It’s challenging, you know, being an independent author and struggling for each and every sale you make. I’m immensely grateful for everyone who decides to dip their toes into my sweet paranormal romance stories. If that’s you, thank you!
But for this post, I’m going to talk about tropes: what are they, why we should break them, and how we need to move forward to tell better stories. More specifically, I’ll be addressing the specific trope or expectation that all paranormal romances must have sex scenes.
What Is a Trope?
From my perspective, tropes are easy ways to explain things to the reader in as few words as possible and set the stage for what’s going to play out in the story.
But consider this—always going with the tropes means that some amount of the excitement is sucked out of the story because the reader already knows what’s going to happen. And what fun is that? That’s why today I’m challenging the long-held focus and reliance on story tropes.
Isn’t the point of reading a new novel to go on a fresh adventure not just pick up another run-of-the-mill book that rehashes the same characters and plot you just finished reading?
What would happen if we threw caution and trite tropes to the wind?
Breaking trope rules is groundbreaking and quite rare. Hell yeah, it is!
Listen, tropes are only tropes because they’re familiar, pure and simple. Authors and readers alike get used to characters acting in certain ways or story elements happening in a certain progression or certain genres having certain aspects that other genres do not.
And let’s face it, just because something is comfortable or you’re used to it, doesn’t mean that it’s the best it can be, right?
Sweet Paranormal Romance Is Here to Stay
I’ve been told readers are accustomed to paranormal romance stories having loads of sex with steam levels off the charts. And now that reverse harem is getting more popular, we have polyamorous relationships that include more than two people in the romance.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as my favorite comedian loves to say, but that’s too many vaginas and penises for a true romance story.
And to be frank, I’m not exactly sure how you have a romance with more than two people, but that’s not my bailiwick.
Stories that rely heavily on sex scenes and graphic terminology may lose that vital emotional connection with the reader. If a relationship is based, for the most part, solely on sex, then at some point it just becomes as routine and boring as washing the dishes. Romance, as you know from real life, isn’t based on sex alone.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand.
Those deemed sweet romances are mostly relegated to the contemporary or historical or romantic comedy genre and never really stray much into the paranormal realm. Why is that exactly? And who makes up these rules anyway?
Paranormal romances and sweet romances always seem to be separate, but I’m putting down my foot and saying that they’re better together.
Challenging the Tropes to Tell a Better Story
Breaking tropes is how we move forward as a literary society and as a culture. It’s also how we discover our new favorite stories and beloved characters, am I right?
And that’s exactly how I outlined and wrote my new sweet paranormal romance novel, Stone Guardian. Stone Guardian is a lovely romance between a human woman and a handsome gargoyle overcoming some serious obstacles to be together.
They have an emotional connection that is unbreakable, despite all of the hills and valleys they need to surmount in order to finally be together, and their commitment isn’t sullied by sex scenes.
Harken back to the days of old-fashioned courting when love and vows between two people really meant something. That’s exactly what you’re going to get in Stone Guardian.
So, tell me… aren’t you tired of the boring sex scenes that happen on queue?
Are you ready for a sweet paranormal romance where the characters have a meaningful connection without trite intercourse getting in the way?