Do you have a romance trope you can’t stand?
I do. Pregnancy amnesia. Now, let me preface this by explaining a lot of the problem is my nursing background and I just see too many flaws in the amnesia thing and combine it with the pregnancy thing…eh. Nope. Doesn’t work for me.
So when my editor with St. Martins and I were discussing things for my new series (The McKays), she was offering up ideas and we were going back and forth…woman on the run, woman in danger, bodyguard…pregnancy amnesia…
I sort of snorted at that and said:
That ain’t happening…I don’t do pregnancy amnesia.
She assured me it was just one of the popular tropes and to go with what was right for the story.
So as I was writing book one, things were coming to a head with two secondary characters, Brannon and Hannah–who would be the hero and heroine of book two.
And damn it.
I emailed my outline/notes to my editor and told her she sucked.
Book 2 will open with Hannah in hospital after wreck. Tests will soon show that she is also pregnant.
Naturally, she loves amnesic pregnancies.
Her response was along the lines of…
Amnesia! 🙂
This is why I should never say I’ll never write a_________ (fill in the blank) book.
I end up doing it.
Do you have tropes that you hate?
The secret baby trope. More often than not the reason for not telling the hero is flimsy. If the heroine did try to find him the efforts were minimal. Unless he’s abusive, the father has a right to know.
The I want you, but can’t have you because you are a slut. Oh wait, not a slut but a virgin, then great let’s go. Oh wait, once I have you… SLUT. Get a clue.
Marriage of convenience. Aside from unconvincing, tiresome and often for completely silly ass reasons, it usually turns out to be highly inconvenient for all parties involved. Second runner up: Bad boy romances. The vast majority should be relabeled beta males dressed up as bad boys who eventually turn into big emo bunnies.
Heroine meets hero, she is pregnant with or already had another guy’s baby, may/may not be on the run OR baby’s father died. Worse if hero was good friend of baby’s father. I don’t mind if she comes with teen kids of her own, weirdly. Something about a (picture fanfare & velvet pillow) *baby/bun in oven* I need to be her tie to hero.