The Nonfiction Files 8: Tropes

Tropes aren't just for romance novels, nonfiction is full of them, too.

A few years back, one of my favorite close readers,

Annotate With Sara

, floated the idea of tropes in nonfiction. At first, I wasn’t quite sure that was a thing, but then when I paused to think about it, I realized she was a genius. Of course there are tropes in nonfiction, and some of my favorite books employ them. Ever since then, I see nonfiction tropes everywhere. I even included them in my Nonfiction Taxonomy.

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What is a trope?

Funny you should ask, because until I became an Online Book Person™, I had never really heard the term used. So obviously, like the genius I am, I turned to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, because they be knowing what words be meaning. They define a trope as,

a: a word or expression used in a figurative sense : figure of speech
b: a common or overused theme or device : cliché

So, in the case of books, a trope is something that comes up over and over again and serves as a sort of shorthand for a reader on what to expect. When I say “enemies to lovers” you all know exactly what that means, that is a trope.

To be clear, tropes are not the subject of the book. A book about a mixed person isn’t automatically a “tragic mulatto” trope. Similarly, they are not how a book is written. My favorite types of nonfiction are when an author takes a system or industry and exposes it by telling the story of 3-5 individuals who have been impacted. This is not a trope. This is a choice on how to organize a book.

A trope can pop up in a book for a moment. It doesn’t need to be central to the book. For example, a work of reported nonfiction could be chugging along, and then *BAM* the author decides to insert themselves into the book — aka the “this is actually about me” trope¹.

Below, I have listed some tropes I love and hate. Just so we’re clear, hating a trope does not mean hating the book. Some tropes are overdone and annoying, but people can still pull off a very good book with them in use². Likewise, some authors have tried to ruin my most tried and true tropes by throwing them into their books.

Note: I made up all these names (except one), so please, if you have better, more catchy names for these tropes, pipe up in the comments. The romance people know what they’re doing with those trope names, and we need that same energy with nonfiction.

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Tropes I Love.

Chaotic Newsroom

All I have ever wanted is to be an investigative journalist³. I want to be the fucking news hound that sniffs out a scandal, goes to my editor and begs for a chance, because “I really think I’m on to something.” I want to get told “no, we don’t have the resources” and to still keep digging around until I uncover the most perverse/toxic/corrupt shit in the city. But, since I literally could never, the next best thing is the chaotic newsroom trope. I get to feel like I’m exposing Richard Nixon and Watergate all from the comfort of my cozy couch (All the President’s Men was my gateway book here). High stakes, no risk (for me). A few more worth noting, Bad City by Paul Pringle, Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, and Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow.

Presidential Treatment

I am obsessed with authors who dig into generations of a person’s family to give them the “Presidential Treatment.” I geek out. Treating a regular degular person like Thomas Jefferson, as in finding out about when their people came to America, or how their 3x great-grandmother was killed in a suspicious railroad incident. The depth of research, the layers of family lore, and the very tangible impact that history has on current events and people, when done well, is hard to beat. The two best examples of this are Invisible Child and His Name Is George Floyd.⁴

Escape Memoirs

These can take many shapes, but ultimately, its about a personal narrative that involves getting out of harm’s way. These make for very stressful, infuriating, and titillating reads—and books that fall into this trope are plentiful. You could easily break them down into a whole lotta sub-tropes. You’ve got “Escaping Nature” — Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, “Escaping War” — A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, “Escaping Religion” — Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill and Lisa Pulitzer, “Escaping Abuse” — The Other Side by Lacy M. Johnson. Look, dire straits are pretty compelling to read, which is why this trope almost always works.

Humanizing a Criminal

I think this trope was made famous by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, where he visits and forms a bond with two men who are in prison for murdering a family, in cold blood⁵. What is key to this trope is that it is not a memoir, it is written by someone who is removed from the crime. It’s about communicating the complexity of the humans and their crimes. Another infamous book that lives in this trope is Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer. I recently read The Tragedy of True Crime, which takes this trope and spins it because it is written by a prison journalist who himself is incarcerated for murder, and it does incorporate memoir.⁶

Nobody Believed in Me/Us

Chip on your shoulder mentality come to life. This one can be particularly good when it is paired with a medical mystery, I’m thinking of Brain on Fire, but it also works well with a sports story (Moneyball). Who doesn’t love a skeptical villain and an underdog who triumphs?⁷

Tropes I Loathe.

9/11 to Purpose Pipeline

This trope was coined by Chelsea Devantez on the

Glamorous Trash

podcast. Its the moment when a memoirist is transformed because of the events of 9/11. Sometimes they have an epiphany, sometimes they go on a bender, sometimes they make a major change, sometimes they go on and on about the meaning of life. It pops up in damn near every celeb memoir ever, including being the reason Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey decide to get married in, Open Book. I can like this one sometimes but usually it is employed to present a “depth” that just isn’t there.

This Is Actually About Me

Nothing annoys me more than when a journalist takes a perfectly good work of reported nonfiction and decides to insert themselves into the book. This is not about you, babe. Like, they’re over here telling me about the history of trampolines and then all of a sudden we get a new chapter and it starts “I remember the first time I jumped on a trampoline. It was in Eugene, OR for my great-grandfather’s 92nd birthday…” Fuck outta here! And look, some writers can pull this off, especially if they are a journalist who is breaking news (see above Chaotic Newsroom trope), but mostly, I do not care about your life. This is how I felt reading The Secret History of the Rape Kit and Murderland this year.

I Lived. You Learn.

When a memoirist⁸ takes their life and tries to make it into lessons for the reader. Too prescriptive. I do not need to know how to apply your life lessons to my life. This never works for me. It always feels preachy, and the advice is never good or profound, or even original. This is how I felt the whole way through All the Way to the River. Like, Elizabeth Gilbert, I get it, you learned a lot, but I didn’t come here for a cheat sheet on life, I came to see if you were successful in killing your now-dead ex-lover. Just give me the facts!

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Now I want to hear from you:

• Which nonfiction tropes do you see the most?

• Which ones are you into and which ones do you hate?

• Help me rename these tropes so they can be cute and catchy. We need our own Enemies to Lovers level branding.

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1. More on this one below.

2. Though, some of the examples below are actually terrible books with terrible tropes in tow.

3. This is not true, I wanted to be an actress really bad for like 20 years, but you know, since then.

4. No coincidence they both won the Pulitzer, clearly those people love this trope, too!

5. See, that’s where the title came from.

6. I’d argue that most prison memoirs aren’t a trope, since that is the subject of the book, but I could be swayed. I do think prison memoirs can incorporate a lot of other tropes, though.

7. This trope only works with triumph, imo.

8. This is obvisouly very different if the genre is a self-help book.