Characters to avoid in your writing

Through television and film some people have become stock
characters. That means that everybody knows them and will recognise
them. Unfortunately that also makes them almost unusable in written
fiction unless you're being post-modern and ironic. Here, with tongue
occassionally in cheek, are some to avoid.

The square-jawed man of action with stone-chips for eyes
Think Doc Savage, James Bond or Tarzan. This one was very popular in
times gone by, but modern readers look for a bit of depth and
vulnerability in their heroes. If you're going to introduce a strong,
silent type, try to give him a weakness, like fainting at the sight of
blood, or a hobby that emphasises his feminine side, like
needlework.

The bespectacled, unkempt scientist in the white coat
This fellow is more common in the movies, the best recent example being
Brent Spinner in Independence Day. But they sometimes show up in
fiction, either as a madman bent on world domination, or a nerd
spouting gibberish. The main reason people create stereotypical
scientists is because they know next to nothing about science. or what
scientists do. Take some time to learn about science. Meet some
scientists. Then you can write about a bespectacled, unkempt person in
a white coat and know that you're writing about a real person.

The tart-with-a-heart
A role once monopolised by Shirley McLaine, and very popular in pulp
detective stories. They still turn up in Hollywood, but less so in
print. These days if you write in a prostitute, it generally means
there's some heavy sex on the way, or some extreme violence. If you
can't deliver anything beyond the stereotype, the editor won't be
interested. Take some time to learn about prostitution. Meet
some......on second thoughts, it might not be wise to take your
research too far in this case.

The struggling writer
Long beloved of writers themselves, the "portrait of the struggling
artist" is a perennial favourite. Writers are good in that they don't
go to work like normal folks, so you can get them out of the house and
into action quickly. But if you have them agonising over their work and
developing drink/drugs/mental problems, then all you're showing is your
own angst. Don't bore an editor with your psychological hang-ups.

The University lecturer who sleeps with his students
Not surprisingly, very popular with university lecturers and students.
This character has a long pedigree, but most of the plots involving him
have been played out. Once upon a time he appeared in books that won
literary prizes. Now he's more likely to be a murder suspect in a lazy
crime novel based on a beer-drinking Chief Inspector in Oxford.

The bored houswife who runs off with the handsome stranger
Or Shirley Valentine as she is better known. She turns up in romantic
ficion all the time. Good escapism for other bored housewifes, but
unless you can bring a unique twist to the plot, you'll never sell the
story, even to a woman's magazine. And why are there no bored husbands
running off with beautiful strangers? The answer is probably that it
happens too often in real life for it to work in fiction.

The man of God who's lost his faith
He's a staple of both soap operas and horror movies. Either he finds
his faith again just in time to avoid commiting adultery, commits
adultery, or gets chomped by the monster. A similar character is the
man of God blinded by his faith, a fine example of which gets zapped by
the invading aliens in George Pal's 1955 Sci-Fi classic the War of the
Worlds.

The intelligent kid who gets bullied.
Or, if you're being post-modern and ironic, the geeky Stephen King kid.
They are most often used in revenge plots, or in
boy-gets-girl-in-the-end teenage fantasies. Either way they tend to say
more about the writer's own childhood desires than anything else, and
an editor will see hundreds of them in a year.

The overworked doctor
This one turns up all over the place - in medical dramas where he makes
a fatal mistake in a dosage, in war stories struggling against mounting
casualties and in murder cases telling policeman that they can't speak
to the sedated figure on the bed. With the popularity of hospital
dramas, and ER in particular, he'll be around for a long time yet. But
do try to give him something more to say than "The next few hours will
be crucial."

The world-weary crime-fighter
Why is it that all cops are cynical, smoke or drink too much, and have
continual relationship problems? Recently the search has been on for
different police departments to use, resulting in a slew of
pathologists, crime scene investigators and psychiatrists. The obvious
outcome of all this was Denzel Washington's paraplegic crime scene
investigator in "The Bone Collector". And yes, he was cynical,
overbearing, and had continual relationship problems.

So there you have it. Ten people who turn up time after time in
fiction, just with different names. Use them at your peril.

And finally, I'll let you into a secret. Seven of them have appeared at
some time in my fiction, so I don't always practice what I preach.