, self-regulating and processing difficult emotions, empathy and connection with characters our brains react to as if they are real people, and more. Psychologist Jeanie Y. Chang (second link in the paragraph) notes that tropes simultaneously provide the brain with novelty and familiarity, a safe space to explore emotions, relationships, perspectives, alternative responses to challenges within a context where we have agency to decide if we will continue to engage at any moment. In her post, she notes that people aren’t really drawn to a particular trope, per se, but to an emotional experience. That’s a fascinating insight for me, as a writer.

I still want my work to feel fresh and unique, and I still love to subvert a trope for the surprise and the lols, but learning more about the science side of what an audience (be it readers or viewers) experiences makes me think differently about familiarity. It’s also humbling and funny to realize that I’ve always said I didn’t understand people wanting to read different versions of the same story over and over, when I have frequently reread and rewatched literally the same books, movies, and shows many times in my life. Things I have reread at least seven times: Crime and Punishment, Three Men in a Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog), Something Wicked This Way Comes. Movies I have watched every day for a month (or once a week for multiple years) at some point: The Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, 12 Angry Men, The Pirates of Penzance. TV shows I’ve seen at least three times: Babylon 5, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the 1960s Dark Shadows, Cowboy Bebop (the animated version). There are others but I can’t think of them off the top of my head. Clearly, I’m no stranger to the impulse to revisit a familiar story world and fictional characters who register to my brain as real people I want to spend time with again.

I may not want to write a series of books with the same plot over and over and I don’t want to be complacent, but maybe it’s okay to stop banging my head on the keyboard anytime I get the sense that the audience might be able to see where my story is going? As a writer, I might lean harder into novelty than familiarity, but instead of seeing tropes as a problem to avoid, I can recognize that when they show up, they may be important elements that ground the story and characters and make them relatable. If, when I’m editing, I realize that they’re weakening the story instead, I can always rewrite them, subvert them, or take out things that were just my own mental shortcuts. I’m not trying to outsmart the reader, after all–I’m trying to take them on a journey they’ll enjoy, and that means they’ll want to know enough of the plan to know what to pack, even if some parts of the trip will be surprises.

Again, I think it’s important to distinguish between a trope as a cliché and a trope as a common theme or motif. An underdog winning the day is a trope, but there are a million ways to tell that story. The reluctant hero is a trope (you might also call that an archetype), but why they’re reluctant and what pushes them into heroism is the interesting part, and incredibly variable. The novelty is the exploration part of the story, but the reader chooses a story based on what familiar emotional experience they want to be the framework for that exploration. At least according to new science and any number of writers who’ve said it long before now. Aside from freeing us from a lot of writing hangups, this also tells us a lot about how to make book blurbs more effective!

And while I’ve already touched on K-dramas here, there’s a bit more to the story of how they’ve helped change my mind about tropes that I’ll discuss in my next post.