During a commercial break for an episode of “American Horror Stories,” a GEICO insurance commercial comes on. We see a group of young adults, all of them familiar archetypes in their dress and personalities. They are hiding from a Jason/Leatherface/Michael Myers type of character who is wielding a chainsaw. The group, in their feeble efforts to escape their masked assailant, make bad choice after bad choice, even electing to steer clear of an empty, running car they could have used to get away and instead running into a shed full of rusty blades hanging from the ceiling, all the while the would-be killer is shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it all. The commercial is hilarious, even if you are not a horror fan. But if you are a horror fan, it serves as a reminder how prevalent horror tropes are in popular culture.
For those of us who are writers of horror fiction (or who aspire to write horror fiction), it is imperative for us to both know and understand the commonly used character archetypes of the genre, as well as its many well-defined tropes, whether you are seeking to mock them or to deviate from them entirely so that you can surprise your reader with greater frequency. This task is made even more
