Stereotypes and how to avoid them

[moderntimes]

We all are a little guilty in our writing of being a bit lazy at times and using stereotypes to cut corners. Now by stereotypes, I don't mean the old racial things which none of us (hopefully) uses or would ever tolerate, things like lazy "Mexicans", thuggish African-Americans, wise Asians, arrogant Caucasians, and so on.

But some stereotypes are more subtle, and not all are characters -- some are plot or theme related. I'll use TV shows as an example because we're all familiar with these images and mentioning books would require that everyone here has read that book. So mentally transfer the TV images to writing...

Note in police procedurals or crime thrillers, we see that the smart people are always nerdy. The lab rats or computer whizzes always wear hornrim glasses, the guys geeky and the gals who are either overly pushed goth (Abby in NCIS) or demure women, hair in buns, conservative dress. Outgoing heroes of either sex never wear glasses.

Rude cops are always white and always overweight. Bad guys are either evil geniuses or stupid thugs. Good cops are always handsome or beautiful, depending on their gender.

Consider the plot stereotypes: In that "gardening show" LawnOrder (ha ha) when Sam Waterston was the DA, EVERY single killer or bad person who gets comeuppance in court, every ONE of them is rich, white, and snobby. Apparently, the only murders committed in NYC are done by rich white people. Duh. And think of the people whom the cops interview -- they are all old 1950s stereotype images of New Yorkers -- young black guys are always playing basketball, then you've got either dockworkers or construction guys, all husky and rough tempered and wearing knit caps. You must also always interview someone wearing a turban and someone wearing a skullcap. It's as if the casting director said: "Get me a dockworker, a teacher, a rabbi, a rooming house super, and throw in a bearded guy driving a taxi."

Consider fantasy. We get characters who are ONLY that role they play, like they were in a video game. A wizard is always either completely good or totally bad. Warriors are always huge and muscular. Lead heroes are either young kids or huge and muscular too. Spies are always slinky and slender. Evil people are usually ugly. Good people are never ugly. Now I know there are plenty of exceptions, mostly from the very best and most skillful authors.

The reason that I'm not much of a fantasy fan is that too many times, the characters are just flat and one-dimensional. A warrior is just a warrior. He is not brilliant or highly educated. Only slender and non-strong heroes can be smart or educated. What is very rarely done is that the characters are 3-dimensional PEOPLE who just HAPPEN to be a warrior or prince or queen or sorcerer. They have upsets and fears and eat food and sleep and have thoughts other than their being a warrior or whatever.

Now I'm only pointing out stereotypes, not the very well-developed characters which the top authors create. I review mystery books and have maybe reviewed 100-150 total. And I always find a freshness if the primary characters are dimensional and HUMAN, not just flat wooden images. A recent review featured two Roman Catholic priests who solve a crime. The book got an "okay" rating from me, because although the story was quite good, the characters were far too stereotypical. All the cops were stupid and arrogant, all the Roman Catholic priests and their entire congregations were of sterling morals and wonderful ethics. The author was a good writer but just got too stuck in stereotypes, painting everyone either black or white without much in between.

And a recent somewhat embarrassing item -- a friend of mine, whose first novel was amazingly good and to which I gave highest ratings, had written a new book which was only "fair" -- he wrote a police procedural but he really doesn't know how modern American police do their work. And the book was full of stereotypes which frankly got annoying, friend of mine or not. The police medical examiner, the pathologist, was guess what? Yes, a wise Asian man who spoke in goofy and old-fashioned parables, like Charlie Chan. And one of the police inspectors was an African-American woman who spoke in full-blown "ghetto-speak", Ebonics, so twisted and parodic that you could scarcely understand what she was saying. Now modern police inspectors are, hey, educated. Most have college degrees. And this black cop might jokingly say "We be ready" to kid around with her colleagues, but that would be rarely done. But every word she spoke was in the worst dialect you've ever seen. I shook my head about this -- my pal is smart and knew better, but either he or his editor didn't see this as egregious. I saw it instantly because I'm very sensitive about such things.

In my books I work my tail off to avoid stereotypes. Each character is unique. I've got educated Hispanics as well as occasional brutal and idiotic gang members who happen to be Hispanic. I've sprinkled my private eye novels with modern Americans of mixed race, gender (some are gay), Asian, African-American, Hispanic, European of all varieties, and these people are of all sorts of "job" -- police, professor, thug, everyday citizen, different incomes, most every "flavor" like you find in every big American city.

My advice is to not take shortcuts in your writing. Try to avoid stereotypes in characters, plots, themes, locales, all types of ways that lazy writers employ and wrongly so.

Your thoughts?

[KBrown]

I completely agree all to often we see the same people with the same roles and emotions.

I would argue that an interesting character is more important than an interesting plot because if I don't care about the character than I don't care what happens to them.

I work hard to make sure I don't have any "furniture " characters that just sit there. I find it helpful to rewrite a chapter in a different character's perspective. Especially if there is a character you are having a hard time connecting to.

I am a firm believer on lists. Why would someone be friends with them? Married to them? What makes them human and relatable? What are their flaws?

Hope this helps.

[JudyJo]

Okay, but stereotyping could totally work in a plot, too, if the author is sneaky. Just think: the author describes a character in stereotypical fashion, and then the character goes on to do something ....totally OUT of character! A plot twist if you will.

And voila! Just like that, your characters are totally unpredictable again. Anything can happen!

That's what is so great about a writer's imagination--the sky is the limit. Let stereotypes WORK for you.

[Leigh M Lane]

I'm guilty of having stereotypical characters in much of my earlier writing, a practice I try these days to reserve only for when it's with a clear and specific purpose. As silly as it sounds, though, sometimes you can write a ridiculously stereotypical character and not even see it until you're well into editing. I still do that sometimes.... I think everyone slips in a stereotype here and there. Yes, that's where vigilant writing becomes important.

[bradystefani]

I think some of the worst stereotyping occurs in YA fiction. Over half of YA on the market involves the female protagonist struggling to decide between the good boy love interest versus the bad boy love interest. And let's face it, there aren't too many YA books out there where the protagonist and love interest(s) aren't both stunningly good looking and yet sometimes unaware of their own good looks. Ugh....

[Amagine]

I study all the stereotypes and then I purposely go out of my way to avoid them. Actually what I really do is create a character who is the exact opposite of a stereotype. The most popular girl at school is sometimes overweight but with a pretty face. Being overweight doesn't mean you're ugly. The smartest kid at school is a bully instead of a nerd. The black character is the most articulate. The bad girl falls for a good guy who makes her change her ways.

The hero does questionable things and have a sadistic sense of justice. The villain is a hero to some because of their good deeds and sometimes kind nature.

The hero is a guy who battles his greatest adversary...a woman. ( I've never seen this before where the hero's greatest rival is a woman rather than another man) Vice versa on their roles as well.

These are just some ideas of ways that I try to combat stereotypes. I'm always trying to find a way to create a character or story that the world has never seen it haven't seen in a very long time.

[bobRas]

I study all the stereotypes and then I purposely go out of my way to avoid them. Actually what I really do is create a character who is the exact opposite of a stereotype. The most popular girl at school is sometimes overweight but with a pretty face. Being overweight doesn't mean you're ugly. The smartest kid at school is a bully instead of a nerd. The black character is the most articulate. The bad girl falls for a good guy who makes her change her ways.

The opposite of a stereotype is often just another stereotype, so be careful about that.

The problem with stereotypes is that that trait is usually the predominant (or even only) trait of that character, and often there is only one character like that. For example, there is only one black character, and that one is a thug: we have a problem. But, if there are multiple black characters (one of which might be a "thug") and most of them are fleshed out and well-developed and suddenly it's not such a big deal anymore. The only real way to avoid stereotype is to create multi-dimensional characters; characters with depth, contradictions, doubts, dreams, fears,...

[Amagine]

I study all the stereotypes and then I purposely go out of my way to avoid them. Actually what I really do is create a character who is the exact opposite of a stereotype. The most popular girl at school is sometimes overweight but with a pretty face. Being overweight doesn't mean you're ugly. The smartest kid at school is a bully instead of a nerd. The black character is the most articulate. The bad girl falls for a good guy who makes her change her ways.

The opposite of a stereotype is often just another stereotype, so be careful about that.

The problem with stereotypes is that that trait is usually the predominant (or even only) trait of that character, and often there is only one character like that. For example, there is only one black character, and that one is a thug: we have a problem. But, if there are multiple black characters (one of which might be a "thug") and most of them are fleshed out and well-developed and suddenly it's not such a big deal anymore. The only real way to avoid stereotype is to create multi-dimensional characters; characters with depth, contradictions, doubts, dreams, fears,...

That's true

[Rebeccaej]

It helps that I don't write about the real world much. I do write about oppression, but--especially in the novel I'm working on--it's an oppression I've invented from traits that don't have obvious human anologs.

Even so, I tend to end up back in rather human-like places. The oppression in my novel is basically a cross between racism and ablism. Two different cultures boil down to what I see as the main differences between conservatives and liberals.

I wasn't really AIMING for those things, though, and that makes all the difference. Especially with the political stuff--I'm much closer to one political extreme than the other. If I'd tried to write a book about "liberals vs conservatives," it would have ended up being very blunt and 2-dimensional.

But since, when I started building the characters, I was thinking about other traits that tend not to have stereotypes associated with them, they ended up fairly fleshed out.

Of the two characters on the extremes--they both demonstrate traits I deeply value, AND traits I object to. They both do good and terrible things.

So, I guess my bottom line is don't try to hit stereotypical character traits head on--don't try to write a "black guy," or a "nerdy girl." Build characters based on neutral traits first, and see what emerges. Then, if you add in something like how dealing with a lifetime of racism has affected them, that won't be the entirety of the character.

[Jaime Lync]

I enjoyed reading your insightful discussion. I am working on my first novel right now so this was helpful. I think that a lot of the stereotypical nature of the characters depend on the perspective the writer is using. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so are stereotypes. If the stereotype is written from the first person perspective it can actually say more about the speaker than the person who is being stereotyped.