Based on a bracket I saw a friend run, I wondered how a Tumblr Tournament for Romance Tropes would work - thus was born the idea of the Sweets-Stakes!
Now next, I would like you to nominate your favorite trope by filling out this tiny three-question Google form (name of trope, why you think it's the greatest, and optionally a link to a description of the trope) - looking forward to seeing how many we'll assemble, and which tropes will be submitted ten-fold because everyone loves them (this will have no influence on proceedings! only your votes in the sweets-stakes (eventual Tumblr brackets) will!)
And since Trope Favorites differ for me depending on whether I write or read them, that will be a distinction here, as well as what kind of romance we're talking about: straight or queer, and I also do wonder whether some tropes are seen differently in romances that focus on trans protagonists, so they will get their own sweets-stakes too.
(more info under the cut, since this is already getting long!)
By which I don't mean that those tropes are (or should be) exclusive to those categories; it's rather that, for example, the trope of Friends To Lovers hits different if person A, who knows themselves to be queer, doesn't even know if their friend B, of the same gender, is even interested in them that way, or if A would, by revealing their feelings, risk not just destroying their friendship but also running into homophobia as well. And even within the realm of queer romance, I think there'll be differences between stories with two male protagonists and stories with two female protagonists, as well as between stories with trans protagonists.
Basically, I posit the hypothesis that different tropes will hit differently in different communities, and I'm interested to see if the sweets-stakes will reflect that!
Which 😅 brings us to a total of eight sweets-stakes to run:
M/F romance tropes for readers
M/F romance tropes for writers
F/F romance tropes for readers
F/F romance tropes for writers
M/M romance tropes for readers
M/M romance tropes for writers
trans-focused romance tropes for readers
trans-focused romance tropes for writers
(which also allows, at the very end, to run the ultimate sweets-stakes between the winners of all of these, and fine The Only One Bed Trope of Tropes!)
Oh, and we'll go with the following definition of trope:
a recurring element or a frequently used plot device in a work of literature. It can be a theme, person, place, thing, or situation. For example:
Theme: Friends to Lovers
Person: The Bookworm
Place: Close-Knit Community
Thing: Grandma's Engagement Ring
Situation: Snowed In
(I'm not gonna distinguish between them in the brackets; if Grandma's Engagement Ring comes up against The Bookworm, so be it. This is already granular enough, no need to subdivide further!)
Based on a bracket I saw a friend run, I wondered how a Tumblr Tournament for Romance Tropes would work - thus was born the idea of the Sweets-Stakes!
Now next, I would like you to nominate your favorite trope by filling out this tiny three-question Google form (name of trope, why you think it's the greatest, and optionally a link to a description of the trope) - looking forward to seeing how many we'll assemble, and which tropes will be submitted ten-fold because everyone loves them (this will have no influence on proceedings! only your votes in the sweets-stakes (eventual Tumblr brackets) will!)
And since Trope Favorites differ for me depending on whether I write or read them, that will be a distinction here, as well as what kind of romance we're talking about: straight or queer, and I also do wonder whether some tropes are seen differently in romances that focus on trans protagonists, so they will get their own sweets-stakes too.
(more info under the cut, since this is already getting long!)
By which I don't mean that those tropes are (or should be) exclusive to those categories; it's rather that, for example, the trope of Friends To Lovers hits different if person A, who knows themselves to be queer, doesn't even know if their friend B, of the same gender, is even interested in them that way, or if A would, by revealing their feelings, risk not just destroying their friendship but also running into homophobia as well. And even within the realm of queer romance, I think there'll be differences between stories with two male protagonists and stories with two female protagonists, as well as between stories with trans protagonists.
Basically, I posit the hypothesis that different tropes will hit differently in different communities, and I'm interested to see if the sweets-stakes will reflect that!
Which 😅 brings us to a total of eight sweets-stakes to run:
M/F romance tropes for readers
M/F romance tropes for writers
F/F romance tropes for readers
F/F romance tropes for writers
M/M romance tropes for readers
M/M romance tropes for writers
trans-focused romance tropes for readers
trans-focused romance tropes for writers
(which also allows, at the very end, to run the ultimate sweets-stakes between the winners of all of these, and fine The Only One Bed Trope of Tropes!)
Oh, and we'll go with the following definition of trope:
a recurring element or a frequently used plot device in a work of literature. It can be a theme, person, place, thing, or situation. For example:
Theme: Friends to Lovers
Person: The Bookworm
Place: Close-Knit Community
Thing: Grandma's Engagement Ring
Situation: Snowed In
(I'm not gonna distinguish between them in the brackets; if Grandma's Engagement Ring comes up against The Bookworm, so be it. This is already granular enough, no need to subdivide further!)
