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I’ve had authors tell me, “I don’t want my book to be a bunch of tropes.” I interpret them as saying, “I want my story to be unique. I want my story to be my own.”

Which is a worthy goal. But it seems to be driven by a notion of: "if a reader has seen the idea before, they won’t want to read the story."

Which of course isn’t true. And suddenly I find myself, more so all the time, coming to the defense of tropes, and even cliches…