Trope prompts give you a familiar story shape to play with. Here are starter ideas for enemies to lovers, slow burn, found family, fake dating and more, plus how to keep a trope from feeling stale.
Tropes aren't clichés by themselves. They're promises: a reader who sees "enemies to lovers" knows roughly what they'll get, and enjoys watching how you get there. The trick is the specifics.
Enemies to lovers
Works best when both sides have a real reason for the hostility, and both are a little bit right.
- Rival defence attorneys on a case that keeps throwing them together, each convinced the other's client is guilty.
- A thief and the insurance investigator who's been chasing her for three years end up needing the same safe cracked.
- Two heirs to a disputed throne are forced into a political marriage to end a war neither started.
- A food truck owner and the health inspector who shut her down twice.
Slow burn
The romance takes its time, and the waiting is the point. See How to Write a Slow Burn Romance for pacing.
- A lighthouse keeper and a supply boat captain who sees her once a month.
- Two scholars translating a dead language together, letter by letter, across a continent.
- A bodyguard who's sworn not to get attached, and a client who keeps making it difficult.
- Neighbours who only speak through notes left on a shared balcony.
Found family
- A retired assassin, a runaway teenager and a stray dog share a rented cottage for one summer.
- The crew of a failing spaceship, none of whom chose each other, have to vote on whether to sell it.
- Staff at a 24-hour diner become each other's emergency contacts.
- A band of misfit mercenaries adopts the noble's kid they were hired to kidnap.
Fake dating and marriage of convenience
- Two best friends pretend to date to get through a family wedding, and the family likes them better as a couple.
- An immigrant and a citizen agree to a green card marriage. The immigration officer is very thorough.
- A celebrity needs a scandal-free partner for an awards season. The person they hire has a very interesting past.
- Rival monarchs announce an engagement to stop a war, then have to survive the state visits.
Forced proximity
- One bed, one storm, one inn with one room left.
- Two astronauts on a six-month mission who disliked each other at training.
- Strangers handcuffed together by a magician whose trick went wrong.
- Co-workers snowed in at the office on the night of the holiday party.
Rivals and academic rivals
- Two students competing for the only scholarship left. One of them needs it more than they'll admit.
- Rival chefs in the final of a cooking contest are forced to share a kitchen station.
- Two duelling champions who've each won exactly half their matches against each other.
Secret identity
- Pen pals who've been writing for years discover they work in the same building and can't stand each other.
- A masked vigilante's sidekick realises the hero is their annoying neighbour.
- A princess in disguise as a palace maid is given the job of spying on herself.
Second chance
- High school sweethearts meet again when one comes back to sell the house they grew up next to.
- Former partners in crime meet again on opposite sides of the law.
- Two people who broke off an engagement must give a joint speech at their best friends' wedding.
Keeping a trope fresh
- Make the obstacle specific. "They hate each other" is weak. "She reported his father to the guild, and his father lost everything" gives you scenes to write.
- Let both characters change. In enemies to lovers, the best moments come when one of them admits the other had a point.
- Combine two tropes. Fake dating plus rivals. Found family plus secret identity. The overlap is where the surprises are.
- Don't skip the boring middle. The middle of a trope is the fun part: the small moments where things slowly change. Writing a Relationship Your Readers Will Ship has more on this.
Need non-romantic ideas? Roleplay Prompts by Genre has 60 more.