Worst Tropes of YA Heroines

The tricky part of writing a YA fantasy is dealing with the worst tropes of YA heroines. We’re talking all of those things that make an identifiable YA protagonist, that tip over into annoying cliches. Ready? Let’s go.

Starter’s Orders

• The new girl: she’s new in town, a fish-out-of-water, and the residents instantly hate her for it before she even begins to resent, insult or question them.
• Toxic attitude: everybody hates her because she’s a thousand-per cent, all snark and sarcasm all the time. Catty, bratty and downright unpleasant. Either because she’s street-tough and takes no BS from anybody or because, deep down, she’s really really sensitive and vulnerable. Everybody go ‘aahh.’
• The outsider. The YA heroine is always the outsider, outcast, or from the underclass. Until she’s so badass, they’re catapulted to the top of the social ladder. Maybe she’s the undervalued, overlooked princess, usually willfully disobedient, who goes on to save the family, kingdom or world.

The down side

• She’s physically ugly or has a disability. Ugly? She’s a boy-magnet. Or else she’s a tom-boy but gorgeous, the ugly duckling who turns into a swan. The disability? That’s quickly forgotten once the hard physical demands of plot kick in.
• No self-esteem: our girl thinks she’s unlovable, with deep-seated abandonment issues. The flip-side of this one is the over-entitled brat who annoys the reader but invokes undying loyalty from every secondary character. Hello, Mary-Sue.
• The tortured soul. This also manifests as ‘mental illness is romantic.’ She wallows in depression for two entire acts of the book. e.g Bella’s year of moping in Twilight. See the Tragic Romantic tropes, below.
• She’s whiny and apathetic but still a boy magnet. Like those ever go together.

The tragic romantic

• Her entire existence defined by the love interest or romance. She is so mind-meltingly shallow, her obsession with said boy extends to stalking. By extension:
• She needs a boy to reassure her and cure her whining insecurities.
• Falls in love instantly with a random boy who is physically hot. Shoulders, abs, pecs, eyes, jawline, and at the smuttier side, the over-stuffed cod-piece.
• Indecision. She can’t choose between two boys even when one is a jealous, possessive, abusive control freak and the other is much the same but in different proportions.

Tiny Dancer

• She’s a klutz: with no co-ordination, she trips, falls, spills, drops and breaks everything around her, with maximum humiliation. Right up until the training montage when she becomes a badass. Unless…
• She’s a badass action heroine from page one. This girl constantly punches, kicks, stabs and beheads random passersby. And because this is fiction, we’re supposed to admire this violent, psychopathic serial killer as a ‘strong female protagonist.’
• Favorite extension: she’s a weapons geek. She can throw a knife to pin a mosquito by it’s wing, or strip an assault rifle blindfolded with one hand. Or else…
• She’s impossibly smart: our YA heroine quotes philosophers, speaks twelve languages, is a math savant, science geek and can learn any magic in under a minute. Except for…
• The brave idiot who goes into the cellar, the attic, the dungeon, the cave, the abandoned mental hospital, orphanage, castle, graveyard, scrapyard; whatever.

Moral fiber

The ‘reluctant’ heroine. This one manifests in two varieties. “I’m useless. I can’t do any of this.” Also: “this isn’t my problem. Why should I have to fix this [insert imminent apocalypse here]?”

The killer trope

‘Not like other girls:’ Frankly, any combination of the traits listed above will cue the ‘I’m not like other girls’ confession. Or her love interest declares ‘you’re not like other girls’ and that’s a total surprise to her.

Of course she’s not like other girls, she’s the protagonist of a YA story who has to go ‘protag’ something. If she was like other girls, she’d be deadly dull, or indeed, dead, before the end of act one.

The Manic-Pixie-Dreamgirl

An established trope of many genres, the Manic-Pixie-Dreamgirl traditionally served as the foil to the male protagonist. She breaks them out of their emotionally repressed state, then shows them the wonders of the ordinary world from a unique perspective. But now she’s the YA heroine, front and center.

Unconventional, whimsical, irrepressible, The Manic-Pixie-Dreamgirl is a tiny, cute bundle of faery, goth, punk, emo or cottage-core energy. She refuses to conform to social norms and doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of her. She throws opinions around like confetti. Why not drop out of school, college, or magic academy to apprentice as a welder, while supporting herself as a pole-dancer in gentlemens’ clubs (sorry, that’s Flashdance).

Walking the tightrope

This isn’t even the long list of YA heroine tropes. You can probably think of a stack of them to add.

The trouble is, they are deeply embedded in genre fiction. It’s almost impossible to write a distinctive YA heroine without tripping over them. And in large part, the YA genre requires them. Write an unremarkable teenager of average looks, intelligence, ability and motivation and see how well that sells. But overload the tropes and see how quickly the readership screams ‘cliche.’

It’s not easy being a genre writer.