Hi, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. Get ready to have your world rocked. As we dive into the wild and sometimes wacky world of self-publishing. We are three fabulous bestselling authors. I'm your host, Kimberly Todd with my best friends.

K. C. Luck

and Jamey Moody. 

Join us as we discuss the joys of writing, challenges of self-publishing, and anything else that tickles our fancy. 

Hey there, and welcome to episode 39 of the Three Lesbians and a Penn podcast. I'm Kimberly Todd, and I'm here with my fabulous friends, KC Luck and Jamey Moody. Today we're talking about tropes, but before we start, how was everyone's week? 

So, my week was good. I went to a baby shower for my niece, and this will be the first grandniece in the family. So, grandchild, it makes me the grandniece, which makes me feel old. That's exciting. And yeah, so that was a lot of fun. And also I did finish all the edits that came back from my editor.

Which there were plenty, for some reason I couldn't stop using the word “could.” She “could” do this and she “could” do that, and I feel really bad because I slipped back into an old habit. I used to have a list up on the wall and sort of things fell off the wall and apparently my list of things to not say such as “could” and “just” they entered into the manuscript again. So, I owe her a drink.

It happens. It happens.

I have my words taped all around my monitor 'cause of the same problem. 

Yep. That helps.

I know mine used to be. "And then... and then... and then." Did y'all ever fall into that one? Let's see, what have I been up to? Really? I have been stuck in books. I just finished a book and sent it to my editor. I just finished an ARC, and I'm very proud to say it is for our budding author, JD Locke, who will be publishing their first book on June the 17th. We are very proud of them and encourage all of you to get it. It's a sapphic kind of, enemies to lovers, I would say. But then I want to remind everybody on June the 21st, I am going to be at a bookstore called, Love Stories in Oklahoma City, to do a book signing for their Pride event. So, Happy Pride. I'm gonna be with four other authors that'll be signing books, from noon to two on that day, and I think there's all kind of Pride, festivities that'll be going on in OKC.

So, if you live in the area, say Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, anywhere in there, or maybe the DFW area, Oklahoma City isn't very far. And I would love to see you so. Come up. So that's what I've been doing. Also, I have some greats, like I call 'em the greats, KC, my niece, and nephew's kids. I just call 'em the greats and they call me the great, and so there's several of them here. So, we'll be swimming and doing lots of fun summer things, that's what I've been up to. Kimberly.

Nice, and I forgot to say at the beginning of the episode, Happy Pride Month everybody. Yay.

Happy Pride. Happy Pride.

Well, I have a cute story. This morning, my wife was supposed to go into the city today and I get this text at like six in the morning and it says, “I'm feeling bad. I'm gonna work from home today.” And I said, “Okay, babe, do you need anything?” And the little dots went on the phone forever. I thought, what is she writing? A paragraph? And it just said, “A hug.”

Ohhhh... 

Awwww.

Isn't that cute! And then, I told everybody on the podcast last week that we were going to a Pride event in my town here. So, I'm a morning person and my wife is not, and I made her get up and we took showers and put our makeup on and got all our gay pride stuff on, and we went down to the square. And because we were talking about podcasts you know, later episodes. I messed up. There was no Pride of it. 'cause it's this weekend!

Oh no.

So we went to a local sports bar and had food and cocktails so that…

And looked very nice doing it. looked good. Yes. Very gay. 

We looked fabulous.

So we gonna wash and repeat, this coming weekend?

Yep. Got all my gay stuff ready. And then the final thing is, yesterday around three o'clock we started watching The Better Sister on Prime with Jessica Biel. I don't know if you guys have heard of it, but it is so good.

You told me about it. Now, I watched the first episode last night, so...

And my wife fell asleep on my lap. So instead of being a good wife and turning it off and waiting, I watched it all the way till 11 o'clock at night. I watched 10 hours. I watched the entire thing.

Wow. 

My gosh. So should I keep watching?

Yes, it's fabulous. Anyways... 

Okay, KC, do we have any texts this week?

We did, we had a couple texts from our regulars. One was from Cheryl. Cheryl talked about tropes. She does have her favorites, which is very interesting. She has her number one is military. Number two is prison, and number three is second chances. So now I'm gonna write a book, about a military character who is in prison and has a second chance romance with another prisoner. So look for that in the near future. 

Wow.

What great idea!

Talk about trope-a-licious.

I know. And she also noted that she loves me something butch. So obviously one of my characters has to be quite butch, which is not hard for me 'cause my characters are generally that way.

Yeah. She said that she loves Butch.

Yeah, she does. And she said that before. And then another one came from, CeeJay, but I'm gonna kick it over to my good friend Jamey, to talk more about what she said in an email, because it was much more lengthy.

Right. Well, first I want to tell you what Cheryl emailed me because she likes to email me a little bit different from what she texts you, and she said her top three tropes are, books by KC Luck, number two, books by Jamey Moody. Number three books by Kimberly Todd in that order, who I have known the longest. Keep up the great work.

So I thought that was great. Yeah, that was sweet. Okay, so yeah, CeeJay, man, she sent me some really pretty pictures, but she likes first age gap. She said, that one's for KC. I think KC, you and I both do that age gap, but, friends to lovers and then Workplace Romance. She said she honestly reads everything and she listed several authors, but then she said every single Sapphic author at least once.

Wow.

I know and I appreciate that. I mean, you gotta branch out and try new authors sometimes. And I just think that's awesome that she does that. So anyway, what do we have on Insta? 

We heard from Jules this week and her favorite tropes are, Friends to Lovers, Second Chance, Fake Relationships, Toaster Oven, Ice Queen, and more with an exclamation point, as you can tell.

Huh?

 So, thanks Jules.

I was gonna say, do we need to just say everything?

And then we're really excited because we have two new, listeners. One of our newest fans is Kate. She's across the pond and she discovered the podcast recently and has binged all of the episodes and says she's learning a lot, and she feels like she's hanging out in a room with friendly people.

Oh, I love that.

Yay. 

Thank you. Thank you. Kate.

And then another, person wrote in, Kit and she's a new author and she's been catching up on season two, and she's hoping to get her new book out at the end of the year. So thanks for listening.

Oh, that's great. Yeah. Good luck, Kit.

Okay, so today we are talking about tropes. Jamey, do you wanna start us off?

Yeah, let's talk about tropes. I'm gonna throw a few questions out there to y'all. Do you have favorite tropes to write? How about you, Kimberly? 

So my favorite tropes to write are workplace romance, age gap, obviously romantic suspense, opposites attract, and second chance.

What about you, KC?

So actually, I thought about that question 'cause we had their bullets in advance and I thought I had some, that were like second chance romance would've been my favorite to write and some of those. But when I looked at my back list, I noticed that a good percentage fall under opposites attract. I would say almost all of them have an opposites attract in there somewhere. So that's interesting. 

Really? 

Yes, yes. My most recent one comes up where it's a mechanic and a research assistant. So I mean, that's pretty opposite. Exactly. And then of course everybody knows this, but I love to write butch femme. So a lot of my books are butch femme, maybe the Ruby Series is the only series that doesn't have a strong butch character with a, rather feminine character and usually that feminine character is bisexual or doesn't know, or she's toaster oven or whatever. And last but not least, I have done age gap because it's very popular, but also for some reason I like to have that dynamic. So a lot of my characters, lot of my butches, it's usually the butch, actually, it's always the butch who is quite a bit older. And then we have our delicate young femme who falls for the butch. So that's what I write.

Have you ever been in an age gap relationship?

Of course I have.

And how many years difference. And were you older or younger?

Do I really have to answer that?

If you don't feel comfortable, I guess not.

No...

You don't have to. I was gonna tell mine. So if you don't want to, you don't have to. 

I no. It's okay. She was, uh, a week older than my mother.

Wow. 

Love it!

I was quite young. I will say I was 24. Okay. So it's not quite as weird as now. 'cause you know, my mom's 75, so...

I was gonna say, when I was younger, I dated someone that was 15 years older than me, and then when I got older I dated a spring chicken that was 11 years younger than me. 

Oh yeah. 

Oh. 

I’ve done it the other way too.

Come to think of it. I've done the same thing. Yeah. When I was really young, I had one that was like 14, 15 years older. Yeah. And then when I got there, you're right. Yeah. That does kinda happen. 

So we like an age gap is what we're saying.

Yeah. Well, I do think it is one of the most popular sapphic tropes. I really do. Age gap. And I'm kinda like you, KC, I didn't realize until I look back on some of my books, I was preparing for a conference we were doing. Yeah, I seem to write it quite a bit too.

Does anybody have an idea? Why? Why is that trope so popular? I mean, I know people do have that relationship and there's some authors that are really famous for it, but I don't understand why that's number one.

I don't know. For me, when I worked in advertising, my first boss, she was much older than me and I thought she was so freaking hot. And I think that's what it is. You kind of have these crushes that you can never, maybe some people have it on their teacher or you know, whatever. And I think that's kind of in your system when you're younger, maybe. I don't know. And the travels with you as you age.

Oh, I think that's exactly it. Because yeah, when we're younger, yeah, it could be a teacher or a boss or someone like that. You got the hots for and then you get a little bit older and you look down. You know, I think it's kind of natural. Maybe.

You're like how young is too young?

Yeah. 

You see these cute little hotties... You're like... Well, maybe? 

Okay, so please note that I did not say that, but let's move on. There's another, kind of popular trope right now I wanted to ask y'all about, because I took a stab at it in my last series. Fake Relationship. People seem to love fake relationship. And here kinda is the question on it. First, you can kinda answer if you've done one or have thought about doing one, but when does that really happen in real life? Is that something we wish would happen in real life?

Oh, so I have written it and ironically it is best friends who decide to have a fake relationship to get the mom and dad off the femme's back. Of course 'cause she was dating a man and she doesn't like the man, so she does fake relationship with her best friend. And you're right. I cannot imagine any scenario where I would be doing that with my best friend.

Do you think that's it? When you were younger, if you had a crush on your best friend? People love the fake relationship stuff 'cause they identify with that or something. I don't know what it is. 

I don't know. I like the fake relationships where the main character needs to get their inheritance and that it's been put in the thing and they have to, you know, get married or whatever to have their inheritance. That's the only one I've ever seen. 

Yeah. Does that happen in real life? 

That's what I gonna ask. I don't know.. 

Okay. Well let me just throw out there, we are writing fiction, there you go. It always fits under the, we are writing fiction umbrella. Right. Okay. So I think another popular trope is, second chance. Here's what I think about on second chance, I didn't realize how many of those I write too, but it seems like I do, end up writing several of those. But in my real life, there is no one in my past that I want a second chance with. You know? 

Mm-hmm. Actually, my ex-wife was my second chance romance and is reflected in, the Darkness series.

Oh. Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Really, we're gonna have to talk off air a little more about that because I love that Darkness series.

Yeah, well, the Anna/Lexi dynamic, which is a second chance romance, because they met in high school and then Anna went off and got married and et cetera.

They're my favorite couple.

Well, there you go. They're based on some real events, but hopefully they don't get divorced like other real events.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Don't you dare divorce them, KC.

I think for real life, second chance, I don't know about you all, but when I break up with someone, I just delete everything of it. If I had photos, they're gone. If they gave me something that reminds me of them, it goes in the trash. Like I delete everything. 

Oh my God, Kimberly.

Well. I am exactly like that now, where every single person since then, and there's been numerous relationships and I have never had a second chance again, it's only this one scenario.

Wow. Wow. Okay.

Well, lemme ask this. We've talked about your favorite tropes. Are there any that you don't care for and therefore you don't write?

I don't like to read slow burn, except for one exception for a friend of mine. I didn't mind doing that. But, I don't like slow burn and I don't like high angst and sapphic drama. I'm not into that you know, painful heart-wrenching kind of thing. So I can't write it, and I don't like to read it.

Mm-hmm. 

Those are mine. 

Hmm.

Yeah. And also, okay, we just talked about second chance, but the second chance, romance also can sometimes get into cheating a little bit where the person meets their ex-lover, but they're already in relationship and that's such a bad thing to do in our niche. You do not wanna go down that path with people cheating. ' cause you will get bad reviews. People will not like it. But I don't wanna write that and I agree. I don't like angst to be such a devastating breakup that it hurts my heart. My breakups are usually over, you know, you ordered me the wrong coffee or something stupid.

That's doable. That's good.

I'm with y'all. I don't really like the heavy angst and I know there are a lot of readers that do. A lot of my reviews will say low angst on my books, and it used to kind of bother me. But you know what? It doesn't anymore because it is what it is.

My books that are not necessarily sweet romances, because sweet usually means there's no sex in them, but mine are, I would call them steamy. My pod pals may have, you know, other ideas, but I would call them steamy because my people are gonna have sex. But, I don't know. I just, don't want them to break up because of some stupid communication problem. And so I don't mean, I'm not saying coffee is, coffee is important to people, KC, I'm saying. I try to make it so that the breakup is, believable and I just can't do the angst either. I just can't do it.

While you were talking, I don't know if anyone knows this song, but there's a song that starts, "People are having sex..." Do you know that song? It came into my head when you were talking. Sorry. Moving on....

I know, but people like to say my romances are sweet because people you know, end up being so sweet. The characters do and they are, but let me tell you, they're having sex. That's right. So...

Yep.

And I have to say everyone that's listening, I have said that on the podcast by accident. I've said sweet romance, but I didn't mean it was no sex, romance. ' cause I have said that about Jamey's books. So I apologize, mea culpa.

Yeah, because Jamey has said something to her. She said, Kimberly, quick call in my book. Sweet. Okay, let's get back on topic. I was wondering, and I think maybe our listeners are too, what can be hard about tropes?

So tropes can be sometimes a little stale. To be honest, you have to make 'em unpredictable. So if your age gap is literally just an older boss and a younger secretary, you're kind of doing the same old thing. So you have to be original a little bit and it's really challenging, especially with age gap, in my opinion, to make that dynamic unique.

And also I think trying to make it unique is hard for specific things like vampires. There's all these tropes that people expect. So if all of a sudden you made your vampire not drink blood, let's say, or they could go in the sun and you don't give an explanation why, or this is one that I thought was funny, there's a new, show, I think it came out last year, it actually worked. Most vampires are sexy and they dress well, and they're rich and they're good looking. Right. That's what you expect in the trope. Well, this gentleman made a new TV show and the vampire is heavy set, and he works at a fast food restaurant.

Wow.

And it worked, and people actually liked it because it was like totally opposite. 

There you go. 

Yeah, out of the ordinary and unpredictable, just like you said. 

Okay, one thing I wanted to point out that we haven't talked about yet, I always try to put a reference. Usually a book is gonna have more than one trope. It just kind of works out that way. But I like to put at least the major trope into the blurb because that way it tells Amazon kind of a keyword, but also I think it tells the reader. What are y'all's, thoughts on that? Putting the trope in the blurb.

Yeah, I definitely do that. I end all of my books with that. Like for Mafia Girl, I did, "Mafia Girl, Maybe? is an opposites of attract, workplace, sapphic romance with a happily ever after. That's usually how I end all my blurbs. Because of the key words too... 

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, I've started doing that because of the keywords. And also some readers really look for certain tropes. They will type into the search bar, lesbian age gap, second chance. I mean they will type that in there. And if you don't have it in your blurb or if you don't have it in your keywords. You're not gonna come up. I actually test it sometimes just to make sure that the main trope I have in my book is the one that comes up and like my most recent one that's coming out on June 27th, there's a little plug, is actually a, One Night to Forever. And so I have that in my keywords 'cause some people do look that up.

You know, you mentioning One Night to forever. I didn't realize too, that evidently is my favorite trope to write and I didn't really know that. But I've written several of those. My debut was that and is one of my favorites. I don't know why.

Hmm.

KC, what was the name of your book that's coming out on the 27th?

Thank you. Fixing hearts. Appreciate that. 

One other thing before we wrap up is, if you don't necessarily have an idea that you're going with on a book or something like that, do you decide on the trope that you wanna write and maybe the ideas come around it, or how important is the trope to your book?

For me, I just think of the story and I start writing and then the tropes just come in as I go. I don't really think of the trope ahead of time. 

Mm-hmm. 

Both, actually. This last one I wrote was a one night for forever, on purpose. ' cause I'd never written one before. Not to give away the whole plot, but actually that one night to forever falls apart. But anyway, they do meet one night forever, but they don't, well, I won't give anything away.

But I have written both. I've written ones that I know this trope would be fun to write. I've never written it before, so I'm gonna give it a try and build a story around it. And then some of my stories, like the Darkness Falls books had no trope in mind whatsoever. I just started writing that adventure and things came into it. 

Oh. 

Cool. 

Well that worked out well for you. I had never written an ice queen and I attempted that in the third book of this Wishing Star Series, and I think she starts out as an ice queen, and I don't know that I necessarily pulled it off, but it was kind of interesting to try it. So trying new tropes sometimes can be fun.

I've got a great idea. We've talked about the tropes that we love to write and the ones that we don't really care for to write, and the ones that evidently, we write more than we thought. What about reading? What are your favorite tropes to read? Pod pals?

I love enemies to lovers, which usually involves an age gap. But yes, I love enemies to lovers. Some of my favorite books have always been, while there's no way these two people can possibly get together. And then, they do, and it's very romantic. So yeah, that's my favorite to read.

And my favorite obviously is spicy romance. Um, hot for boss or workplace romance, and definitely with an ice queen because you see a lot of them in New York. So...

Ah, isn't that interesting? 

Okay. So those are the ones that y'all like to read. I think what I like to read right now is an age gap, forbidden professor, student, small town romance, because that is the book that I just released. So, my friends, what this is, is a plug for my book, More Than A Wish, came out on May the 29th. And I hope if you haven't read it, you will go out and, pick it up. I've had several great reviews on it, and, it's the second book in the Wishing Star Series. So just a reminder, More Than a Wish is out there and ready for you. Let's go have a romance through the stars.

Awwwww

Okay, so next week we're gonna be talking about maximizing your back list. KC, do we have a question of the week?

We do. What's one creative way you've seen a reader, or actually if you're a writer, you've done it yourself to bring attention to an older book. So yeah, I'll say it once again. If you answer that, I will probably use it. So… I love this podcast. It's helped my career so much.

Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for listening.

Thanks everyone. Talk to you in a couple weeks.

Right. A reminder, yes, we've gone to every other Friday and I just wanna say Happy Pride. Bye everybody. 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can contact us by email at contact@threelesbiansandapen.com with the number three spelled out or on Instagram, Facebook and X at Three Lesbians and a Pen using the number three. And finally on our website, at threelesbiansandapen.com, we look forward to hearing from you, see you next week.