One of the big advantages of editing a bunch of my stories back to back is the ability to see what my recurring elements are – personal favorite scenarios that show up again and again in my stories. I talk about this subject a LOT with my writing group, and there’s usually a few tag-your-friends posts about it circulating on Twitter at any given time. It seems like we all have SOMETHING (or many things) that shows up across most or all of our stories. They just somehow always

I’ve been doing a lot more delving into romantic subplots in writing lately. It used to terrify me because I was afraid of “getting it wrong” or leaving readers with a bad impression of the couple. While I’ve found myself settling into my stride when it comes to these subplots, my research into writing better romance has also led me to discover a few tropes that are considered tired or problematic across all genres. Click through to read about five of the romantic tropes that