Bad:
Anything illegal/gross: Romance with teachers, siblings, friends of your parents. Blackmailed into sex or a relationship. Bribed into sex or a relationship. Romanticizing abusive relationships, romanticizing hostage situations.
Bad boy, gang/mafia, pregnancy, one night stands.
Arranged marriages that are arranged for no damn reason.
Surprise! This unexpected person lives with you now!
The new version of love triangles where two people are in love with the MC.
Billionaires are getting there, too. I love me a rich, powerful guy, but there are not more billionaires than regular people in this world. I’d also like to see more stories that take place outside of high school.
Good:
Scifi. Horror without a heavy romantic element. Action/Adventure without a heavy romantic element. Mystery without a heavy romantic element. Hell, anything not romance-based. Have romance in it, certainly, but the whole story can revolve around other things!
Retellings of classic books (Campus Crush 2 comes to mind).
Stories that take the cliches and turn them on their heads: A bad guy loses the girl and gets his comeuppance. A gang member goes to prison. A hostage pretends to be in love with their kidnapper solely to escape and have the criminal captured.
Classic love triangles. The MC is in love with person A, who is in love with person B. Maybe loop it back around and person B is in love with the MC.
Stories with actual character development that happens over time and isn’t stuck on last second for a redemption arc of some kind.
Tips:
We need more writers who have a deeper understanding of storytelling. That the MC’s personal life doesn’t have to be the entire plot - other things can happen, too. But at the same time, people who acknowledge that the MC’s growth and the way they react to things is the story.
To use a writing term from the book Story Genius, people need to learn how to use their third rail. The real story is the MC’s inner life, their struggle. What they want, what they need, how they feel should inform everything in the story. The MC’s internal change is at the heart of the story. Preferably, things don’t just happen to the MC, they bring change with their own feelings and actions. At the same time, the MC’s feelings and actions shouldn’t be the whole story. There needs to be tension, not just in one final scene, but in every scene. There need to be stakes beyond someone getting their feelings hurt. Even if it’s just a straight romance, the risk should be beyond a temporarily broken heart. This should feel life-or-death, even if it isn’t.
Basically, everything in a story needs to work together, and not be random things that happen to random people with no consequence to the MC’s inner life. Think about a Disney movie, for a second, lets say the Little Mermaid: Ariel has a big “I Want” song. Every MC should want or need SOMETHING. Everything in the story should be informed by this something. Ariel’s desires and actions lead the story: because she wants to be human - as shown in her “I Want” song - she makes choices that lead to her becoming human. But it isn’t just that: These choices also affect her father, her family, the whole sea kingdom, as well as the human world. Ursula (who has also told us what she wants) gets her hands on the Trident and King Triton is more-or-less destroyed, and Ursula rules the sea (however briefly) and threatens to take the land, too. This isn’t something Ariel chose, but it happened because of Ariel’s choices, and those choices were made because of what Ariel wants. It all connects. There’s also a romance thrown in, but it isn’t JUST a romance: Prince Eric is essential in killing Ursula and restoring Triton and the Trident. King Triton learns to accept humanity, and Ariel gets to become human, only after learning that she shouldn’t have taken thoughtless actions on her own. Again, it connects.
I know this seems really simple and obvious, but I come across so many stories that forget how a good story works, and it frustrates the hell out of me.
Also, I don’t think there’s such thing as “too original”. I think the issue is, when someone is trying very hard to be original, they sometimes forget other storytelling elements. No matter how unique the story or the writing style, the author - or screenwriter, I suppose, in this case - should be able to keep the reader informed, so they know what’s happening in every scene and they never feel lost. If the reader is confused, it isn’t because the idea is too original, it’s because the writer has failed in their job to keep the reader informed and interested.
I could go on and on about all these other ways to make stories original and creative (which, really, goes back to just appreciating the basics of good writing), but I’ll stop there.
