Young Adult fiction is currently one of the most popular genres in literature. It’s mostly written for people aged 12 to 18, and as such, captures the many experiences that teens and preteens usually undergo.
Most of the books you’ve read or movies you’ve seen are probably YA. And while it does enjoy a large audience, it has been overrun by many tropes that either need to evolve or be replaced.
Young Adult Fiction Tropes
Below are a few tropes that have appeared in many young adult stories, time and again. Though they do add value, constant use has made them predictable and sometimes even boring to their readers.
They’re not necessarily terrible, but they can be improved to offer fresh perspectives that elevate the stories they appear in.
1. The Love Triangle
There’s often an element of romance in YA fiction. Characters begin to explore their feelings, form romantic relationships, and deal with the outcomes.
Usually, this takes the form of a love triangle, where the main character is torn between two love interests. Bella has Edward and Jacob (Twilight), Katniss has Peeta and Gale (The Hunger Games), and Clary has Jace and Simon (The Mortal Instruments).
Why It Needs to Evolve:
In most of these stories, there’s always an obvious and convenient choice that robs the story of its mystery. It also robs the protagonist of a chance to develop their character by way of evaluating their emotions, realizing their motivations, and making important decisions.
Bella feels an intense and mysterious connection with Edward since the day they met. Katniss holds Gale partially responsible for her sister’s death which pushes her toward Peeta. Clary dates Simon because Jace might possibly be her brother….until he’s proven not to be and they end up together.
This illusion of choice cheapens the characters’ development. The rejected character becomes mostly irrelevant and given a token chance of love or redemption.
How To Improve It:
For starters, you can take away the love triangle and focus on one love interest instead. Doing this gives you more space to explore the two character’s relationship and gives your readers a clearer idea of how it develops.
But if you still want to add a love triangle, be sure that the second choice is actually a choice. Don’t treat them as a placeholder until the other is available. Push and pull on their three-way relationship and let each character think about their feelings, actions, and choices.
2. The Protagonist is an Outsider
In YA fiction, too often is the protagonist singled out as a misfit, outsider, or loner. They’re quiet, awkward, weird, and unable to connect well with others. They might have a friend or two that’s as far from the “in” crowd as they are.
Why It Needs to Evolve:
A lot of writers make their protagonists an outsider to make them stand out. But if the majority of writers do this, their characters eventually look like copycats of one another.
The need to differentiate your character becomes a crutch as it limits how your protagonist develops. To justify why they’re an outsider, you might fall into the trap of assigning traits to them that are polar opposites of why the “in” crowd is in.
This is something that most teen romances struggle with. When the bully is rich, the bullied must be poor. If the protagonist is socially anxious, their counterpart must be socially comfortable. And so on.
How To Improve It:
Don’t be afraid to create a protagonist that’s popular, socially competent, or even average. Make them perfect, until you show your audience exactly why they’re not.
Characters aren’t rigid anyway. Someone popular can easily turn into a loner, or an average dude can find the things that they actually excel in. The important thing is to develop them in a way that makes sense according to how your story is going.
3. Rebellion
The government sucks and it needs to go down, asap. People have been fed lies for years and it’s time they know the truth. Or, you know, you just want to be yourself and not the person your parents are forcing you to be.
Why It Needs to Evolve:
Granted, you mostly see this trope in dystopian YA, but it doesn’t change the fact that when used too many times, the stories also become too similar, especially when the option seems to only be war.
Even if you do like war and its eventual epic finale, some YA stories progress too fast. You get a teenager (as most YA protagonists are), have them realize some major wrongdoing, take up arms, and suddenly be the leader of a rebel organization…in just a few months.
If assembling like-minded individuals who are all willing to take on the entire system was that easy and fast, then the system isn’t much of a threat in the first place.
How To Improve It:
You could still include a rebellion in your story. Just don’t follow the usual path toward it. What’s a different way you can approach your central conflict?
Maybe start the story when the war is already won and the survivors are starting to rebuild. Or have the rebellion fail and show the consequences of this failure. Both offer different perspectives, situations, and solutions that still stem from the same thing—rebellion.
4. Dead, Absent, or Clueless Adults
In the YA world, adults seem to be prone to accidents, familial issues, or plain stupidity. Harry Potter’s parents were killed when he was still a baby and he’s forced to live with his abusive relatives. Percy Jackson’s mother seemingly dies from a minotaur attack. Cather Avery’s mother abandoned them and her father suffers from mental health issues.
Why It Needs To Evolve:
It’s strange when every protagonist is either raised by a single parent, orphaned, or estranged. Hell, even if the parents are alive and have a healthy relationship with their child, you can count on them dying in the future (usually by heroic sacrifice). And if they do live with relatives, they’re probably in for a lot of mistreatment or neglect.
Putting adult characters in the backseat of the story makes sense to some degree. You want your teen characters to shine, be independent, or at least not be leashed by parental control. But it has been done so often that it’s become the easy way out.
How To Improve It:
The easiest way to improve this trope is to create effective adult characters that bring something to the story. What happens to the chosen one if their parents are still there to guide them in their choices? What if they go to the bad side?
It is possible to create a YA world where teenagers are the main focus but adults still have important roles. Have them work side-by-side, feeding on each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
5. Protagonists are Good…too Good
This is an extreme take on the dichotomy of Good versus Evil. You’ll often find young adult stories that have heroes who are just too blindingly good. They always keep their word, try to save everyone, and are self-sacrificing.
Why It Needs to Evolve:
Simply put, their actions are always righteous despite the gravest consequences and those same consequences rarely even happen. That’s just too hard to believe, and too simple a characterization.
It immediately halves the actions you can take with a story because half of them will already be out of character. Worse, it makes them extremely vulnerable to their foes. Much worse, they get played on over and over by the villains but they never seem to learn.
The imbalance isn’t just the problem. Characters like these lack depth and relatability. How can readers identify with someone who doesn’t act human?
How To Improve It:
Capitalize on your character’s flaws and find opportunities to tempt them towards the dark side. It’s your choice whether they actually go bad, but acknowledging that they can have dark tendencies makes your characters feel more human.
It also lets you play with a lot of interesting combinations and situations. Antiheroes are some of the much-loved characters of this current era. Just think of Dexter, a serial killer who only kills his fellow serial killers.
The Bottomline
The point is, tropes become tropes because they are staple elements of stories. However, tropes can become cliches when they’re played as is or too frequently.
That doesn’t mean you don’t have to use them. Their status as tropes is already evidence of their effectiveness in storytelling. What you need to do is innovate, and give these tropes new life by writing them from a fresh direction.
A lot of these tropes play on binary concepts. War and Peace. Good and Evil. Loners and conformists. The easiest way you can innovate a trope is to find what’s in between.
What Young Adult Fiction tropes do you dislike? Share them in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- What Is Young Adult Fiction? Definition, Characteristics, and Examples
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- 8 Cyberpunk Tropes that Embody the Genre
- 6 Detective Fiction Tropes We Can Do Without
Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
