We see a certain type of dog and think it might be vicious. With people, we see the way a person dresses or notice their tattoos and we think something. I think my experience as a teacher has taught me to judge a person by their actions and not by their appearance. The outside package isn't always a true advertisement of what is inside.
In writing, stereotyping can make a story boring. I have some lists I picked up at a conference once that compile all the personality traits of heroes and villains. But a reader doesn't want the protagonist to be too perfect or their antagonist to be without any redeeming qualities. But it's more than that. Memorable characters are often those quirky ones.
What if the alpha male in your contemporary story always read the society page before the sports page? Could the popular mean girl in YA please not be a beautiful blonde? In how may YA dystopian novels are the main characters orphans?
So check your own writing? Are you writing stereotypical characters? What quirks do some of your main characters have?
25 comments:
I know exactly what you mean with stereotyping, and I want my characters to be as quirky as possible. I hope it works :) Nice post.
I love quirky characters. I've noticed in life that people are always different than they appear. But I'm still afraid of dogs that look like they could guard the gates of hell. Better to be safe.
Great reminder, Sue. Thanks!
Quirky characters are my favorite. I love trying to write against the grain, make my characters act against readers' expectations. At least I hope so!
Quirks are good!!!! Need quirks! :)
My 'hero' had so many negative traits and quirks I had to reel them in a bit in the first book!
Good post. Now I'm running through my current batch of characters in my mind looking for any dreaded sterotypes. They're sneaky little devils. Got to be careful.
I'll be sure to keep this in mind when tackling characterization... thanks for the reminder.
I completely agree. I'm tired of the uber popular bitchy blond.
I do try to avoid stereotypes and if I don't, I'm trying to do that for a reason.
My heroes/heroines tend to do a lot of stupid things because I like imperfect heroes best.
Great post!
I leaned more towards stereotypes in the beginning, but learned to scale back as I wrote more.
I hate stereotypes in "real life" so this is a great reminder not to include them in writing.
What a great post. I agree, I don't like stereotypes. They often make a book predictable.
Not to judge people by their appearance, but by their actions makes perfect sense. And that's a great way to look at characters in novels, too! Thanks for the advice!
Nice to meet you through ISWG!
I'm too quirky to know what quirky is. :P
I sometimes use stereotypes in background and peripheral characters. It's lazy I suppose, but some characters are just extras to fill up a scene and we don't need to know much about them.
Lee
Wrote By Rote
How many fantasy stories have orphans for protagonists full stop? The genre can get very bogged down with stereotypes under the guise of 'tropes' and it's nice to read something that breaks away from that.
Good point.
Hugs and chocolate,
Shelly
Oooh! Great tip. I'm going to be keeping this in mind going forward. Thank you!
It's hard to avoid all stereotypes. I try consciously to steer clear of most of them, but I wonder if one or two make it in there to the writing. I hope not.
So true! Stereotypes can be so annoying! I agree that teaching helps us to see past those images to the real people :)
I usually start with a stereotype and give the character little quirks and unique traits to hopefully burst the bubble in the end. Great things to remember. :)
I always find stereotypes tricky. And there are so many of them, it can be hard to avoid having a character who doesn't fit into some kind of category!
This is a hard one... since it's so easy to fall into that. I try to mix it up as much as possible to make it different:)
I work very hard on avoiding stereotypes and think I do a pretty darn good job. I retain my freedom of speech and keep from offending my audience with stereotypes. My editor helps me too.
Post a Comment