First of all, we have the cliche that appears most often: The Good Girl and the Bad Boy.
Usually, the story goes something along these lines:
The Good Girl is smart and nerdy, and typically friendless. We'll call her Maria. Maria's a constant victim of bullying due to her shy nature. One day, she (literally) runs into the Bad Boy of the school. We'll call him Eric. Eric, along with the blonde bimbo of the school Jessica tell her off, and she goes with it. Eric wonders if this is the right thing to do, and eventually goes to talk to the spineless nerd. Somehow, they fall in love, and Eric breaks up with Jessica, who becomes angry and psychotic. Jessica and her band of popular girls team up against poor Maria, but she's saved by Bad-Boy Eric. Jessica either decides to leave them alone and the story ends, or she decides to try and get Eric back in some way. Whichever happens, the Good Girl (who's still spineless) and the Bad Boy (who still hasn't stopped smoking with his gang) live happily ever after.
The main issue in this story is the lack of character development here. First of all, Maria's still spineless, and if she's not then she had a backbone for maybe half a chapter then melted back into Eric's abs. Eric, being a Bad Boy is still a total asshole and is only nice to Maria for some unknown reason. Then there's Jessica, who kind of just ran off to the void. We don't know what happened, and she just vanished.
Now, honestly, what kind of story is that?! Maria was useless, Eric's a piece of shit, and Jessica just disappeared. For some reason Maria and Eric fucked in front of the Hollywood sign and weren't caught, then they got married because they were in 'love'...?
That just isn't right.
Let's try this again, shall we?
First of all, the Good-Girl-Bad-Boy trope has to go. It's seen far too often and needs to change.
Second of all, the female needs to do something besides cry and get fucked by the Bad Boy. Let's make her a loner who studies everyone carefully and knows how to put someone down peacefully. She's still nice, but she is more independent than Maria. We'll name her Akane. That's a nice foreign name right there.
Third, Eric has to leave. Our good old smoker friend who's the tall leader of a gang (and probably a merman/vampire/werewolf/all of the above) is too cliched. Maybe he's a short guy with some mild anger issues, but he doesn't hurt anyone. He's not mean at all and apologizes to everyone whenever he goes off the hook. He's a genuinely nice guy who just wants some friends. Instead of boring Eric, we now have Abbott, who's quiet and works at McDonald's in his spare time.
Let's try it with that:
Akane is a nice girl who's shy and quiet, preferring to distance herself from others and just watch. She finds human interactions to be entertaining as long as she doesn't have to take part in them. One day she meets Abbott, a short boy bullied for having a strange name. Having gone through a similar experience, she stands up for him. Unfortunately, he gets angry, believing her to be pitying him, and socks her in the face. Annoyed, Akane tries to reason with him, and they both end up in detention together. In detention, they fight again, but this time with words. As Abbott throws out random offensive accusations, Akane counters them smoothly. Being a pacifist, she eventually apologizes for angering him, which he returned the favor. They talk for a while and become friends. At some point, Abbott gets in a similar position as before, this time with Akane successfully putting a stop to it while simultaneously silencing Abbott. As the story progresses, they get to know each other well, developing feelings at around chapter 20/40. Akane was the first to confess because she had more confidence than he. Abbott nervously accepts and they become a couple in chapter 35. The final 5 chapters are just awkward teenagers figuring out how to live life without ticking the other off. Abbott eventually learns to control his anger around everyone, while Akane learns how to socialize and still find it fun.
Sure, there's a bit of drama here and there to stress their relationship, but there's no psychotic ex! Maybe some people keep bullying them, but nothing stupid like that! The characters would develop properly and there would be realistic amounts of drama without going cliche.
This way, the story feels like it could happen. It's not unreasonable to grow up and work at Walmart together. It could happen! So why fantasize about something that is so obviously fake when you could follow the story of some random cute teenagers that could happen?
These are not plastic mannequins that are fancy, emotionless, and rich. These are humans who can feel emotions and improve and learn to fix their problems.
I understand that sometimes people read romance stories to have their heartstrings tugged on, but wouldn't you like to just be able to say "awww" sometimes and watch the story of 2 awkward teens unfold?
Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.
For you informal losers:
Good Girl/Bad Boy trope is shit.
Make it better.
More realistic.
Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.
