There’s a difference between cliché and stereotype. The picture above is an example of a cliché of going against stereotypes. I believe the most clichéd version is a red umbrella amongst a host of black ones.

Stereotypes

Character stereotypes have been a dislike of mine for a long time. Impersonal, predictable, and unrealistic, they give no depth or creativity to a story, and give the general impression that this story has been told, many, many times before. I have seen stereotypical characters over and over and over again, in almost every book I have read. I say almost, because I have read a few (usually the older ones, some of which inspired the stereotype) that don’t have them. But the continual use of the same characters spread across so many different books becomes tiresome, and frustrating. But I am not here to talk about what stereotypes there are.

Do They Have A Purpose?

They do have their place for the inexperienced writer. I first started writing when I was 9 years old. And naturally, the characters I used were quite stereotyped. It was an easier way of getting down the story in my head. As a new writer, I was busy struggling with the art of writing. Using stereotypes made it easier, because I didn’t have to bother thinking too hard about the characters. At the age of 11, I began to write my first squirrel stories. And again, I used stereotypes. The pretty, intelligent girl who is afraid that she’s not good enough in one aspect or another, her brother, who wants to be a warrior and show how brave he is, the old, grim soldier with a dark past… All of these, and more, I used in my first stories.

So What Made The Change?

It all started when a fantasy series was published while I was still writing my original ‘squirrel stories.’ And the similarities between that fantasy series and mine were eerily similar. Both used anthropomorphic animals. The main characters, brother and sister, were practically the same in both stories, the side characters were also similar, even the plot was just about the same! I cannot account for the exact level of similarities, but quite a bit of it came down to this: both had a heavy amount of stereotypes.

Then What?

So what was I to do? I had wanted to publish the stories, but now that was impossible. Unless I changed them. I needed to find a way to make it so different from the other author’s story that there could be no mistake. And so, the first thing that went was the stereotypes. But since all my characters were stereotypical, I had no characters left to work with. Then it occurred to me… What if I used archetypes, but switched around their roles? So instead the main character being the young hero, as you have in every fantasy story I can think of, what if you have the old soldier with the dark past? What if the ‘young hero’ archetype is his comrade? And I liked the idea of pirates and seafaring, and it was something I had never done before. And that is how The Last Captain Sails Again first came to be.

Conclusion

I am actually glad that I used stereotypes at first. I am glad that other author published those books before I did. If I had published my original stories without any difficulty, I would never have been able to learn so fast. I wouldn’t have had to. Stereotypes have their place for a new writer. But one should not remain a new writer for very long. Children grow out of diapers and highchairs. Writers should grow out of stereotypes. Whether they are pushed out of it at a young age because they have to, to progress, or they learn to make their own characters at a slower, steadier pace.

If you want to learn more about stereotypes vs archetypes, feel free to check out this article that I wrote. As always, keep writing, keep learning, and keep growing.

Archetype vs. Stereotype