The Trauma Behind the Trope

Tropes aren’t necessarily where we start as storytellers, but by the time we are done, you have all the key players falling into some sort of category. With the explosion of booktok and other social media platforms, let's just say things have gotten interesting in the last few years. Especially in regard to people, women most definitely, being open about what they like to read. 

You all know the more popular of those tropes. The broken guy who drinks too much. The girl with scars no one can see. The lone wolf who doesn’t need anyone… until they do. The brooding man and his need to be the hero. The broken woman, who’s the damsel in distress. The list really does go on and on depending on where you fall.

Readers eat these stories up, and writers keep dishing them out as fast as possible to stay relevant. And on the surface, it looks like just another cliché. Between the tragic backstory, the “trauma dump” that explains why a character is so messed up to the woman that can “fix” him. But here’s the thing: behind every trope like that, there’s a very real thread of truth. Pain doesn’t come out of nowhere. Neither do the stories we tell.

For some of us, writing that broken character isn’t just about moving the plot forward. It's about survival. A survival that no one would really believe unless they stepped into our shoes. It’s about bleeding on the page in a way that feels safe. It’s about giving our own trauma a name, a face, a storyline, so it doesn’t eat us alive in silence. Because in the end we control the narrative where we didn’t have the chance to before. 

The problem comes when trauma gets turned into shorthand. When a writer slaps on a tragic backstory without thinking it through. “Daddy issues.” “Dead mom.” “Addicted brother.” “War vet with nightmares.” You’ve seen it. And when it’s handled that way, the trope stops being a reflection of real pain and starts being a gimmick. Trauma reduced to a buzzword that sells books instead of bringing understanding.

Here’s the truth no one wants to admit: trauma changes people in ways that are messy, contradictory, and sometimes plain ass ugly. It doesn’t follow a neat three-act structure, with character development and sometimes a redemption arc. It makes you withdraw, it makes you lash out, and it can make you do both in the span of an hour, because confronting it on the page is no different than confronting it in real life. 

That’s why it’s important for writers to handle it with care, so these tropes stop being cheapened and start being powerful. The broken man isn’t just broken. He is resilience wrapped in leather and tattoos. The scarred girl isn’t just a victim. She's navigating what survival looks like in a world that tried to take her out of the equation. The lone wolf isn’t actually alone. They're just terrified of trusting anyone again, for fear of reliving the nightmare. 

And yeah, sometimes writing those characters means ripping open the old wounds to remember the terror, disbelief, and fear. It puts pieces of yourself on the page that you’d never confess out loud. That’s the part readers rarely see: the writer behind the trope, the person who knows what the weight of that silence feels like. And the stone eyes, only we can describe with perfect clarity because we look at them everyday in the mirror. 

See, it’s not the tropes that are the problem. The lack of truth and conviction behind the story written for the masses. The lack of education into what is put on the page. For some it's their lives, for others… Well, let's just say they’ve made a healthy living off of cookie cutter material because it sells. It’s a card that has been played so many times that a lot of readers can predict the ending from a lot of authors by what they’ve previously done.

For some, it is what it is. They are making good money following the same formula. For those of us that broke away from that or never really played on that kind of field, it can be exhausting. But I live by this simple rule when it comes to that. I write for me, if it makes a difference great, if not well I already did the damn thing.  

So the next time you see that “overdone tragic backstory,” I want you to pause for a second. Ask yourself: is it lazy writing, or is it someone quietly telling you the hardest part of their story in the only way they know how? Is this someone finally working through their issues and exercising their demons or is it someone that sees this as trending information?

Because behind every trope is a trauma, behind every trauma is a person, and behind every person is a situation that didn’t play out that well in real life. 

Be Brave, Be Bold, But Always Stay Humble