Romance Novel Tropes

All the various tropes of the Romance Novel.

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Tropes:

• Arab Oil Sheikh - so popular as the male lead that you can buy 'sheikh' omnibuses.
• All Men Are Rapists - in older romances, not so common now.
• And now you must marry me - Comes in two flavors:
  • One: the hero has something over the heroine and he uses it to force the her into a marriage of convenience.
  • Two: the hero discovers the heroine has had his love-child and makes her marry him for the sake of legitimizing the child.
• Anti-Hero - The types vary, but romance novel leads can tend towards Tall, Dark and Bishoujo instead of a clean cut, straitlaced fellow.
• Arranged Marriage — a common technique in historicals to force the hero and heroine to deal with each other
• Babies ever after - If the heroine isn't a mother or at least pregnant during the story chances are she will be by the epilogue.
• Beautiful All Along
• Broken Bird - Women love to see the healing power of love. Most have a side of that one as well, but usually after the hero is a bit less screwed up.
• But Not Too Foreign - Despite the sheik novels mentioned above, less "genre" romances often have heroes who are just one exotic (from US perspective) quarter Native American, Japanese, Arab or other but very rarely are full members of Non-European ethnicities in ancestry and upbringing.
  • Heroines are even less likely to be exotic.
• But we used a condom - If you took a drink for every time a heroine gets pregnant regardless of how much contraception is used you will require treatment for acute alcohol poisoning.
• Does Not Like Women - The special romance-novel version of He-Man Woman Hater, in which the male hero only hates women because of the actions of a bad woman, and will be cured in the end by the good heroine.
• Extruded Book Product
• First Love
• Flirty Stepsiblings: A common way to make the hero and heroine resent each other but be unable to avoid each other.
• Good People Have Good Sex - And any past sexual relationships(usually with a conveniently deceased spouse) the heroine has had will be unsatisfying.
• The Grovel
• Happily Ever After: Explicitly described by many readers and writers as an essential mark of the genre, distinguishing it from other love stories. Abbreviated HEA.
• The Four Loves - Arguably the reason for the existence of the genre.
• The Ingenue
• Lineage comes from the father - More often than not the heroine's love-child will look so much like the hero that it's all he needs to know the kid is his and rarely even demands a paternity test to prove it.
• Loveable Rogue
• All of the Love Tropes.
• Magical Nanny: Often in the Magical Stepmother form, though the marriage is not for real then.
• Magical Native American (often if historical)
• A Man Is Not a Virgin
• Mills and Boon Prose — though less frequently
• Nature Adores a Virgin
• One-Hour Work Week
• One True Love
• Poor communication kills - The plots of so, so many novels revolves around a huge misunderstanding between the hero and heroine that could be cleared up if they simply sat down and talked. (But if that were to happen romance novels would be laughably short)
• Reformed Rakes
• Romantic False Lead
• Rule of Romantic
• Star-Crossed Lovers
• They Do: Essential for the Happily Ever After
• Uneven relationship - The hero will always be a rich, powerful tycoon while most of the time the heroine will be a blue-collar working girl (usually a secretary or a waitress) who is very often financially strapped.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension
• Will They or Won't They?: They Will.
• Your Cheating Heart — usually if the woman is currently married, her husband may do this if he is the Romantic False Lead.